Refinishing your drumset! (getting an awesome natural finish DIY)

Is it possible to paint just a portion of the wood? I might try painting my drumset half black and half white next time if I eventually buy one. Do they even have black and white dyes, lol.
 
@RD: Thanks for stickying! =D Hopefully others with more DIY knowledge can also add on to this thread, my finishing technique still lacks fine touches.

@Noein: Dyes seep into the wood, stains only stain on the surface.

But! Dyes can only "darken" the wood. I don't dare to try bleaching this wood incase it damages it. If you want to make it lighter you'll probably have to paint. Good luck with paint!

Also I don't remember if I mentioned or not, but since the dyes only dye the parts you apply it on, you can dye in patterns. I might want to experiment using sticks.

You might notice on the toms the dye pattern looks a bit uneven. This is because I didn't apply it evenly. The first one was an accident, after that was on purpose after I noticed it looked nice.
 
hey..does this process work for guitar bodies? i was thinking of dying my alder strat body...will it be water proof after i polish it? what should i polish it with?
 
IbanezFreak said:
hey..does this process work for guitar bodies? i was thinking of dying my alder strat body...will it be water proof after i polish it? what should i polish it with?
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If you mean like a guitar you bought already... well, from what I've seen of guitars, I think they're already lacquered before being sold. You can try dyeing it, but I bet you apply the dye onto the guitar, later you wipe it off the guitar still not dyed, because the lacquer is there to protect the guitar. So... you'll have to carefully sand off the lacquer, then dye it, then re-lacquer it. If you haven't done it before, but really want to get it refinished, I recommend you find someone really experienced with woodwork to help.

Polishing won't make it waterproof, lacquering/clearcoating/etc. will. I don't know what you should use on guitar. I just use regular wood varnish on my drums.

Actually, just the way I see it, you might want to use wax on your guitar. I don't have anything to back this up, but usually when I see nice guitars, I think that the wood would look good with wax.

KDY said:
Just wanted to know, how much did the laquer and wood dye cost altogether?
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One bottle of dye, as seen in the photo (I forgot the exact volume of the bottle) was enough to cover five toms, two bass drums, a few pairs of sticks. It costed about $22 I think. I used total of two cans of lacquer (giving a few coats) on the above mentioned drums. Each can was about $25 I think.

Since I've used them up already, and thrown away the can, I can't check the volume. But! If you go to homefix DIY and see the prices roughly around what I said, then that's probably the right size. Also you read what it says on the can, they'll tell you about how much surface area it can cover. Make your measurements, do some math and figure out how many cans you need.
 
Good luck with it! Do a different colour then we can compare it >D

Towards end of year I'm going to experiment with rewrapping. Should be easier than this I think, I'll post results once I get any.
 
Haha I did this quite a long time ago.. except i tried to do a fade. Did an amber fade (warm reddish orange to dark brown/black fade). Took 3 days alone to rub the part where the 2 wood-dyes met each other to get a decent fade. I'll see if i can get pictures up for you guys.

[edit] Here we go.. pics! =p

I was lucky compared to threadstarter cos my wrap was attached using doublesided tape so getting it off was a breeze. I did face the same problems regarding the air vents though.

I spent quite a bit of time sanding down the shells anyway and 3 days alone just to rub the wood-dye to and from the pics, you can see that even then, it wasnt even. My wrist was really killing me after i was done.

You can see my original thread here (from another forum): http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=366149







 
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Problem is the lacquering. Theres no way to get a finish as good as the professionally made ones.

One way you can solve the problem of the wood-dye (i call it woodstain) getting on the inside of the shell is to put masking tape around the inside of the shell. Or at least just around the rim and then be careful not to put your hands inside. The 2-3 inch or so masking tape rim should provide enough real estate for you to hold on to.

Anyone up to refinish another kit? We could try some bolder designs =p
 
I'm thinking of doing up a bop kit with my spare kit (10" 13" 16"). I'm thinking glitter.

Sucks to be in Singapore, damn effin' hard to get wraps.

And great work, Jeremy.
 
Jeepers: How to do glitter???.....i duno sia....


I might b doin a stain-job to my drumset too.....my whole set....bt still gt no confidence ah.....
 
Well. I'm gonna do a base paint (Haven't decided on the right colour). Once the paint's dried and I'm satisfied, I'll put on layer of lacquer and sprinkle glitter all over. Once that's done, I'll put one last layer of lacquer.

Need to read up more on how it's done correctly.
 
wow shaox, thats very nice. *_*

i know what you mean when you say hard to get the same kind of fade finishing results like the professionally made ones (ie. tama, pearl etc.)

still u done a great job considering its DIY.
 
jeepers said:
Well. I'm gonna do a base paint (Haven't decided on the right colour). Once the paint's dried and I'm satisfied, I'll put on layer of lacquer and sprinkle glitter all over. Once that's done, I'll put one last layer of lacquer.

Need to read up more on how it's done correctly.
Click to expand...

It wont turn out nice if you paint it. The woodgrain will still be showing. Only way would be to wrap it. If you can't find drum-specific wrap, you could always make do with other wraps? I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to source for it.

zack11 said:
Jeepers: How to do glitter???.....i duno sia....


I might b doin a stain-job to my drumset too.....my whole set....bt still gt no confidence ah.....
Click to expand...

If you need help, i guess you could always drop any of us a PM and we could help you out.
 
shaox said:
It wont turn out nice if you paint it. The woodgrain will still be showing. Only way would be to wrap it. If you can't find drum-specific wrap, you could always make do with other wraps? I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to source for it.
Click to expand...

Darn. Oh well, I'll try to look around for alternatives then. Thanks shaox.
 
@Shaox: Nice work! Hahaha yeah I hate sanding. Dyeing was fast for me since I did a simple colour. Anyway, I found a way to do fade from dye to natural, by sanding off. By applying more dye (assuming it hasn't saturated yet) you can get a gradient.

For Jeeper's drums, what if a filler or something is used first as a base? Like sand it really smooth, use filler, then paint over...

@Jeepers: On PDF there's a thread in the uni section on doing glitter finish. Apparently it's really difficult and time consuming. Also, I'm going to be wrapping my spare Pearl Target snare with some fabric that I'm getting. I'll post it once I actually get the fabric and work on it. This one is for practice, if it works well I'll try it on a higher end snare to use as my main snare.

I've seen a lot of people rewrap with all sorts of things. I've seen wallpapers, even checkered cloth and stuff.
 
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