Drum Restoration - How to strip chrome from hoops?

[skinslapper]

HMMMM that's a bummer .I did one gold lp confort curve with steel wool .
The chroom flew of ,i was done i one hour !

[rhythmrhyme]

Great information guys.

I'm a carcinogen phobic type, so I'll probably go the sandblasting route. It spooks me a bit to think about what would off-gas from the chrome.

I found a do it yourself basting place!! Happy about that for sure, it will come in handy for other projects as well. They want $1 per minute to do it yourself and $1.37 a minute to do it for you. I think I'll take one apart (the requinto) and go do it. If it's not too much work, and doesn't take me too long, it will probably inspire me to disassemble the other drums and do them.

Skinslapper - I have 3 choices for blast material at the shop - sand, glass bead and walnut shells. I'm thinking to just hit them with the sand.... if the crowns are too rough I can probably hit them with some 300 grit metal sandpaper when I bring them back home. What do you think? Here's a link to the shop: http://www.blastityourself.ca/how_it_works.html

RR

[skinslapper]

Hallo RR
I would ask them .it's there buissnes so i think the know !
Would really like to see the result though . good luck

[rhythmrhyme]

So, I decided to take a run at this set of bongo's I've had sitting on my shelf for way too long.

Going to sand blast off the gold and probably glass bead off the finish and expect I'll need to sand it down after that to get past the stain. A small start, we'll see where it gets to.

I remember getting a "good deal" on these drums back around 1997 as they had gone out on a rental for a latin show prior. they came with a great stand that is still functional - but man, what was with the 90's! Green on gold... the hembra on this drum actually sounds great, deep and thumpy, but I haven't gotten the macho figured out yet and am not real happy with the skin on it, but didn't feel that investing in another head would be worth it. In addition to being totally fugly, the drums are also quite heavy. I could probably use the same hooks and put traditional crowns on them - I'm sure those "comfort curve" crowns account for a lot of the weight.

EDIT: Talked to the sand blasting shop, they don't have the right system to blast off chrome. The guy said they have a reverse pressure cabinet, rather than a pressurized delivery, and that their cabinets don't have enough power to blast off chrome.... shitty. So, back to the drawing board, I may need to go with the local chrome shop after all.

[skinslapper]

RR try steel wool .It gave me good results .Try it first on the inside .
Good luck