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thebeebe5
DFO Master
This one started life as a KB Supra, and at one point in its life it had sunk all the way down to being a stripped shell covered in black amplifier tolex which had been adhered with contact cement. At least that is how I found it probably 6 years ago.... It was sad indeed. The tolex had been ripped off and the bare shell offered up on CL which is where I saw it. Think I paid $30 for the carcass. The remaining chrome was so heavily pitted and flaked away that more oxidized aluminum was visible than chrome. I considered different approaches that ended with my taking it to a chrome shop to have it electronically stripped of remaining chrome. After, I brought it to a shop to have the shell polished. And it hung out on the shelf for years... waiting.
Rick @KCDrumDad mentioned he had piles of loose hardware, and as I wanted this to be a ultra low budget resto I asked what he might have for it. He provided a BB bat muffler and 11 black chrome tube lugs with tension rods. I filed those away a couple of years ago and just kind of forgot about it until recently and I started tracking down more parts. Recently I found some nice DW hoops locally for cheap. I’d picked up a cheap broken P-86 at Chicago in 2015. Was missing a lower brass bushing and pivot screw.
Last weekend Rick brought me a butt end and I had everything I needed. I repolished the shell (by hand, just to make it nice), bought lug mounting screws and turned spacers at my pal’s machine shop, and made some bushings on the lathe as well to fix the P-86. Screws were 4-40 and readily available at a local hardware store.
The lugs were black chrome which I wasn't too fond of, so I figured maybe I could buff the top plating off and expose the brass base metal. As it turned out on 8 of the 11 lugs buffing off the chrome left a copper plated layer intact. I liked that fine and left it. Two other lugs had a fairly thick nickel plate under the black chrome, but with effort that buffed off as well and left copper behind. I chased the threads and got a load of corrosion and goop out. I polished the black chrome off the t-rods as well. They threaded nicely after a thread chasing.
Here’s more of the final result. Still not sure what to call it though....
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