Welcome, I also got a Fibes kit this year for a real good price,not free but for 60.00. Mine was much better shape than yours is. I got in a hurry and removed the wrap from one of the floor toms thinking it was just to far gone. Looking back I wish I would have left it on because the other drums cleaned up pretty nice. Your bass drum looks like its solid rust and I dont see much hope for it but you should scrub it down with some dish soap and water first before you do anything just to see if that rust will come off.

Here is a link to my thread on restoring the Fibes drums if you choose to do re-wrap with steel.

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=30696&highlight=restoring+fibes+drums

And here is the thread I started when I first got them

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=28288&highlight=restoring+fibes+drums

Good luck, keep us up to date on what you do with them and we will be happy to help out as good as we can over the computer.

Jeff C

Oh great, thanks! The kick isn't quite as solidly rusted as it looks in the photo. I'll read through the thread tonight and post some more photos tomorrow. I also finally took a look at a snare I got in a junk buy from a friend ($100 for a ton of gear)…one of my drummer pals thinks it's a Supraphonic. It's at least a late 70s Ludwig with the super sensitive snare setup. I haven't had time to deal with it too much (and I'm not a gearhead) but I tried out a used reso in place of the broken one that was on it and even just doing that made it sound amazing. So scoring that kind of snare and this kind of drum kit all for less than $250 is kind of blowing my mind!

Even though I haven't gotten to put new heads on them or anything yet, the Fibes sound awesome…they clearly haven't been played in years. So I'm really looking forward to getting them in good shape.

Oh yeah -- they have all the original lugs/screws/rack tom arms/kick spurs/etc…unfortunately two of the floor tom brackets are kind of messed up and the legs need new feet but other than that the hardware is in good shape.

Here's a couple thoughts for you.

Maybe embrace the rust- pull the wraps off and get some of that chemical used to age steel for movies and other effects needs. I have seen it used on those home improvement shows on corrugated steel etc. to give an aged appearance. I think Jesse James did a bike with the tins in 'rust' on a chrome frame.

Then clean and repair the lugs and polish them as well as possible (hoops too).

I think that would be a cool look...

Or re-wrap. There are a lot of wrap options (even a chrome look?) that might suit as the original is too far gone to be saved- it will never command top collector value so you might as well make it the way you want it to be...

when I finally decided to restore mine to origional I found out the stainless steel material was actually less money than plastic/Delmar wrap. Mine is a 10x14, 16x16, 16x18, 14x26 and I biught the snare drum on ebay and it was 5x14. The stainless steel was around 240.00 shipped and that was for all drums and even included the inlay strips for the hoops. It was a littlle heavier gauge then the origional but not enough to cause problems with the heads, just made them a little heavier.

The steel came to me cut to the exact sizes that I specified. It was flat and I got luck and paid a guy only 20 bucks to "roll" the steel into a circle. Keep in mind that I only did the snare and the 16x16 floor tom. I choose to keep the others origional.

Removing the old wrap was not too bad, just need patience. I used 100% silicon to glue the steel to the fiberglass shells and it worked good. Every one recomended contact cement but I did not use it because it would be very difficult to work with due to the steel being rolled and fitting tight against the shell without any glue. Plus once you bolt all the lugs on where can it go?

Drilling the holes for the hardware was no big deal at all. Just get a quality drill bit, apply lots of pressure at slow speed. It will take a while but when your done you will have an awsome drum set like mine. And, best of all only one seem, with that plastic stuff you need two seems for anything over 16" in diameter, drives me mad.

Consider the metal wrap if you do re-wrap I will help you as best as I can. If you do go with plastic then thats fine also. Good luck and please keep us posted on the progress, we love pictures. The pic of the set is one missing the 16x16, it was still being worked on. The snare has the new steel wrap on it.

And here is link to the metal shop, good guys to work with, fast shipping!

http://www.shopstarlandmetals.com/contact-us.aspx

Jeff C

Wow - that's a project!! The best thing I've ever used (and I still use) for polishing, restoring and removing pitting and rust from Chrome is called Nevr-Dull. Here in Canada I can get it at Canadian Tire (hardware/autosupply/handyman home supplies store).

It's a cotton batting type of material impregnated with the cleaner. You tear a piece off, start rubbing, and **** starts coming off like mad with very little mess! Finish with a soft cotton cloth. It comes in a 6x6" can.

Those shells are in pretty rough shape but if anything can help your chrome, this stuff can.

Good luck!

Kyle

I happen to have 2 Fibes FT brackets in my stasharoo..let me get them out...