Artist will be myself as I used to be a graphic designer and fine artist myself. Studied 19th century fine art and graphic design, schooled in both for several years, have a degree in both.

One question though,... was the head painted, "stretched" onto a drum of some kind or off a drum,... and "unstretched"? My figuring is that as long as the paint applied is kept relatively thin, there will be no cause for worry about cracking in the paint.

Reason being that any oil paint has the possibility to crack in some way or form as it does not "give" or flex like, say an acrylic paint would to some degree.

Thanks!;)

Hi Cool an artist.. When the head was given it was mounted on the wood hoop[[not the bass drum hoop]],the head was calf,Iam not sure what kind of paint he used but by reading what you have posted about paint my guess that the paint would not be oil based...Mikey

The paints used in the 20s/30s were oils,the techniques were a combination of stippling and brush strokes,if you just used brush strokes it looks crap when back lighted.Most of the surface was stippled with just rocks and parts of mountains, boats, cabins,windmills and people highlighted with solid lumps of paint.

Get your self Rob Cooks Ludwig book,on pages 148/149 there are 15 examples of painting,9 of which are in colour,with some idea of dates.

I have a couple of original heads,a lake and mountain by Ludwig and another found on a slingerland rolling bomber bass drum. I have found that acrylic paint works very well on both calf and plastic heads as I paint a few myself,and of course acrylic dries a lot faster than oil.

But as I say its not so easy to get a nice look when using lights inside the drum.Hope this helps,and good luck Dion...

I forgot to say that I notice that on the originals there is a certain amount of washes applied to the back of the heads mainly over the sky and water and large areas like that.All part of getting a nice smouth look when back lighting. Dion...

One last thing, page 42,of Harry Cangany's book "Mr Leedy and the house of wonder" has a wonderful photo of the Art Department at the Leedy factory with a Mr Ed Riedwig painting some heads on a shallow bass drum shell with a stipple brush,also James F. Hammond engraving Elite snare shells,who seems to be working in his business suit but at least he has taken of his jacket.

Also another last thing,I have never tried internal lights with a acrylic painted head so I dont know if the light would come through the picture like it does through oil paint. Dion

Joe 90 maybe?

Which book by Cook? I searched and there seems to be two out there??

"The Ludwig Book",publisher Rebeats, 2003. isbn 1-888408-09-x. subtitled"A business History & Dating Guide. Great book anyway you look at it. Dion...

TheHotIron ,Here is a pic of the head off my early 30's slingerland radio king 28" bass drum, take a look if you will,

Oh that's pretty cool! Thanks for sharing!

You fellas have some pretty cool stuff!:D

Hey, do you have any other pics of your 1930s Slingerland Radioking set or bass? Just curious to see the bass really,... just curious as to its design and so on.

Thanks again!