Roberts Drum Company: Production Update #3: The Kick Drum

The last drum that I began working on was the 14"x24" kick drum. I saved this one for last because it was the largest of the drums and I needed to be able to really focus hard during production due to several extra little production processes (like staining the kick drum hoops).

The process was the same as the other two drums: wrap, layout, check measurements several times, drill, finish the interior and assembly. Wrapping this large of a drum has to be done with two pieces of the wrap material (the wrap manufacturer cannot produce one sheet of the wrap to cover this large of a drum). Overall it turned out well. There are two overlapping seams on this drum instead of one - and one of the two seams is not aligned perfectly - similar to the rack tom. Again this problem was solved with the careful use of my utility knife.

The interior finishing, assembly (including the vintage-style Ludwig gullwing bass drum spurs) and badge installation went off without a hitch.

I am currently not quite finished with the kick drum, however, I'm on the downward side of the hill. I have ordered a custom Roberts Drum Company bass drum logo head - which arrived a few weeks ago. However, the printing quality left a lot to be desired. So I am working on getting the head reprinted.

The very last process that is still in production are the bass drum hoops. These are wooden rims that hold the heads in place. These hoops have a small groove cut out of the middle of them in order to allow an inlay strip of the silver sparkle wrap to be installed. The hoops are standed and ready for staining.

But I was not always going to stain them. Initially, I was going to paint them with satin enamel spraypaint - to match what the old vintage Ludwig drums looked like. However, after many days of testing on scrap shell material, I could not come up with a professional-looking result. So I turned to staining. The hoops will be stained with an oil-based Ebony finish that allows the wood grain to show through. It will have a satin/semi gloss finish to it and should add a nice "hand-crafted" touch to the kit. The hoops will still feature the silver sparkle inlay strip.

I sanded the hoops last night and will begin the staining process later this evening. It should take a few days to complete the staining/finishing of the hoops - which means that the kit (minus the custom bass drum head) will most likely be completed this weekend!

Here are some kick drum production pics: