My Sonor Teardrop restauration project
This is how I found the set: no wrap, glue residues on the shells, holes drilled and lugs missing. As you can see, the lugs on the small tom and bass differ from the ones on the large tom, which is I think is about 10 years younger (from the sixties)
After stripping the hardware and a lot of work with sandpaper, the dinosaur looked like this. Very thin beech shells with re-enforcementrings. After repairing the holes with beech triplex wood plugs the shells seemed to be in good condition. The stamp inside says 306, so I assume the buildingdate of this tom is june 1953, a couple of months older than myself..
I could not decide what wrap to put on the set, got many samples from all over the world in all the colors, sparkles and glitters you can imagine, but nothing came close to the originals I saw in the catalogues I found on the Sonormuseum. In one of the topics I saw some pics of a teardropset in rosewood. Awsum. So I decided to go for that veneer and found it in Amsterdam. I glued it on the drums with Pvac wood glue (the white stuff) and an iron. The missing hardware I scored on Ebay. The lugs of the small tom were very bad. I couldn't get enough of the old 50ties type, so I got "real" teardroplugs from the sixties. A pity, but you can't have 'm all.
The Result
At the left you see my Sonor Phonic Genuine Rosewood 14x6.5 snare. The rosewood is much lighter. I'm still looking for a white reso head with original logo, but this "modern" black one will do for now.
I am very happy with the result. Still have to mount the sonorbadges. The snare is not a Sonor, but a Ludwig Supraphonic from 1966.
The set sounds great. Really vintage. I have Remo ambassador coated on top and clears at the resoside of the toms and snare.
The veneer
