Gon Bops Project

[burke]

I bought a nice 70's era GB's Mariano series quinto a while back with the intention of sanding it down and refinishing it to match (or better match) my GB's Conga and Large Conga (which I use as the tumbadora). The person who I bought the other ones from had done the same, including adding an alma and glassing the inside of the conga. I did the same to the quinto and changed the skin. The skin on the quinto was ok but I didn't love it. Plus it was translucent and the skins on the other two were creamy (I do wonder if there is some connection to how a cow/steer sounds and the degree of transparency).

Here are some pictures of the process and the results (I just cranked up this afternoon and its has a nice dry sound - course there will a break period with the new skin). First after stripping the hardware off:

[burke]

The hardware in the old skin:

[burke]

After sanding:

[burke]

Finished and sitting with his two new pals:

[KING CONGA]

The drums looks awesome. Congratulations. So Burke how dificult is it to come across a set of Gon Bops in Nova Scotia?

[burke]

Thanks King.

Very rare! I bought the pair on ebay from Florida and the quinto was from a Conga Place member. Irony of ironies soon after buying the quinto I met another player in the province who had one for sale. It was on kijiji but is now gone.

[Psych1]

Nice job burke! It's also an inspiration to me.

I've got an old similar GB that I'm now going to redo too. Mine has some of the old glass coating left and I was thinking about doing it with a stripper but maybe sanding is the way to go. I guess there is no way to get the old GB tag off & back on? I'm also going to need a couple of bands. Also the hardware on mine is all pitted and flaking and I don't know anyone local that can do chrome. It looks like on your other 2 you have black rims and bands. How was that done?

[burke]

Thanks for that. I used a cheap vibrating sander with a heavy grit paper for the first pass and found it took the finish off with not problems at all. Then a finer grit to smooth it. I figured that taking the decal off would be risky and just sanded as close as I dared then hand sanded up to the edge. When I was putting the stain on I accidentally slopped a bit on the decal but it wiped right off (those decals must be tough!) ...after that I just when right over it with the one coat of urethane I used and wiped it off.

The hardware is a bit stained and pitted, but not too bad so (being lazy) I just left it as is. The black hardware on the other two is how they came. I believe that back in the day that was an option that GB offered (chromed or not chromed). Personally I like the black hardware better, but when the opportunity came to get a quinto came along with the silver hardware I snapped it up. I know that GB's are not exactly rare but neither are they common either.

You may have noticed the hardware has a somewhat different style than most GB's. Someone once posted a couple of old GB's catalog pages and this style was called 'Tribal' (or something like that ... I'll do a search after I hit send).

Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out if you decide to post some pictures.

Cheers

Darrell

[burke]

It was "African"

Here is the link to the post, very cool!

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4902&p=49771&hilit=gon+bops+catalog#p49771

[Psych1]

I believe, others know more, that there was a time when Gon Bops and Valje were being made together and those side plates were too Valje-like to keep making after they split.

Right now I'm not where the drum is - I move around a lot in the Winter but pretty much stay put in the Summer. I'll work on it during the Summer when I have time and post pictures as I go along. I'm probably a lot lazier than you - it may take me some time!

[Anonimo]

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR

[danno]

gonbop1.jpg (19.27 KiB) Viewed 8419 times

Hey Darrell,

All this Gon Bops talk got me thionking about mine. Still some work to be done. I really should sell them off..

danno

[burke]

Hi Leedy2,

Interesting, I didn't know they made that "African" hardware that early.
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Hey Dan,

If only was in the market! I can't believe no one grabbed those locally when you had them on Kijiji in NS.

[Anonimo]

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR

[burke]

I finally got around to putting the skin that Micheal sent me on the requinto. What a difference already.

The only problem was that this is the thickest skin I've ever put on! A struggle but I got it. In order to crank it up to match the other two I had to put a nerve racking amount of tension on the hardware and ended up tuning down the other two a couple of notes ... even then I've applied alot of torque to those threads!

But again the sound difference is something else.

Yay L & H Percussion.