Drum Wrap finishing

WezV · October 2023

One of my planned builds will be heavily Gretsch inspired, and as part of that I am looking into Drum wrap finishing for a proper Sparkle Jet finish.

Given the price of proper Delmar wrap I decided to try some cheaper celluloid drum wrap first, just to get an idea how it works. I got some white pearloid from Aliexpress

First step is to try that on an existing guitar. This will be trickier as I'm working around a neck and existing routes. The actual build will likely have the wrap applied before routing.

First step, find a carved top guitar - my old Epiphone will do

Mark out the wrap

and cut to shape with scissors

Next I use heat gun to gently coax it into the shape of the carve - its mostly there. Obviously with celluloid I need to be careful not to overheat, so i'm going very slowly

And that is all for now - i need to see how best to glue it down

This white pearl is pretty nasty looking but might look good with a grey sprayed over it - If I get some Delmar it will likely be silver or champagne sparkle

Winny_Pooh · October 2023

Ah I love those duo jets. Black pearl would look beautiful too. How thick is wrap generally?

IMO the crucial tonal thing with duo jets is the archtop base and high fingerboard clearance. It adds a bit more of a short acoustic decay and also means you can use a non tension bar bigsby.

WezV · October 2023

its 0.5mm thick

Kittyfrisk · October 2023

Interesting experiment, looking good.
Very Godin Radiator vibe too

davros · October 2023

Wierd, after picking up a silver sparkle duo jet at the weekend, I was contemplating using a drum wrap on my next build and was going to post a thread with questions - I can watch this one now!

I was thinking of binding to neaten up the edge and a vaccuum bag to hold it down while gluing, but interested to see how you approach this.

WezV · October 2023

davros said:

I was thinking of binding to neaten up the edge and a vaccuum bag to hold it down while gluing, but interested to see how you approach this.

both of those are good ideas.

So far, as proof of concept I am happy. I might stick with a subtle carve on the build as it will be easier to form the material to it, but a vacuum bag would certainly help with that. A flat top build would be really easy, but i like the way the carves look with the material

I've got some puckered edges on this attempt, but I think I can avoid it

slacker · October 2023

I have a mother of toilet seat sparkle jet. That lp looks really cool.

NicoAdie · October 2023

Looks very cool!

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Drum Wrap finishing

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