Refinishing marching drums

M

MaStuart

Hi! I am new to the forum, I made an introduction and was directed to this forum to find out information for my son. He is refinishing several sets of marching drums. They are maple shells and all are sanded down to bare wood. He would like to put a metal flake finish on them. I used to do old school metal flake paint on cars and motorcycles using lacquer. I am not sure what materials we are going to use to finish these with, any suggestions on this would be welcome too. For right now we would just like to get them ready to put a base coat on to get started with the metal flake. We would like suggestions on how to prep these to get them ready to be painted. My thought was to spray the shells with the proper number of coats of epoxy, doing any minor body work with filler and respraying over the filler. Then putting the proper primer surfacer on it, sand them in and start doing the metal flake. Does this sound like a good way to do this or should be looking at something different? I am open to suggestions and Thank You. Mark
 
I think you are on the right track, though as you will see, the initial applications of epoxy will soak into the wood. Multiple coats with very long flash times will probably required. Something I don't know about which might be a concern is how the sound quality of the drum might be affected by the kinds of materials used. I'm sure you would want to minimize the use of filler. If you have enough time and patience, the epoxy can be used throughout the process, as it can be utilized as a sandable surfacer.
 
you can use epoxy on wood but its really not necessary since 2k primer direct to wood is well beyond adequate. if you need to fill imperfections in the wood and your going to use filler then bodyfiller can be applied direct to the wood and sanded before the 2k goes down. once you have a nice sanded surface do your basecoat, then metalflake, clearcoat, sand smooth and reclear.
 
Crashtech and Jim thanks for your replys. When using bodyfiller how does it sand on the wood ? Does it feather in good? Does it stick to the wood as good as it would stick to the epoxy? This stuff is new to my son and he might not have the patience. Not using the epoxy would cut down on the cost some. Would the SPI regular build 2k primer work good for this. I am not sure what top coat we are going to use. Could a lacquer base and clear be used over this primer?

Mark
 
Last edited:
ok stay away from anything lacquer. when doing flake you need a strong finish to bind everything together. lacquer is not. they dont even really make it for automotive use anymore. you only see it still in the wood industry and it even sux there. everything these days are urethanes/polyurethanes. bodyfiller makes a great filler direct on wood. i know many interior trim and cabinet makers that use bodyfiller instead of any kind of wood filler. just about anything sticks to wood because its so porous.
 
Epoxy before filler is the best for wood because the wood will expand and contract with temperature, you can put it directly to wood it will stick fine but wood is porous and the epoxy first helps keep moisture out of the filler. Depends on the situation if inside or outside type of use.
 
Thanks for the replies. I am not trying to start anything but I have seen some of the metalflake jobs that I did 30 plus years ago . When I did them I used Lacquer . After I had the flake applied I used to put about 10 good wet coat of clear on let it dry for a few day sand till I was just starting to get into the flake. I would then spray another 10 wet coats of clear let dry for a few days. When I sanded it again it could be sanded smooth. After the next 10 coats I would give it a nice long drying period sand with 600 and buff. Some of the cars were well taken care of and the paint still looks good today.

I am not sure what we will use to do these drums yet. My son has no experience painting and we have no paint booth. The lacquer is pretty forgiving for a first timer.

I would like to know if lacquer can be applied over SPI 2k primer regardless if it is not the best choice. When my son gets the flake he is going to use we will figure out what clear he will use.

Thanks again Mark
 
Never used lacquer, too much work for me. The newer paint is 10times easier and handles the weather better in my opinion.If you're doing a restoration then I could see it but for what I do lacquer doesnt cut it good luck I just don't have the patients for lacquer. I guess it's like the people that were taught with lead they don't like bondo!
 
I've used Lacquer over epoxy numerous times with good results, and back in the late 80's/early 90's I did use it over 2K urethanes without problems. But if there's any soluable coatings under the epoxy or urethane primer you can really set yourself up for some wrinkling if there isn't enough primer on there to create a good solvent barrier. Do you and your Son a favor and use modern urethane products and skip the lacquer on this. Especially on a flake job where it's going to get thick. I would shoot a few coats of epoxy, do your filler work, then more epoxy and sanding till they are ready for paint. When they are ready shoot one sealer coat of epoxy and start the painting process. If you can shoot lacquer then basecoat will be a piece of cake. What color flake? Candy? size of flake? There's plenty of people here to walk you through it and the job will last many times longer than lacquer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top