Refinishing my drums. (removing the wrap)

[Uladine]

The vinyl wrap (or whatever its made of) on my Tama rockstars is getting kind of old and is starting to bubble up in places. I know a guy who removed his and stained his drums black. They look great and I imagine they sound better without a sheet of plastic glued to them. I was thinking of doing the same thing to mine. How exactly should I do this? Do i just stick a hair dryer on the wrap for a while and start peeling? Should I sand the surface down a bit to make it smooth and clean before staining? I'm not talking major sanding, but just light sanding to clean up the surface and make smooth if the glue leaves it shaggy. What kind of stain should I use? I want to give my drums a makeover.

[rushfan33]

look at drummaker.com. It's a great site for this type of project.

RF

[theletterq]

Be forewarned that the outer ply of wood on something like a Rockstar won't be, shall we say, cosmetically pleasing. Should be ok though if you do a really deep stain so only a hint of woodgrain comes through.

And as always, if you're just doing it for yourself, who cares!

[mikeh]

A hair dryer or heat gun is mandatory to soften the glue on the wrap. Be very careful and go very slow to make sure you don't tear any of the wood off.

You will have to do some sanding as the glue will have some build-up. As letterq said, the wood will not be great from a cosmetic standpoint (they don't use pretty wood when they put a wrap over it).

You will likely need a darker stain to hide the blemishes in the wood. Naturally you should use several thin applications on stain with plenty of time between applications to dry and sand.

The final product may not be as pretty as a store bought set - but it will be something you should be able to take pride in.

[Uladine]

Yea I understand that it wont look all nice like those stained maple shells and stuff, but I kind of like the look of my friends set. Its kind of a flat black. At first I thought it came that way and I got jealous, but upon closer investigation it was a aftermarket job. It looks nice though, and I'm thinking the sound might open up more without the wrap. Thanks for the info guys.

[postalblue]

get the finest sandpaper grain you can get, and a couple others not as fine, progressively. sand with the grain not against it using the coarsest of the papers you got. use a moist tissue to remove the dust when you change the sheets. do that until the surface of the wood is as smooth as it can get.
there are many varieties of stains you can use, water-based is a good choice, since it doesn't make such a mess. you can apply some varnish/sealer/transparent lacquer after you're finished. spraying is a good option, but you'd have to have a booth, and a spraying gun. you may want to try a aerosol lacquer, which might be good enough. try on scrap wood first.
if you want you can buff it after it's dry. there are some compounds that you can use to give a mirror like shine, but i don't remember their name right now.