Okay, no matter what kind of musicial instrument you play, I'm sure you've noticed that after a few years of playing on stage or in the garage all that wear n tear has taken it's toll on the beauty and luster of your instrument. Being a drummer, I accepted long ago that my primary way of making noise involved hitting pieces of wood as hard as I can repeatably. I gladly accepted that responsibility since age 16, but at some point it's nice to turn back the dial on the time machine and make your instrument look like it did when you first played it. Today I'm going to show you a quick and easy way to change the look of any drum set.
As a drummer, I've owned many kits over the years, my first being a sparkly, pewter colored beauty I called 'The Gold Gremlin'. The bass drum head had these mail box size decals that read "The Quarrymen". Classic rock fans may know that name as the very first moniker used by The Beatles. Over the years, depending on my budget, I 've played everything from an all maple DW Collector Series to an old four piece Tama Rockstar I picke up from Craigslist for $300. Right now I'll take you step by step on how to recover the shells of the drums. The drum set I'm using is a beater kit I purchased from a yard sale for $150. It even included cymbals (nothing great...a 16" Meinl HCS crash with Zildjian ZBT Hi Hats and a 20" Ride). The brand on the kit says 'SUNLITE' ?. Never heard of it, but apparently the former owner played in a band called ROCKET SURGERY. Neat.
What you'll need to complete the transformation: NOTHING (well not really, but I'll get to those things)
It took me about 3 weeks of looking before I found this kit and I got it for the sole purpose of messing around trying to customize it.
As you can see in the photo the original color of the kit is metallica maroon/wine red, a popular color for kits because it looks good under stage lights. The first thing I did was remove all the hardware from the shells. You only need a drum key or tiny socket and a phillips screwdriver. Once all the rings and peg machines have been removed use a clean towel to wipe any dirt away from the inside and outisde of the shell. Now at this point you can just throw a bunch of stickers over the shells or paint them. I chose the latter. Since these cheap drums are actually just a thin wrap around cheap wood, there was no sanding involved. In fact I didn't even prep the surface. I didn't prime it. I didn't condition it. I simply bought about $10 worth of cheap spray enamel from Home Depot and sprayed away. Make sure you're in a well ventalated area and the shells are off the ground (I mounted them on card board boxes) while coating them. I decided to use white for the shells and black for the hardware including the lugs. You may want to use some gloves so you don't get paint on your hands. No compressor or respirator required. I taped off the kick drum rings.Wait overnight. The nexy day I mount everything back up and you're good to go. The only downside is that if you do rim shots off your snare your stick with take some of the paint and transfer it to the head. I found a used Pearl bass drum head online with double resenators and a pillow to put inside and I was ready to go. Of course I slapped on an Apple logo sticker on the kick drum for good measure (yes, I'm a geek). My iDrums are now ready to rock. This is what the kit now looked like when finished:
So let's take this a step further shall we? Let's say you want some crazy pattern but don't want the time or expense of cutomizing the paint. Sure, you could have an airbrush artist do something sick, but let's say you have a gig that night and you want to change the appearance of your trap kit without having to wait for the pain to dry. Solution, make your own wraps! Well, actually here's what I did. Home Depot, Lowes, even places like Wal Mart sell cabinet & cupboard liners. They're like giant rolls of thick stickers that people sometimes put inside drawers and other utilities. As I was pulling into the store the radio started playing Ratt's Round & Round so of course that was stuck in my head the entire time I'm shopping. I bought a huge 20in by 22ft roll of this stuff for under five bucks. So which pattern did I choose? Oh 80's you always seem to capture my heart so easily. Zebra Striped Print it is...
Next we just repeat the same steps we took last time. Remove all nessesary hardware, no prep needed. Measure the circumference of each shell (most are 13",14", and 16" but they can vary). Use a scissors or box blade to cut the liner. Lay the drum flat on the laminate and just roll, peeling and sticking as you go. This whole process took me about four hours.
Tip: After applying use the tip of your screwdriver to pop through the liner and expose all nessesary holes for vents and hardware.
Once everything has been reassembled you're good to go! This is what it looks like:
As far as durability goes, I've been jamming on these bad boys for about 4 months now, and I've only put a small rip in the side of the floor tom from accidently dropping it. It's just a small tear that's barely noticable. Bobby Blotzer circa '85 here I come!
[Any questions just leave me a comment below]
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