Good luck with that, I wouldn`t do it, I`d go to a small Foundry !! Not only will you have the porosity factor but copper will start to burn off waiting for the tin to melt and your mixture will change if you don`t add copper while melting. You gotta know those percentages and figures, if not leave it to the pro`s !!

Of course but the drum was described as bell brass, not bronze.-----as for a difference between cast and sheet material-------just as you describe, casting presents difficulties; air pockets, impurities,shear points,uneven crystal structure,uneven density but sheet material,of each alloy would be made to specification and so would be free of most of those pitfalls.------the real issue is the thickness of the shell. The difference in a 3mm shell out of cast bronze or sheet brass(or maybe even bronze),might be more like the difference between a 602 and an A. It,s not really the same as comparing a thin brass shell with a thick cast shell.

As I recall with the earlier Bell Brass drums, and probably true for this one as well, is that the shell is formed at a much thicker wall and then machined down to 3mm. Again, there's allot of labor involved each step of the way. One wrong slip and you've ruined the shell. It's simple economics to realize that the price goes up when you don't produce as many items.

While this drum certainly isn't for me, I've no doubt that there are those with the $$$ to spend who might acquire this just because there weren't as many produced.

I still kick myself for not buying the used one for $400 when I had the chance... DOH

Yep... we've all been there! Hope you're not black and blue from all the kicking!

I am curious. What the hell is Bell Brass? Bells are made out of bronze. The only brass bells I have ever come across were the little dingly ones attached to horses on sleighrides or sitting on night tables for the terminally ill to ring up the nurse. A 2500 snare drum made out of tinkerbell material?

^^^ Not at all CS. Bell brass if often confused and interchanged with the term bell bronze. The Tama snares are bronze as are the Sonors, Ocheltrees, cast DWs, Noble & Cooley Zildjians, etc.... The easy way to tell is by weight...

so, there are brass shelled snares out there with 1/8" shells and bronze shelled snares out there with 1/8" shells and that can be determined easily by the weight difference?

so, which is heavier?

I don't know of any 1/8" thick brass shells. The brass shells I know of are rolled and thinner.

It's hard to determine correctly in theory, because density of these metals have a wide range dependent from difference alloy's % ingredients:

---bronze - 7,40 to 9,10;

---brass - 8,20 to 8,80;

---copper - 8,60 to 8,96.

If we take any approximate value, then all of densities can be about 8,6... :)

George