Keeping Your Drums Safe & Clean To Teach With

Here’s our guide of how to clean your drum kit and get it ready for Covid free lessons with students or teachers. First of all lets talk about dismantling your drum kit. Taking apart the drum kit every once in a while is essential. You’ll be surprised at how much dirt, dust and grime builds up in places you would not expect, so giving your entire rig a service is highly recommended. Use antibacterial products wherever possible.

Cleaning the drum shell itself is very important as it gets rid of all the dust and bits of chewed up drum stick from under the hoops and the bearing edge. This allows the drum head to sit properly on the shell, tune up evenly.

First off, take off the hoops and heads making sure you put the tension rods to one side and keep them safe. Next, take the lugs off and again, keep them safe, making sure that all of the screws and parts stay in place. Spray on the antibacterial shell cleaner, work in with a microfiber cloth and remove with a clean polishing cloth. Pop the hardware back on the shell and put a tiny drop of Tune Up Oil on the bottom of each tension rod. Once you’ve replaced the drum heads, pop the hoops back on and finger tighten the tension rods working on opposite rods.

Replacing your drum heads will make the most significant difference to your drum sound. We recommend that you have a deep clean and replace your batter heads every 6 – 9 months or if they’re dented. We advise never to reuse worn or old heads, as once they’ve ‘seated’ and they’ve been put under tension, stretched out and are much harder to tune.

Cleaning cymbals is always a source of debate between drummers. Whether you polish yours to a mirror shine or not, you should always wipe them down after playing with antibacterial spray or wipes. This will remove any sweat, water or anything else that can corrode your cymbals and make them Covid-19 free.

There are 3 main types of cymbal finish – Brilliant, Raw and Natural and only Brilliant cymbals should have cymbal polish used on it. To polish Brilliant finish cymbals we always recommend using a purpose made antibacterial cymbal cleaner. There are many ‘hacks’ out there using household items like ketchup and lemon juice, but these can contribute to corrosion and damage your gear in the long run and don’t offer covid protection!

Cleaning the hardware is often the part that gets left out when it comes to cleaning, but is in fact is the most important part in cleaning your drum kit. It holds everything together and is essentially the backbone of the kit. Mostly the hardware will just need a quick wipe with an antibacterial spray or wipe before putting it back in its case, but if it’s really dirty cleaning with a non-abrasive antibacterial cleaner will get it looking brand new in no time. Finally, before putting it all away always ensure all wingnuts, bolts, tension rods and tilters are moving freely. If anything does feel a little seized up, antibacterial fine oil will soon get it moving properly.

Once you’ve finished giving everything a good clean, just reassemble it all and tune the drums up. It really is that simple, but just cleaning your drum kit every so often will keep your pride and joy in showroom condition safe to teach with and sounding like it’s straight out of a top recording studio.