Bass drum hoops

The last thing to get together for the drum kit are the bass drum hoops. These were supplied unpainted. I wanted them black, with a silver sparkle inlay.   The Precision Drum Company sold me the inlay, and I got paint from a local model shop. I have to admit I felt extremely nostalgic hanging out in the shop, amongst the funny middle aged dudes checking out WWII models and fancy balsa wood planes. See before I discovered punk music and skateboarding, I was a total wargames and D&D nerd. I may have even been guilty of enjoying these guys back then.

After a quick bit of research I decided that "semi-gloss" Tamiya black spray paint was the one to go for. Sand, spray primer, sand, paint, sand, paint, boom! Bob's your uncle.

 

Charlotte (BFA) was invaluable during this phase of drum construction.

After that I applied what seemed like a million coats of polyurethane. Granted I first tried a "matt" varnish, but I felt this dulled the hoops too much. Hey look - it's my kit, and I can be as fussy as I want!

 

Varnish.

After that I applied contact cement to hoops and sparkle wrap, laid the two together and boom, bobs you're uncle, bass drum hoops. Here they are on the kit.
 

The finished kit, pretty cool aye?

One thing I wish I'd done earlier was order the recommended contact cement from Precision Drum. You can't actually get it in New Zealand (3M 30-NF Fast Bond Contact Cement), and the stuff I used isn't really holding the wrap to the wood that well. The problem is it's got to be a water-based glue instead of a solvent one to prevent the wrap melting.

So yeah, anyway I've finished the kit, it's going on it's first official outing tonight, and it'll be interesting to see if I attract any pretty ladies with it.