That's an amazing job! Thanks for showing it off!

That's gorgeous. Let us know how you did this transformation. Details!

Fantastic! I love that drum!

Thanks! I appreciate the nice comments.

I used a citrus based stripper in order to remove the blue paint. It took forever, as the blue was really thick and stubborn. Even the darned badge was painted. I had to be extremely careful not to remove the stipel material, which is fragile. At any moment, the drum could have been reduced to a "parts drum", but fortunately that didn't happen.

I finally got the blue removed and repaired a few small areas with a textured paint that matched the original stipel very well. This was followed by an application of gold leaf. The original Deluxe plating (imitation gold plating) was intact, so I just polished it with Cape Cod polishing cloths. The final touch was a gold-tinted clear lacquer over the metal parts. Amazingly, the original gut snares were in great shape.

Great job there Mark !

Thank you! Now, onto the next one......

Maybe the blue paint was applied before the drum was vintage or collectible. Even so, you have to wonder what kind of idiot would do this to a drum. The before and after pics are great. What a terrific job. An L&L Stipple gold in fairly good shape just ended on ebay with no bids. He wanted $1700 for the drum, which is pretty good considering the rarity.

Thanks for sharing.

Yes, most likely it was done in the 1960's or 70's when odd, vintage finishes were considered to be ugly. Think of how many rarities were destroyed because of that. Sigh....

Apparently, wood shell versions in this finish are more rare than metal shell drums.

As apparently the original calfskin heads were also. Gut snares on a calf reso... now that's a vintage sound! Beautiful job on the entire restoration.