congaplace.com

Wow Mike. That Bongo is immaculate. Beautiful piece. I'm hoping to win that LP Maywood Bongo today. Polish it up and put new skins in it. I won't refinish it though. It's in great condition and I wouldn't want to mess with the Patina it has.

MACHO123 wrote:Wow Mike. That Bongo is immaculate. Beautiful piece. I'm hoping to win that LP Maywood Bongo today. Polish it up and put new skins in it. I won't refinish it though. It's in great condition and I wouldn't want to mess with the Patina it has.

Thanks, you would not believe what it looked like in the refurb process.

See here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7535&p=72486&hilit=mahogany#p72486

Good luck with your bidding on that Maywood beauty!

BTW I could kick myself into the A$$ that I sold my LP Zebrawood bongó a while ago...

Here is another picture now. Need Matt's number.

Juancho, sorry for hijacking your thread.

Well, it appears to be hard to get Matt Smith on the phone:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8667&p=80809&hilit=matt+smith+phone#p80809

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8026&p=76920&hilit=matt+smith+phone#p76920

These are the results the search engine here yielded.

So you might want to shoot Abakua or Conganalu a PM to get his phone number, they seem to have it.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

No problem Mike.......knock yourselves out and thanks.

I know Juancho wants to send his Bongo to MATT. I'd rather not wait a couple years to get them back. So I decided to refinish them on my own as usual. I used steel wool, up to 1000 grit sandpaper and 3 coats of Varathane Spar-urethane with awesome results. They just finished drying in this pic. Now I don't have to worry about the Paper label much. It's under three coats of spar-urethane now.

They still look a little rough, that's because they didn't get rubbed out yet. I usually wait about two weeks before I do that to make sure they're dry and the finish is hard all the wAy thru. I already mounted the new skins then took them off to refinish them. So in two weeks I'll post the true refinished photo with the new skins on as well.

At that time I'll also decide if I'm selling them and post them here first. I most likely will sell this Beauty of an instrament. I want them to be played. Not sit on a shelf to be admired. This Bongo already sat for over 40 years, it's in immaculate condition. It's time she sang for someone's enjoyment. Something for Forum bros like Psych1, Caballoballo, and Mike amongst others to consider.

QUE SIGA LA RUMBA!!!

They look real good as is right now. Now you have to be careful rubbing out
spar varnish because is does not cure as hard as regular varnish, poly or lacquer.
Spar varnish is designed as an outdoor finish for wood meaning that the wood is
going to move quite a bit so this varnish have to be softer to accommodate
the wood movement and to accomplish that they add more oil than regular
varnish. Spar varnish is also known as a "long oil varnish". Also spar varnish is
better at protecting wood from UV rays.

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/article ... r-varnish/

Very nice Finishing job Macho! I see you've changed your mind.
They'll no doubt be standing another forty years from now.
Im personally not partial to glossy, varnish finishes. To me it can, on darker woods especially, detract from and or interfere with the wood grain appearance.
However, they do look fine and dandy and the label is certainly protected under those 3 coats of varnish!

I prefer a satin or semi gloss finish.
I had originally toyed with the idea of stripping my Schalloch, solid Beech wood congas of their Alchohol base Blue tint and lacquer finish and giving them a good soaking of a Linseed oil, wax and Spirits with maybe a drop of Penetrol straight, (non wood kind for boats) solution.
But, I decided against it, it's too much work and I've gotten use to the blue.

By the way, did you ever find out exactly what type of wood that Bongó is. And out of curiosity, what would your LP Bongó be worth at this point, or ( I can here Psych1 now), so, I'll refphrase that to what price will you be asking?
Good luck with the rub down!

Yes Blav, that's why I'm rubbing them out. With the rubout they'll lose a lot of that extra shine that I don't like as well. It looks fake and toyish, if I may. I prefer the semi-gloss finish for Congas as well. I'll post it when it's all put together in about another week. I spoke to a friend of mine, Robert Felcher, from California, he has the same exact one. He says it's Walnut. Now as far as a price is concerned, I'm not sure what they'd be worth to someone else but, when you take into consideration what other vintage Bongos like these fetch, I'd say no less than $600. You have to consider a few things;

-It's a VERY rare set from Maywood NJ
-They're in IMMACULATE condition down to the paper label being fully intact with all four corners. That's very important because it shows the bongo was hardly played in 50 years. With vintage baseball cards or comic books this is very important when putting a price on them.
-Has the original Kip hide skins although just one is intact.

I saw a Gon Bops Bongo from the 80's, "new" in the box go for almost $900 on ebay last year. I'm not looking to get rich with these Bongos. I want them to be played. So if I recover what I paid for them plus the price of the new skins and the labor I put into them they'd sell for about $750. I think the Bongo is worth that or more. If not I'll keep them, no big deal.

OK Macho123,
All points well taken, Thanks!

How do you clean up the lp logo

They look like Mike's LP when he sanded his....so are my LP
Mahogany?

juancho wrote:They look like Mike's LP when he sanded his....so are my LP
Mahogany?

Yes, looks like mahogany.
And personally I would take the LP labels off.

LP Zebra 1967 original center piece for the era and original LP issued Cuban bottoms. Raros y deseables con cojones!