Last year I was going through my dad's shed and grabbed his old Luddy that he hasn't used in about a decade. This is a late 1970's Ludwig octa-plus he purchased new about 30+ years ago.
My dad never took take of it so for a fathers day present I took it upon my self to breathe new life back into this kit.
I stripped the Marine Pearl wrap from it since it was pealing away from the toms. Each tom had a line of rivets pressed into the shell to hold the seams of the wrap together. After removing all of the adhesive I then filled all the holes and cracks with "plastic wood". I then sanded the kit for about 50 hours with a hand sander, not an electric palm sander (didn't want it to come out of round) and re cut the bearing edges.
After sanding, I then put three coats of lacquer on it. I decided against a stain because the wood had so much character to it all ready. I soaked all of the hardware in a 5 gallon bucket filled with denatured alcohol for a day or two then scrubbed the grime off it with a tooth brush.
When I re-assembled it, I decided against putting some of the unnecessary hardware on the toms to keep the weight down.
The next thing I plan to do with this kit is to convert the 18" floor to a bass drum. The 24 BD is just too much. I will then do the same steps I did originally with the two left over smaller toms and use the smallest as a rack (I think its an 8, maybe a 10) and use the 14 as the floor tom. Pics will follow
