2006 Mati's Snare Refinish Project.

End product!

The pink colour really shines under sunlight! This drum belongs in the outdoors. I am taking it out on a gig on July 29th. =)

The sound is crisp and tight, but with more body and a bit more controlled then its former self. sweet.


=)

Moral of this episode: I REALLY need a shed in the future to fix drums. It rains in Vancouver 3/4 of a year, and when it's not raining, it's cloudy and damp. Terrible conditions for work. Blah!

Here's the shell with the masking tape off. Just need to get some fresh heads and I can start assembling the drum pronto. =)

These past weeks I have been using what little time I have at home (while the sun's still out) to continue painting the shell. I sanded down the first coat of clear lacqure and sprayed it again to give it a more even shine.

This morning I sanded the 2nd coat and applied a 3rd coat of lacqure. The shine is starting to come through more and more.. =)

For the 1st and 2nd sand I used #600 sandpaper, and I plan to use #1,000 for the 3rd and final sand. After that the drum should be finished.

Stay tuned!

Autographed and dried.

Now waiting for a sunny day to put on the clear coat finish.

=)

Matik's Snare Paint... :]


Tried out the gloss spray on the test shell today. =)

Now waiting for it to dry.


I also sanded down the inside of the Matik shell to put on another coat of black paint to dampen the sound. Because the last coat didn't stick so well and it was cracking.. -_-'


Now waiting for it to dry.

See pictures for the difference once the gloss coating is applied. It turns from a pastle pink to a rich glossy pink... and that's only with 1 coat of gloss. I think I will be doing 2-3 coats to give it a more even shine.

Next step... put the gloss paint on the Matik shell!

The MATIK Snare Drum continues! And it will be PINK!!

I spend the first couple of days experimenting with the paint on another snare shell that I don't use. I tried putting on multiple coats to get a solid colour and WOW! It looked so bad. Yuck. The paint was having a hard time sticking onto the chrome surface and so I tried sanding off part of the chrome before painting. This time the paint was sticking well, but it still looks kinda crappy.

Finally, I experimented with painting the shells lightly to allow part of the chrome to shine through, and that seems to be a decent colour scheme...sorta.


So here's the plan for now... light pink painted in alternating layers to give it a 3 step pink to chrome swirl in a diagonal wavy pattern. I've done the bottom half of the shell so far.

I THINK it will look good... I sure hope so!

The shell in the picture looks really crappy.. I know. But keep in mind that the 2nd half of the shell is not done yet. There is also the centre bead that have been mask taped off at the moment. If all goes well it will become a clean chrome line across the middle of the drum.. might be cool? <:}
All that will also be sealed with lacquer in the very last step, to give it that all important mirror shine. =)


Actually, the bottom half looks rather "solid" already... what do you guys think? Feel free to leave me a comment!

Yeup! Exams are over and the weather was quite nice the past few weeks too. I finally got some time to work on the drum some more.

I got to say though, the progress is rather slow given the amount of sunny afternoons I had. It was because.. I bought a 3rd drumset. =D

But I am not going to keep this one for long. I bought it because I needed some of the extra parts that came with the offer. I hope to put these up for sale soon, and that's why I took some time out to give the drums and the hardwares a good wipe/scrub down (with the help of my girlfriend!). I will post some pictures later regarding this 3rd drumset.

Anyway, back to the snare drum...

I put on an extra coating on the inside of the shell to dampen the tone a bit, as steel drum shells tend to give off a really high pitched ring that is not really welcomed in a lot of music styles / venues.

First I did one coat of black, then I changed my mind and wanted to make it solid white instead. I dug out the can of white paint and well, it gave up after 5 sprays.

So then I was stuck with a half black, partly white shell. I decided to use what I have in house and change it back to all black inside.

The result is not the best eye candy as there are blotches of uneven paint and some weird oxidization happening because of the mixing of the two paints. But no bother, no one will see the inside of the snare when it's done. The purpose of the coating will still work anyway. =)

Pics? Nah. It's black..just black. Not much of an eye-candy...

It's so cold and rainy outside! I can't (don't want to) do anything..

and it's exam season.. so stay tuned! :]

Midterm Season! Term paper Season! Presentation Season! and it was really windy these past weeks and I couldn't do any work in the backyard. So no real updates just yet, but the project shall resume when the mucus and the crazy big wind go away..

Having said that, I did try some prep work on the shell. I have a cheap snare drum shell lying around the house and I spray painted it a bit just to see if the result will be similar to what I had visioned in my mind.

Well I painted some parts here and there and found out the paint wasn't holding on to the shell all that great, a couple of light sprays over and I was starting to get some ugly drip marks. So I turned to another side of the snare shell and used 240grid sandpaper and sanded the chrome out before I apply the paint again.

Once sanded the shell turned from a mirror looking finish to a kitchen sink kinda finish.. which is kind of appealing too, I guess I can save that for my future project.

Here's a link to what a kitchen sink finish look like: http://www.dunnett.com/products/st-22.php

The sanded part of the shell held the paint a lot better, the colour was more even all around, and there are no drip marks this time, yay!

So I was thinking the Project 1 shell will have to be sanded before I can start painting..

Until mom comes along, she took a lot at the shell and said " That other part looks cuter, more layered and more textured..."

So.. now I'm waiting for the project executive to come take a look and decide which version she likes more.. :)

Stay tuned!

Haven't done anything yet, but here's a picture showing the other parts that I took out. Most of the parts are pretty shiny and clean, just need a good wipe down and some elbow grease and they'll be good as new! :-D

I've inquired a place to get the paint that I needed.. might get it today on my way to work. =) Hope it won't cost too much.

Took the drum apart today and gave the shell a general wipe down.

I used masking tape to cover up the bearing edges top and bottom and the badge on the snare, so they wouldn't get painted over. It's important to keep the bearing edges clean so the surface will stay smooth and even all around for accurate tuning.

The shell of this drum has a protruding bead in the middle, I also taped it up so the finished product will have a chrome stripe going across the middle of the painted drum, I think it'll look cool....
I used exacto knife to cut out excess tape from the centre bead area and the badge area.

The drumheads on both sides are pretty old, I'll be buying new heads for them, I like aqurian heads these days as they are said to be more durable AND in Canada, they are cheaper. (yay!) Now thinking a Classic White Coated head for top and a regular Snare Side head for bottom.

The hardwares - meaning both hoops, the 8 lugs, and the snare throw-off and butt - will be cleaned with chrome polish later..
People always say budget drums have crappy hardwares, but the lugs and throw-off on this drum looks quite good to me. At least good enough for regular sensible uses. I plan to keep the hardwares chrome.


Anyone want to take a guess how will the drum be painted? Colours... patterns... leave a comment and take a guess!

Today is day 1: Got a snare drum as a gift.

Specs: 2000 Pearl Export series chrome snare drums. 14x5.5".
Good chrome, no broken parts, no rust no dents, great condition overall.

Plan:

Something simple and classy. Chrome is hard to match, and I'm not planning to invest too much on this project just yet. But it WILL look and sound better.

The shell itself will be special treated to mellow out the sound and smooths out the overtones.
I've tried this method on a few other snare drums before and they seem to work quite well, we'll see how this one goes.

Much planning and thinking lies ahead. And I gotta find time to do it, too!

Stay tuned!