Sorry For the Delay

Wow, a lot has been going on here. First, I apologize to everyone who's been faithfully checking the blog to see the updates on the snare only to find there haven't been any for quite some time. I can no longer access my account at work with our new servers. I don't know why, but oh well.


Next, I'm married!!!! The wedding went great. A huge thank you to my family, I love you all. A big thank you to my groomsmen, you guys are the best. A big thank you to the brides maids, you ladies are the best also. We all had tons of fun and I love you all. I'm packing right now for my honeymoon but am waiting for laundry to dry so I can finish and decided to waste some time getting some picks up of the drum.


I gave my best man the drum on Friday (June 1st). I rendered him speechless, a feat that isn't easy to do with Brent. In short he really loves the drum and I can't wait to build another one, but I feel that I should get my guitar finished before I start any other projects. For more comments from Brent visit his blog (I've added the link on the side bar).


Now ... on with the pictures.




Here is the drum with the tribal sticker in place and I have scored and removed the clear coat and tape around the bearing edges. This was something that I learned that I should do before the clear coat gets too thick. Brent taught me that one, sorry that he learned that the hard way (Chip City on poor Penny). But, it taught me a valuable lesson. So, thank you Brent and Penny for your sacrifice for the greater good.



The next few weeks after the above picture was taken was laying on the clear coat. Nothing exciting. I sprayed a coat on in the morning before I left for work, then after work I would spray on another coat. This went on until 4 cans of nitro were on (I don't remember the exact time line, but it was round 2-3 weeks). After that was finished I had to let the clear cure. With nitro lacquer you have to let it cure for about 3 weeks, then it's hard enough to buff to a nice deep shine. It cured and it was wet sanded down to 2000 grit. All that was left was the final buffing.

Okay, I know I'm not supposed to divulge mistakes or flaws of the project, but the next series of events was a mistake/flaw that I didn't expect, but I have to mention. The problem was overcome and I learned a great deal from it so I feel that it's worth posting.

Well, my bachelor party was on May 12th. I decided to put all of the drum stuff in the attic, because if Brent saw one piece of anything, he'd know it was a drum part and the surprise would be ruined. So, up to the attic the drum went. After the weekend I took the drum down and noticed a crack had formed along the edge of the sticker in a small area. I decided no big deal lacquer cracks or checks often and I'll clean the area up with an exacto knife and drop fill with some lacquer let it settle for a few days, sand it down and viola problem solved. Well, not solved, bigger problem had happened while cleaning the crack. When I went to score the crack with the knife the lacquer in that area peeled right off of the tribal sticker. It hit me like a brick, right then I knew the lacquer didn't stick at all to the vinyl sticker. To test my theory I laid a piece of tape in another area of the tribal sticker and ripped it off ... yup ... clean break right along the edge of the sticker and paint.


It took 2 days of research to find the solution, but it was found. I had to remove the rest of the lacquer that was on top of the tribal sticker and then put an automotive grade clear coat on top of everything. Now I don't have any spray equipment so I had to brush this stuff on. This is not recommended by the manufacturer, FYI. I had no choice but to brush it on. I found an article by a gentleman in Michigan that refinishes old pinball machine fields. Very informative and he tested several auto clears in a brush on application and basically said, yup not recommended, but works. It just takes a lot of elbow grease to level the surface, but it can be done. So, with some new confidence I went for it.





Here it is. Automotive clear brushed on. It looked like complete poo!!! But I knew the new surface could be leveled smooth. Just had to keep telling myself to have some patients.






Above was after round one of sanding. This was about 45 minutes of sanding with 220 grit sand paper. This automotive clear was some hard stuff.







Round Two: this was after another hour of sanding with the 220 grit. As you can see I started making progress. The "white" areas are the areas that are level, the "shiny" areas are the pits and I have to keep on sanding to get those pits out.





Round Three: Here is the drum after a total of about 2.75 hours of sanding. Almost there, just a few shiny spots left to get out and I can start the wet sanding stages.


I did end up getting all of the shiny spots out and the clear level. Took me a total of about 4 hours. Then I wet sanded for another 3 hours. Started with 600 grit wet worked my way to 2000 grit. So, it was 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000. I then used my 6" orbital buffer with some 3M machine polish. There it was, the clear coat looked like glass. I finished up the surface with some 3M Hand Glaze, not necessary, but I wanted to do it to give it that deep shine that that drum deserved.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it finished. You'll have to visit Brent's blog to see some pictures of it finished. I'll be going back home in 2 weeks, perhaps I'll remember to take the camera and visit Brent so I can get some finished pictures of the drum. Time just got away from me and all of a sudden in was wedding weekend.