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Posted: **Tue Jun 15, 2010 6:29 pm**

Just picked up a pair, I'm pretty sure they're walnut, wood is kind of a light brown, besides these two woods anybody know of any other woods used on the palisades park LP'? (and the zebra of course). I'll post some pics after I take them apart tonight to put the new skins on.

Lot's of external nicks, but they should clean up pretty easily

Inside shot, nice looking wood!

From the park baby!

My first set of Latin Percussion instruments, bought these in 1985 for my 17th birthday when I first started playing drums, 7 or 8 drumsets later, 7 to 10 sets of congas , multiple cymbals,probably 50 different snare drums but I still have these! They had the garfield badge, probably some early thai siam oak drums, aged they sound great!

Just bought these ld fiberglass drums recently, they too have the garfiled badge but were definitely made in Thailand, got em cheap, 80 bones, but I'll probably sell them as soon as I get the mahoganies up and running. Definitelya bright , heavy duty set of bongosis.

A little off topic, but since I'm still waiting on these from Matt I figured i'd post them, he says he got them all sanded down and thinks they're cedar Ths Sonoc bata I have in the back are definitely Cedar.

PC

Posted: **Tue Jun 15, 2010 8:39 pm**

Good pickup - my favorite bongos. I believe, in most cases, the light brown ones are mahogany and the darker ones are walnut - some may have been stained. Pretty sure some were made in red oak as well.

Posted: **Wed Jun 16, 2010 1:40 am**

Awesome! Looks like i got a set of mahoganies then, I'll post some pics ASAP.

Posted: **Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:09 am**

They are mahogany. I have a set just like that. Enjoy your project is always good to restore them Classic LP bongos.

Posted: **Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:01 pm**

Done, little bit of lemon Oil on the wood, new LH skins , these Bongos sound INCREDIBLE!

PC

Posted: **Sun Jun 20, 2010 8:26 am**

Beautiful, I can hear them sing

You have got a very nice bongó now!
I am very happy with my Palisades Park mahogany set too,
the wood is slightly darker though - not after sanding,
but after applying a few layers of lacquer.

Posted: **Sun Jun 20, 2010 10:11 am**

Great score.
Impeccable.....

Posted: **Sun Jun 20, 2010 4:55 pm**

Mike wrote:Beautiful, I can hear them sing
You have got a very nice bongó now!
I am very happy with my Palisades Park mahogany set too,
the wood is slightly darker though - not after sanding,
but after applying a few layers of lacquer.

Mike if you left the bongos out in the sun while the lacquer
was drying that would help the mahogany get darker. Real
mahogany and I do not know about (Luan) gets darker with
time and sunshine.

Posted: **Sun Jun 20, 2010 5:46 pm**

Well, dark is relative, I did not expose them to dry in the immediate sun when
I did the resto job last summer. This is what the wood looked like after sanding:

You can see that the shells have developed a somewhat darker color from here:

to there:

But then, one photo is a shot inside with flash, the last one in the shadow outside,
so I would say it is difficult to tell. Plus there is of course a natural variety in mahogany wood too. This is a more recent shot on a cloudy day, time after time the wood has become darker indeed:

EDIT: Anyway, the OP´s set is really in incredible shape, considered its age. I had a major struggle reassembling the hembra staves. :twisted:

Posted: **Sun Jun 20, 2010 6:28 pm**

Beautiful job! I didn't go that far with mine, just slapped some lemon oil on them to cover up the nicks and put new heads. They did darken a bit with the oil though. Anyways, definitely a great sounding bongo, it's too bad martin Cohen didn't see fit to make congas out of mahogany, they would definitely have been some nice tubs!
PC

Posted: **Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:42 am**

Mike wrote:Well, dark is relative, I did not expose them to dry in the immediate sun when
I did the resto job last summer. This is what the wood looked like after sanding:
sanded macho.JPG

You can see that the shells have developed a somewhat darker color from here:
both shells lacquered.JPG

to there:
mahogany shells finished.JPG

But then, one photo is a shot inside with flash, the last one in the shadow outside,
so I would say it is difficult to tell. Plus there is of course a natural variety in mahogany wood too. This is a more recent shot on a cloudy day, time after time the wood has become darker indeed:
P1060871.JPG

EDIT: Anyway, the OP´s set is really in incredible shape, considered its age. I had a major struggle reassembling the hembra staves.

Mike,
Your set is awesome, excellent work. I just finished re-refinishing my mahogany LP set. Last year I refinished them with varnish. I was playing the set the other day and decided to redo the finish I made a couple of minor mistakes. So this time I went with a little bit of dye stain to get a more uniform background color, some stave were lighter in color than others. For the top coat I went with lacquer. After the lacquer cures I may give them a light sanding with .ooo synthetic wool pad and then use Johnson and Johson wax for a satin finish or car finish rubbing compound and then car wax polish for a gloss finish. Will see how motivated I feel. I am pretty much done with my drums for this summer now I have to tackle some vintage Schiwnn and Raleigh road bikes.

Posted: **Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:00 am**

That is a phenomenal restoration job MIke!

Posted: **Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:39 am**

Thanks for the kind words, Ritmoboricua and BnB.

RitmoBoricua wrote:[color=#808000][size=150]So this time I went with a little bit of dye stain to get a more uniform background color, some stave were lighter in color than others.

It is interesting that you prefer the staves to have a uniform background color.
Personally I do like the natural deviations in wood tones.

And I also love to restore old bikes - they also have a story of their own, just like vintage drums.
It is definitely worth the time and effort to bring those precious things back to life.

Posted: **Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:09 pm**

Mike wrote:It is interesting that you prefer the staves to have a uniform background color.
Personally I do like the natural deviations in wood tones.

And I also love to restore old bikes - they also have a story of their own, just like vintage drums.
It is definitely worth the time and effort to bring those precious things back to life.

I used just a little bit of dye stain and I wiped-off what the wood did not absorbed after about 5 minutes. I did not want to change the character of that aged mahogany too much. They do not look much different than yours. My set has couple of dings in the wood and last year I had to re-glue some staves. I probably should have used a pigmented stain to mask some of the dings but I did not want to obscure the mahogany grain. I think I am going with Johnson/Johnson wax for a satin sheen. Lots of fun restoring things

Posted: **Mon Jun 21, 2010 2:02 pm**

Through the years I have had a number of original LP Palisades Park bongos. I have sold or traded most of them on account that I moved on to Junior Tirado, SOS and JCR bongos. A few years ago I came to the realization that the original LP bongo from the early 70's made by LP, when the operation was in New Jersey, is an exceptionally great sounding bongo. Just recently, I have acquired two Palisades Park early 70's bongos, one a Zebra wood from 1967 and the other a walnut 1971. The most impressive feature being that they both had LP issued Cuban bottoms. Sinced then I have sold the walnut 1971, which has an awesome sound projection and I have kept the Zebra wood, which I think will be inherited by my grandson, whenever my daughter decides to have kids. Here are photos of them.
Zebra wood Palisades Park circa 1967 and Palisades Park walnut 1971.

Dario

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palisades park walnut or mahogany?

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