Wow! Thanks very much! I appreciate it.

Again, thanks for the nice comments.

The process I came up with is not difficult but not "magic" either. I started out by sanding the entire area for a smooth surface. Then, I melted some original rose pearl (it helps to have that!) and carefully applied it with a brush to any areas that were too low and would show with the flange in place. A standard head dropped on the drum without a tone flange would have completely hid any of the damage but I really wanted that flange in place and to be as original as possible.

After 24 hours, the "goop" had hardened. I wet sanded it a bit and then polished with a plastic car polish. It still didnt look that good so I did a second and third application. It's not 100% perfect but I am really pleased with the results. A few times I almost "threw in the towel" but I kept at it. I was tempted to smooth it out completely but the more I messed with it, the greater chance for a disaster. Acetone is tricky stuff. While it melts the goop to a liquid texture, it can also damage the good original wrap. After three applications I decided to stop.

This acetone process works wonders but it also comes up short. If you use any wrap pieces that have a colored backing (like wmp, bdp), it will overpower the pearl color. However, the pearl part could be extracted from the backing but I have yet to try that. In theory it should work.

My first attempt at dissolving pearl was on a red ripple Rogers set that had cracks. That worked pretty well but not great. I tried again on a Radio King but the white backing definitely overpowered the pearl "look". Same with a bdp Ludwig set from the 30's. Came out looking like black plastic. A good solid repair but cosmetically, not so great. This Rose Pearl example is the closest to a total success I've had.

Here are some "before" photos and some "during" photos. It looks just awful before it was finally smoothed out. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died in the middle, so I didnt get all I wanted. I was hoping to get some of the second and third applications but I didnt. The drum in the photo with all the scraps is the "donor" drum, which was trashed. The good thing is the finish on the restored snare drum has the old cloth backing, like Gretsch used to use. However, the donor drum was a bit later and had no cloth backing. The cloth would have caused problems, I'm sure. Another BIG thanks goes to collector Dave Brown in the U.K. for providing the donor.

Saw this on FB... was hoping you would post some before & afters... Very nice outcome.. Classy wrap that one.. thanks

Cheers

John

Mark thanks for the repair tip, tricks and pictures. Really cool stuff. The repair came out really nice too. Tricky stuff there indeed!! You also have some of the coolest snares and drums out there!

Outstanding job saving that snare. Congrats and thanks for the how-to.

Creighton

Mark really thankful for the restro tip, This is a great one !

Impressive!

I'm glad you all enjoyed it and thanks so much for the nice words. I have a few other ideas on using acetone and pearl wrap to get better results. Back to the laboratory!

Super repair! I need a bit of a tutorial here - you mention tone control, which I haven't understood from the beginning :) Are the screw heads sticking up from the bearing edge part of the tone control? How does that work?

Thanks,

Mitch

Very crafty sir.

May I ask if you know the type of rose pearl wrap you were dissolving?

Question being, what were the wraps made with back in 1920?

And what was this one made from?

Thank You

My first MIJ set was like that color. Crest.