My 1st DIY project

[Viperr]

Hey Guys,

I've been looking into this forum for quite some time. I've tried some small things, like adding a DIY snare to my TD4x kit. This really set my mind to build my own DIY kit so I purchased a megadrum brain a while back. I've dabbled around in the settings to get a snare and a 2-zone cymbal working.

nd hand drum kit for my 1st go at an A2E conversion. The cymbals are crap, but I had no intention of using them anyhow. The shells don't sound to great either, but the sound is supposed to come from the brain (megadrum), not from the wood. The wrapping of the shells is bubbly, so that has to go as well. As it is, I din't even take the time to set the kit up decently to give it go as it is now.

So basically I bought me some shells with mounting hardware. It looks like I'm in for several hours of DIY-ing

[KennyinDundee]

Great way to start, enjoy the learning experience and feel proud of your work when its finished! Good luck :-)

[perceval]

Welcome to the wonderful world of DIY. Lots of info around so feel free to search for it. And enjoy... yes, it will take more than a few hours, but it will be worth it!

[TheYardbird]

Sweet! What triggers are you going to use? What mesh heads? Are you going to re-wrap the shells or are you planning on oiling or staining the wood if the wood grain looks decent enough?
Good luck with your project!

[Viperr]

Sweet! What triggers are you going to use?

For the toms I decided to go for side mounted DIY triggers (pictures included). For the snare I'm going for the crossbar method. Working on that now.

What mesh heads?

I wanted to go for 682 drum heads, but then I found out that my kit has an 11 "tom, and there is no mesh head available for that size. That made me decide to go for the 682 head for the snare, and make my own heads out of fly screen for the toms. If it turns out that that won't work, I can always go back to all 682 heads, and cut one up to fit on my 11" tom

Are you going to re-wrap the shells or are you planning on oiling or staining the wood if the wood grain looks decent enough?

As for the finishing.... That depends on how good I get them cleaned up. I've already removed the current wrap, but now I have to deal with the glue, and the backside of the wrap that remained behind. I've already tried sanding, but the stuff just clogged up my sandpaper. I'm going for a glue remover now. If I get the shells cleaned up, I wanted to go far spray painting. If not, than I will re-wrap them.

[perceval]

Is that a minicell cone?

[Viperr]

Is that a minicell cone?

Before it was a cone, it was a sanding block. I realy have no idea what type of foam it is

[TheYardbird]

682drums have some sturdy mesh heads. I have their white 2ply heads on my kit atm. A fair warning though, the mesh head on the bassdrum is rather loud tbh.

[Viperr]

I've finally got all the parts to finish the megadrum brain. Now I can really focus on converting the kit

[Viperr]

The new shell finish:
Step 1, remove the old wrap:

Apparently the double sided tape they used to stick the wrap to the shell was better then the wrap itself. The Blue stripes you see in the 1st picture is the back side of the wrap that stuck to the tape. I've tried several things to get rid of it, from sanding to some very interesting smelling solvents. In the end I found that a heat gun and a paint scraper did the job best. After several hours of painstakingly scraping the double-sided tape from the shells they looked like:
DSC_0544.JPG
With this result, as well as the quality of the shells, painting was not an option, so I chose for wrapping the shells in some mahogany foil:




Adding several layers paint to them, they now look like:


Time to start polishing the lugs and hoops now..... All 72 lugs

[Viperr]

Time for an update:

I've finnished the shells, the sensors and the heads. All the chrome parts are polished. I've put the things together, and now it looks like this DSC_0576.JPG

I don't have the cymbals ready yet, so they are missing for now.

This is what it looks like from the drivers seat:
DSC_0569.JPG

The set up is still a bit awkward. I struggling with the placement of the hi-hat i.c.m. the 4 toms

[fulrmr(Daniel)]

Very nice!

[airflamesred]

Very nice.

[angr77]

Nice!

[Kenster]

WOW!!!! GREAT JOB!!! What did you do about the 11 inch head and no mesh head premade for it?

K ;-)