Hi Poetman,

The classic wraps were kid of all over the place on thickness depending on the year and make of the kit, but for a simple answer the glass finishes were thicker on the older drums from the 50's and 60's. As with back then, today a “sparkle” covered finish uses a plastic glitter and the “glass” covered finish uses actual ground up glass to create the sparkle look.

The inner material of the sparkle and glass have not changed much but it has the base material and the clear top over the sparkle that have changed significantly in formula and manufacturing methods over the years allowing the modern sparkles and glass finishes to produced slightly thinner and much more stable these days.

Hope this helps.

John

www.drumsandsome.com

I was just reading Trix on Trixon, and that company used a now defunct German company for their wraps. Made me wonder how many other companies made wrap prior to the 70's.

Delmar now seems to be the one and only wrap manufacturer. (Is this so?)

With conceivably more companies in the day making wraps, that might explain some of the variant patterns, and thicknesses out there.

The Deutsche Celluloid wraps referenced in Trix on Trixon were about as good as it gets . They were just the right thickness to be fairly pliable, yet allow the bound materials to floculate freely during mixing and give a pronounced 3-D effect. They had remarkable handmade patterns. The ripples and swirls were complex , the sparkles were fine grained, unevenly shaped and luxurious in their density and colouration. Modern Delmar sparkle has precision cut flakes of entirly identical shape , they lay flat ,due to the thinness of the material's profile and give you a flat sheen instead of a sparkle. Even the glitter is mediocre, with small plastic particles that have limited irridescence. They really are garbage by comparison, as were many of the cheaper acetate and other plastic compound wraps that came along in the latter 60's. Deutsche Celluloid products were expensive , that's why only the better companies could eventually afford to use them and most of the British drums and some German ones went over to cheaper products, that faded split and tore.B&H and Trixon were holdouts on high end wrap. Wrap became disposible-----lasting in peak condition for about 10 years only. Delmar stuff was at one time better quality as well but never as good as Deutsche Celluloid; but they have now cheapened it to keep in business. There is/was also Italian made wrap, of good quality and there is cheap wrap coming out of Taiwan, that can have nice patterns but limited durability.Some of the earlier Japanese wrap had merit in design but lacked overall build quality. By the early 70's the writing was on the wall for high quality drum wrap and we have only retained easybake oven versions of the original recipes.

The Delmar glass glitter colors are a good match to the Rogers colors for the most part, but the surface is much more smooth and shiny. The Rogers wraps has an orange-peel texture on the surface and a more subdued shine.

The problem with the older wraps in some cases is color fading and the surface dulling out. Also, they were susceptible to mildew under the outer layer, or corrosion on the metal flakes used in some of them.

I've rewrapped a lot of Rogers drums and it seems to me that the old wrap is a little thinner than the new stuff, but I haven't had any trouble fitting heads on a rewrapped drum, unless the heads were really tight to begin with - an almost non-existent problem on vintage Rogers.

Thanks Calfskin,

Great info.