As far as getting right into the crotch of the bead, I used little 3 inch pop-sickle sticks. Just wrapped the paper around one two or three times and as you can see in the last image, it gets right in there.

So after several hours and 1 single pass going horizontal on the shell, I ended up with this. I took a side road and polished it with just a flannel wheel and some blue compound to see how marvelous it would look, and instead ended up with all of these lines running horizontal. Hoping to avoid what I was told I would have to do. Ugh. Now for the next round, I took 600 grit and went the opposite direction. The short vertical strokes. Every increase in grit means going the opposite direction of the previous pass. This is where the jig became crucial. No moving or the next pass horizontal would be a bigger mess to clean up, instead of getting easier each pass.

I kept going in increments of 200 grit from 600 through 1,000, alternating directions each change of grit. Then i put it on the wheel.

This was crucial in getting the final high polished chrome look that i wanted. I really like the brushed finish look, too, but for this drum, I want it to look like the original chrome now lying in a puddle in the bottom of a nitric acid bath tub.

Again, thanks to my guide, I went with the green and white Airway wheels. (https://zephyrpro40.com/16-airway-buffing-wheels). They disperse the heat really well and eliminates the worry of overheating the soft aluminum. I had to modify my cheapo 6 inch Harbor Freight buffer to take an 8 inch wheel (Airway doesn't make 6" unless you special order 50 or so) - and hit it with a round of green compound (blue wheel), followed by a light pass with a white compound bar (White flannel wheel).

And here is the shell as it sits today....the hairlines you see in the shell are actually reflections of the grain in the paper I'm using on the photo table. DOH!

In case you're wondering - this is the set up I had to rig to eliminate all reflections while shooting the images....took me forever to get it right :confused: The little dark spot above the grommet hole is actually a reflection of my camera - I could have Photoshop-ed it out, but I thought it was kinda funny to leave it in.

So all in all - a long long process of trial and error on dozens of pieces of scrap aluminum, talking to people who had no idea how I was going to apply their advice, and lots of stopping and staring asking "Now what do I do to get past this??!". Now its on to the Supra....seen here in it's beginning stage.

By the way, SSKrupa, you mentioned bead blasting - tried that. The third pic shows one round with bead blasting - didn't really move me forward to the shiny chrome objective so I'm not going that direction, but I tried just to see if it would save my arms a bit. It wasn't aggressive enough, believe it or not, to take the the surface down to the depth of the pits. Looks nice for the somewhat "peened" finish you talk about - thought you might want to see it first before attempting.

Anyway - I hope you enjoyed the pics and the rambling narrative. I'll do the same with the Supra and post the results in about....oh, at this pace......2017.

Lots of work, but you did it! No more pimples ever! I added chrome over brass tube lugs to mine. The drum sounds amazing. Best of luck with yours, hope to see the finished product shortly! Nice work, man.

John

Oh I love that idea! Can you shoot a pic of it for me? Thanks for the thumbs up!

Here ya go...

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/suprastrip.jpg[/IMG]

John

Oh Yeah. Love it. I may be combing the 'For Sale' section and beyond when it comes time to put the final bow on it waaay down the road. What a great idea John! Thanks!

Thank you sir!!

The work stand and photo booth are both outstanding. Great job on snare #1. The Supraphonic should move right along.

Creighton

Wow. Great job.