Plan for 2008

There are so many things that needed to be done in order for me to complete this project. From hardware cleaning to new set of cymbals. Of course it cost a lot of money too but for this year, I will restrict it to upgrading the drums or the shellpacks only. That'll include cleaning all the hardwares, buying new set of tension rods, put new nylon washers and upgrading to optimounts. As for tension rods, I've found the 52mm long in JS Music. Its from Gibraltar which a leading drum hardware makers. Bentley have only the 43mm which is too short for my lugs. The price for the Gibraltar's tension rods is quite reasonable which only about RM10 for one set which have 6 rods. I also need to replace the rusty and old metal washers with nylon washers. This will protect the hoops and will provide extra tuning range.

I also planned to replaced the rubber feet for my floor tom legs with Pearl Air Suspension rubber feets. This is just pure cosmetic as from my random reading from PDF, it really dont have significant difference in term of sounds compared to normal one. Optimount is going to be here in few days as soon as I get my salary but for new tom arms, I will buy it later because I already have the old one. Owh, another crucial thing is new head for 13" tom. I will go for Evans EC2 as the metal ring will hopefully eliminates the buzzing that will come from the uneven shell bearing edge.

So here is the summary of what need to be done and buy for this year.

Buy

i) Gibraltar 52mm tension rods for toms (40 pieces)
ii) Nylon washers (52 pieces including the bass drum)
iii) Tension rods for bass drum (16 pieces)
iv) Pearl Optimount (OPT-0910 and OPT-1112)
v) Pearl Air Suspension Rubber Feet (R40/3)
vi) Pearl TH1000S tom arms (2 pieces)
vii) EX Bass Drum Hoops EXRIM-22

I hope I'll able to save and buy all this within this year :)

Cleaning Spree!

It only takes less than two weeks for my drums to be finished by JS Music drumtech. I am very excited to see how's the outcome will be and when I got to see my drums, I am very satisfied with it. The bass drum spurs looks like it comes as an original parts together with the drums but for the tom masking plate, I need to clean the marks which have been left by original tom bracket. I've posted this issue to PDF and some of PDFers adviced me that Alcohol will do the trick. Owh, I also has removed all the lugs for my 13" tom for cleaning.

Lugs' and bracket's marks on 13" tom:

Outside:

Inside: Whole:

I have also cleaned all my hoops using toothbrush and Autosol. It was fun actually and toothbrush makes the job become easier. So far, I've completed cleaning all hoops for toms and lugs for 13" tom. I have a day work and I only do this when I'm off. So, I only have like 5 to 6 hours for a week. So far, I have utilize my evening on my off-day to do this. Next, it would be 12" tom, floor tom and last but not least-the kick.

Before,

After,

Before and after;

Autosol did a very good job in removing small rust but for a deeper rust, as adviced by PDFers, I need to use .0000 steel wool to remove it but I havent tried it yet though.