Anybody know what the manufacturing methods would be for making a “No Seam” metal shell?

As I understand it, they have to be be spun from a single piece of sheet metal. Check out the little video here: Hialeah Metal Spinning. Another less common method, usually reserved for thicker shells, is to pour molten metal into a mold and then lathe it down to spec. The Zildjian / Noble & Cooley collaboration comes to mind.Anyone aware of other methods? -Lee

Lee, the paiste spirit of 2002 snare drums, I think ?? hey out of your vintage snare drums which is your fav??

Yeah, good call on the Paistes.Favorites? For playing, it's my late '20s Ludwig NOB 4" x 14" - just like your new baby but an inch shallower and with the 'timepiece' throw-off. It's just a stellar drum. They just don't make them like they used to!For staring at on the shelf, it's close between my 30s Black Beauty and my Stone Master-Models. I have a soft spot for those... -Lee

Thanks perclee and vintagemore2000 - for pointing me in the right direction, and shedding some light on this! Now does anybody know how, and at what point in the process, that they would produce the bearing edge? All with out wrinkling or splitting.With both the spun and cast methods, it seems to me that the double fold (or is the word flange) of the bearing edge on those drums must come after the spinning or the lathing (cast). With what little I know about metal working, it seems like “magic” to me that for spun shells they would start with a sheet that was round with a hole in the middle and eventually stretch that hole to the same size as the outer circumference so a shell was produced with the same size all the way around. It seems to me that that stretching would make the metal thinner on one side of the shell, and the shell would remain thicker on the side that wasn’t stretched. I’m guessing that the shell would then be lathed down so the thickness would match the new thinner side of the shell so it was uniform across and around the whole shell. Now they would have to put the double “folded” bearing edge on both sides and it seems that there could be a wrinkling as they folded the shell edge inward and a stretching (or possible splitting) as the second fold was bent back towards the shell (Sorry, my thoughts may not be very clear in my writing here. I hope you get my meaning.). This bearing edge again seems like metal working “magic” to me as the shell edge somehow accommodates the bending in and then out essentially getting a smaller circumference and then a larger circumference, all without wrinkling on the way in and splitting on the way out to achieve a 45 degree?? angled (a triangle < , if you could see it from the end in a cut away view. Look at the old Ludwig snare catalogs to see a cut away view.) bearing edge like the one on my old NOB Ludwig 8 lugger.Casting, if they were thick shells that didn’t need folding, could be easier to just lathe a 45 degree angle on the edge (like routing a bearing edge on a wood shell), but if it was a thin shell like most are then folding would have to be done. So how do they do this? I know they do it somehow, but like “magic”, to me it doesn’t seem simple until I know the trick.Thanks for helping me get a better understanding of this type of drum manufacturing!Bowing

This is the 5x14" Ludwig professional snare drum, it is 10 tube lugs,spun brass shell,the entire drum is brass except the tension rods,it weighs 10 pounds, the restoration took from 2/4/10-2/6/10 i went psycho must complete project on it, i used simichrome metal polish, groove juice, and very very very fine steel wool you can't buy it,, i used the groove juice to remove the corrosion and dirt, and the metal polish on the shell inside and out, and the steel wool and a lot of elbow grease, it has all original parts now except the heads and now snare wire not the original gut snares, it is a very cool sounding drum! I would very much like to thank Tom, for the drum , tomary127