Taking Wraps off of Drums?

[Forum1987]

I've had my 1987 Pearl Forum for 3 years now (I obviously got it used) . The guy I bought it from used it playing in the area so it ended up getting some wear and tear on the wraps. Lately I've been considering taking of the wraps and sanding the shells to have a natural wood look. What do you guys think. Like, dislike, advise

[nik12]

It's a pretty popular thing to do. The wood beneath may not be the prettiest though, but if that is the case you could always wrap it with a nice new wrap.

[Drumolator]

I did it with a 2008 Export bass drum. The wood underneath, poplar, looked good. I sanded and stained it to match the Gretsch toms I already had. Peace and goodwill.

[joshvibert]

Sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks crappy. It all comes down to the wood prep and finish job.

[Gardrh]

i did it with my snare, after some sanding it came out pretty decent. Did an awful paint job though, so now I have a flourocent orange and natural striped snare. In general I'm a big fan of unwrapped drums.

[*_*Drumfreax*_*]

There's also the problem of different looking grain from drum to drum. Since the shells are destined to be covered, the factory doesn't do any sort of sorting per say when it comes to the exterior ply. Since staining my forums, I've thought of refinising them again, but with paint. There are neat faux paint things you can do, even freehanding it and making a work of art.