My revamped 1984 DX...

[3pearlkits]

Ok, so I thought I would see if taking the aspects of a "modern" kit and try applying them to vintage kit would improve things tonaly...

Every drum was stripped of all hardware and the wrap buffed.
Every drum's hardware has been polished by hand.
When reassembling, all lug springs have been wrapped in felt, inserts checked and trued to run properly, and handcut rubber gaskets applied before reattaching lugs. Old toms mounts have come off, masking plates have been put on and opti's attached as best as possible.

As a 5 piece (smaller gig setup)


5 piece drivers seat


The opti's and gaskets and masking plates


6 on a rack


6 piece drivers seat


And from above


Drums are 10, 12, 13, 14 x 6.5, 22
I've stayed with Pinstripes on batter and Ambassadors for Reso on the toms,
Kick is EQ3 for batter and custom art Reso on an ambassador.
Snare has a CS Dot batter and Hazy Reso

The Snare is a 14 x 6.5, 8 ply maple, finished in a rosewood stain/ lacquer and is a model number M-314LX from 1983. I changed the original die cast hoops to the superhoops I got with my snare from the DX kit, and tune it high, and man it goes off!

Cymbals are 14" Coloursound 5, 17" A Zildian crash, 16" A Zildian Brilliant crash, 18" Sabian Thin Crash, 20" Coloursound 5 Ride.

Still to come:
14 DX Tom, to be opti'ed... probably go next to the H/H on the rack.

These drums now resonate a lot more freely and the original tones are still there, just sound heaps better!
It was worth the time and effort.

What do you think?


2012 Pics not here because they used to be hosted by Imagecave.
Pics now hosted by photobucket and on page 6 of the thread

[Diofter]

Nice job! I didn't understand you put away the wrap and laquered the shells or the opposite? Rep

[Stevie D]

Nice kit!

I'm really glad your band isn't called the Seeing Eye Dawgs.

[3pearlkits]

Nice job! I didn't understand you put away the wrap and laquered the shells or the opposite? Rep

Thanks!
DLX was the lacquered version.
My kit is a DX and DX kits came with wrap... I just buffed the wrap to remove old cleaning marks and swirls.

The snare is the only drum that was lacquered, it was buffed also.

[Diofter]

Your floor tom needs some more work or it's just the picture? Nice to see oldies working at full power!

[3pearlkits]

Your floor tom needs some more work or it's just the picture? Nice to see oldies working at full power!

Thanks again...
Um in the drivers seat pics you can see the seem edge of the wrap.
And it does have a couple of bubbles.
I never said it came out perfect lol

[premiumdrummer]

AMAZING rep man goood... no great job!

[kari_convention]

amazing work. i never thought of doing the rubber gasket thing when I refurbishing my kit before. Also, how do you remove the bubble thing? Care to share here??? Thanks, great kit!!

[t.huval]

DX & DLX drums rock....................

[3pearlkits]

DX & DLX drums rock....................

Oh yep they do!

This one rocks even more now lol

[3pearlkits]

amazing work. i never thought of doing the rubber gasket thing when I refurbishing my kit before. Also, how do you remove the bubble thing? Care to share here??? Thanks, great kit!!

hiya Kari...
Thanks, I reckon it's a great kit made even better.
If you want to put gaskets on I used 1.6mm thick flat rubber.
For the BD lugs it was 75mm wide and for the tom lugs it was 50mm wide and cost me about $10 Aussie to do the lot.
I cut some blocks of wood to cut the rubber on and drilled holes in the block of wood to accept the lug screw holders so the lug would sit flat while I cut around the lugs. I used a leather punch to cut the holes in the washer.

I haven't removed the bubbles in the wraps. It is only reasonably noticeable in the floor tom, on the side that sits away from the audience.
But if you want some ideas about how to deal with bubbles, I had a thread in vintage and also in first aid that was called something like "fixing bubbled wraps" that had some good responses!

[hwy 49]

DX & DLX drums rock....................

that they do!!!!

[oiboiluis]

Those are pretty nice. I have a WX from around that era maybe a little newer. Same shells better hardware but no superhoops. Did you put those tom arms or did they come with the kit? I thought it used uni-lock arms.

[3pearlkits]

Those are pretty nice. I have a WX from around that era maybe a little newer. Same shells better hardware but no superhoops. Did you put those tom arms or did they come with the kit? I thought it used uni-lock arms.

The WX/WLX came out in 1986 I think, but I didn't realise they didn't come with superhoops. Shame about that. The DX/DLX was still available at that time, but discontinued in 1987 and made a brief reappearance from 97 to 98.
For years I thought the drums were maple, but I have no problem with the fact they are birch shells, they still sound awesome!

When I put the opti's on I needed to use shorter length tom arms (for positioning reasons) for the 5 piece setup because the TH-90 arms became too long (as they were for through hole mounting). So the tom arms in the close-up are TH-88's that I swapped over from my practise kit.
In the 6 on the rack photo the tom arms on the 12" and 13" are TH-90's and the 10" has a TH-88. My remaining TH-90's are now on the practise kit.
I will need to get another TH-88 when I finish refurbishing the 14" so I can get the TH-90's back together for the rack kit.

Unilocks came out quite a bit later I think.
They are probably better than TH-90's (I did break a TH-90 at one stage, as well as the original kick pedal and to Pearl's credit they sent them back to Japan for analysis), but the whole idea of this upgrade was to keep costs down as much as possible. Another 4 unilock's (or their equivalent now) would have been another $360 aussie based on retail.

[DowningInc.]

Nice work ^^
looks sweet! epic buff shine!