Well, I got curious to see how bad it would be to get the wrap off. Slipped a putty knife in the seem and it popped open so I kept on going. Used a heat gun to help the wrap let go of the shell then cleaned it up with some lacquer thinner. Now I have a nice smooth bare shell to work with. Still deciding on paint or wrap. For the badge, I heated the metal wrap from the inside after it was off and the aluminum badge came right off. These drums have no groments!

Jeff C

Jeff, You are in luck i have one N.O.S. spur with mount..As far as the claws these will be a hard thingt to fine.Sometimes they come up on Ebay but they go for alot,from 7.00 to 10.00 each..You should not have any problems with the Gretsch claws working on the drum..If i was you i would put the Fibes claws on the front of the drum and the Gretsch on the back side of the drum to you fine more Fibes claws....Mikey

Jeff,

Here's pictures of the mirror gold. Not real good ones, but all I have... I rewrapped this one about a year-and-a-half ago, and sold it on eBay.

Bill

I sat 10ft. to the left of Billy Cobham in a very small jazz club in Boston in the early 70s. He was the most powerful player I'd ever seen. By the end of the first set the snare head was broken, the snare bed was hanging from one end and there were lug screws, broken sticks, and all kinds of hardware carnage all over the drum rug. The drum tech spent about 45 minutes putting those poor clear Fibes drums back together! Never saw anything like it!

Bill that snare looks fantastic! Makes me want to go with mirror gold wrap. I did speak to jammin sam and a buddy who paints cars , street rods not cars. He says as good as I do on cabinets I will have no problem at all with automotive paint. I think the materials will be about the same cost. I will think about it while I paint the Pearls this week. Going to an automotive finish supplier to check out the products.

Jeff

hardbopman!...

I was at the Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1973 through 1976 and saw MANY great players/artists in either The Jazz Workshop, or Pauls Mall. I caught Billy Cobham TWICE at Pauls Mall which I'm sure was one of the spots that you were at too. One concert I sat DIRECTLY IN FRONT of Billy's clear acrylic Fibes, and was so close that I could hear him calling tunes and counting stuff off for the band. This particular night he opened with "The Pleasant Pheasant" off the "Crosswinds" album. I watched him look around, make sure the band was ready, call "Pleasant Pheasant", and count it in. When the downbeat hit I was blasted back in my seat! Interesting sidenote: I went to that concert with a few friends from Berklee, and one was non other than Vinny Colaiuta. Let me just state for the record that Vinny was monstrous even then... as a student! Anyway... Billy didn't break anything on the set that particular night, but he did toss a stick after playing a few bars in addition to a couple typical of the time "Cobham cymbal flurries" as I liked to call them. Anyway, on the break his drum tech picked up the stick and was going to put it back in Billy's stick bag, so I asked him if I could have it. He said NO... it hasn't even been used. I said but Billy tossed it... he didn't like it for some reason. He gave it to me. I still have it to this day. Got his name on them too as they were signature sticks made specifically for him, which wasn't all that common back then. Your post brought that memory back for me!... man those were the days!

JCCabinets!... sorry for the slight hi-jack... but at least it was about Fibes drums! :-D

Tommyp

There was a guy in Alabama on one of the car forums I'm on who was working with a chrome automotive paint you spray right on. He painted his Mercury Cougar with it and think he had a short vid on you tube. I never really heard more about it but was pretty interesting and had a nice shine to it.

I would like to hear from some members just how important is it to restore drums to their origional look. Jammin sams has crrome wrap that will look nice but will scratch very easy. Automotive paint would be more durable I think. I will check into the chrome finish, thanks. Are these Fibes drums something thats hard to find and should be restored properly or does it just not matter.

Tommy that is a cool story, thanks for telling it!

Jeff C

I think a covering/paint that is a close match to a stock Fibes finish of that period would be perfectly acceptable.You cannot turn back time-they will never be NOS perfect,because they were used-played-travelled about.Those drums have mojo-

Jeff - I'm actually a little sorry I didn't catch this thread sooner, -before- you stripped the floor tom. The wrap that is on those drums is metal. Which means it can be sanded and polished up back to near original condition. I would have started with some Scotch Brite to knock all the corrosion and many of the cuts and scratches off and then wet sand them up to 1200-1400 grit and put the polish back on. Clear-coat the whole thing and they're good to go for another 100.000 miles.

You can only do this with steel drums or drums wrapped in steel. I think you missed an opportunity to restore those back to original. Best of luck with them. I like the idea of paint much more than wrap. Let those fiber-glass shells vibrate freely, to sing.

Cool score!

John