Circuit-33 (The Band)Not to be confused with circuits of any other variety

Have you ever wished your drums had a different finish?  Did you ever scratch or ding one of your drums so badly that it now has a permanent blemish that cannot be fixed?

The following article describes how I, (with the help of a couple true friends), performed what I refer to as:  Extreme Makeover – Drum Edition.  It chronicles how we transformed the drums pictured below from “Before” to “After”.

BEFORE

AFTER

My drum set is comprised of pieces from various sets I’ve used through the years.  And although I’ve adjusted and tweaked them to the point where they sounded pretty good, they looked horrendous.  Playing them in my own home was one thing, but they were definitely not ready for prime time, so when we started booking gigs I had to get serious about doing something, as the photos below testify:

I certainly could not afford to buy a new 8-Piece drum kit, and could not really justify it anyway since it was just a matter of aesthetics. I did a little research online and found several vendors that sell replacement drum shell fabric kits, but I was surprised at how costly that proved to be.  I began thinking about how soft, and easy to scuff, the material is that drum manufacturers typically use to cover their drum shells.  I started wondering whether it would be feasible to use a hard countertop-type laminate to replace the original material.

So one day I asked Erik, my friend in the custom cabinetry business, about it.  (He is a master craftsman in the industry.  He owns and operates his own shop in Southern California.  He specializes in creating custom store fronts for the dry cleaning industry, so he has seen it all when it comes to what can and cannot be done regarding the application of laminates.)

The main concern in using laminates for replacement drum covering centers on being able to get it to conform and stay around the curvature of a drum shell.  Nonetheless, Erik told me that it should be no problem if done properly, and that laminate can be applied to a fairly small radius, certainly smaller than the radius of my smallest (8″) drum.  He invited me to come by his shop and he would see what could be done.

(Continued on Extreme Makeover – Drum Edition – Pt-2)