Hey Brian, I have a nice snare drum I made out of koa wood. Made the whole thing from scratch!

I.E. Made all the veneers and glued them all up. (easier said than done!) Got all the hardware from drummaker.com.

For the finish I started with DEFT brush on sanding sealer. About 3-4 coats. Then used some DEFT satin spray lacquer over that. I lost track of how many coats it took till all the pores were filled in, but I’d say approximately 9-10, sanding between every coat back to bare wood.

A guitar builder friend told me you want as thin a final coat as possible (for guitars anyway, but figured the same idea would apply for a drum) because too thick a finish will deaden the tone.

I sanded up to 1,200 grit, then used some “Meguiar’s scratch X2.0″ fine scratch and blemish remover (get at auto parts store) for the final buffing. NICE! The photo doesn’t really do it justice!
Aloha from Maui!
Eric House

Koa Wood Snare Drum (Custom)