10 to 15 minutes in hot water. The heads will go completely limp. Good time to clean them too! It's actually a little creepy, it feels like real living skin when it's wet like that. Seat it on the drum as evenly as you can and put light pressure on it while it dries with the tension rods. LIGHT pressure, don't crank it down, or try to tune it. In about 4 to 6 hours the head will contract and dry in the new position. You can tune it up from there. I did it with two 28" bass drum heads on Big Blue and it worked for me. Good luck.

John

Thanks for the reply, John. I'll give that a go and let you know how I get on. I might do a practice run first with another old calfskin that I have here.

Cheers.

remember to take your snare side head off so it gets air from both sides to dry

Good catch! It's important.

John

OK, damage report! I'm so glad that I did a practice try on a beat up old calf head first.

What happened was the following... Well, first of all, I don't have a sink / basin / container large enough for a 14-ish inch snare head, so, I placed the head ON the sink, just balancing there with the flesh hoops on the edge of the undersized sink. I could have put the head into the sink, but it would only go in at an angel. This way the thing was horizontal at least. I boiled a kettle and poured BOILING water on the underside of the calf head. What happened was amazing! The skin contracted really quickly! The result of that was increased pressure on the flesh hoop which basically exploded. The thing broke into three pieces as the skin shriveled up. It was an interesting experiment. I'm glad it happened because I learned from it. I've very hesitant to try it again. I can't risk destroying the heads that are on this snare because they are made to measure and will cost a bit to replace. I would have to get custom order heads.

I'm guessing boiling water was what did it. I went to the extreme on the test run just to get an idea of what I was dealing with.

So, I'm back for more advise. Help? :)

You were asking for that to happen - they are real skins and thin wood flesh hoops ... not instant noodles :D If you go for a shower you wouldn't pour boiling water over your head or jump into a bath of it. I'm not sure why the suggestion for hot water was made as tepid to cool straight from the tap is fine. No sudden shocks and leave the head face down in a pool of water for at least an hour or two. If you don't have a container big enough (sink, bath tub, shower base?) you could wet a towel and lay it down on that and then pour some lukewarm/cool water on the inside so that it will soak into the skin so the skin will be wet and stretched after some time. It might be good not to submerge the entire drum head as the area around the flesh hoops will take a lot longer to dry out. It depends also on the weather climate you're in - where I am I would expect it to take a few days to dry naturally. You can check it as it dries to make sure it's even on the bearing edge of the drum. It will shrink as it dries and tighten up so tensioning it is done gradually - don't rush it. When dry it should sit properly on the bearing edges. If your bearing edges are fairly sharp you might want to rub a little leather conditioner on the skin where it touches the shell to keep it supple and it adds to the warmth of the tone (only when totally dry).

A few thoughts that might be of some use to you - just give it time to adjust ...

Thanks so much for this. I have the heads sitting down nicely. The collar of the heads has become more uniform and not as deep as they were before. The hoops sit up straight now and are taller.

Very pleased with the results. Cheers!

BOILING WATER!!! No brother, I meant hot -tap water- and the soak is only for minutes. I should have been more specific.

Good save and good advice, Dan.

John

Great! - glad you got it sorted and thanks for the message WalkingWalking