On drums...

I love this finish! http://www.ebay.com/itm/150668319059. Wonder if you can still get Lemon Strata from Delmar or someone?

- D.

If you've got it, they can make it. Computers, you know.

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Gregory

You can get something close. the old acetate finishes (stratas) were actually the colored acetate melted together, put in a large square block, stirred to mix and create the lines, then let harden. After cooled, they would shave thin sheets off of the block. They also cut out small blocks for eye glass frames.

Currently, no one is making or offering a true strata finish. I have been on the hunt for some Ruby Strata, even going as far as getting a quote from Delmar. At $59 a sheet with a 400 sheet minimum, it was a bit out of my price range.

A place called Drum Foundry is working on creating something close. You can see them here: http://www.ghostnote.net/vbforum/showthread.php?45026-Stratus-Wraps&highlight=

Yeah, it's close but not as cool IMO. I'm not sure why drum companies haven't put more effort into more interesting lacquer finishes. They do really nice sparkle lacquers now. But guitar builders have been doing really cool swirl finishes for a long time, like this:



I guess it's not cheap as it usually involves a lot of dipping and drying. etc. Would probably add another $500 to the cost of a kit?

- D.

It seems to me that those kinds of finishes, the old wraps, are no longer pursued because they aren't that surprising to the modern eye. Effort that went toward the new plastics recreating all manner of three dimensional natural pearls, tortoise shell and the like, was the excitement of a season. Now that plastic as a metaphor has coated the world, the enthusiasm is more for authenticity than for reproduction (as a considerable amount of discussion surrounding the Italian veneers attests).

Lovers of retro styling can see, in the old wrap, the beauty of a past era, and collectors value that aesthetic; but with the exception of a few self-conscious attempts at retro styling (and I say that with a fair amount of admiration), there isn't a lot of economic demand to move that way because we as human beings are different now and creativity is running in different directions. Who can recreate the excitement of the advent of plastic?

Even so, I share the pleasure of those old things.

I'm not familiar with the lacquered guitar finishes, David, but I assume they're feasible in part because a guitar is a flat and confined surface. Speaking of sparkle finishes, the first sparkles in paints were made in the 1950s by grinding up fish scales into lacquer, far more subtle than a modern metallic or pearl paint. I would have loved to have had access to those, but they were long gone before I ever became aware of them. Probably not very durable in sunlight and no doubt on PETA's hit list of inappropriate behaviors.

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Gregory

Those old finishes stink!!

I keep telling myself (Self, I says, self) I am going to finish a drum like this someday...

http://www.guitaristjeffmiller.com/lpdc/lpdc142.jpg

Those fancy guitar tops are just curly maple veneer. It would seem to be very feasible on a drum, just pricey. Paul Reed Smith puts out hundreds of them every week.

I would suspect that the curvature in drums might present some extra issues, to Greg's point. But many guitar tops are not flat including both examples above. They often have curves and since other veneer materials seem to hold up fine with drums (e.g. Sonor), not sure why curly maple wouldn't.

- D.

I seem to have missed something.

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Gregory