A detailed shot of the strainer,...

Beautiful old drum. Buy a set of washers and put them between the shell and all the internal fasteners. Bothers me to see screws and nuts up against the wood without a washer in between. With all the pressure applied to snare drum hardware/parts, washers are a necessity.

Enjoy, nice one, man...

John

Thanks for your input John,...

It looks like the set never had them installed but I must say that it crossed my mind to use washers. The inner ply of the shell is soft birch so the screws are about 2mm imbedded in the wood.

I believe I have some spare Premier washers somewhere.

Any thoughts on how to treat the bare metal parts.(oil, silicone, varnish,..??)

Use any good chrome polish. The parts will turn out as nice as they can be. For those single-point-mount lugs, I'd use the widest washers I can find. It's a major pressure point(s) on the shell. Wider washers will distribute the stress over a larger area and the screw heads won't tend to eat/pop through the shell from tension.

Again, really cool drum. Those six-luggers can sound really nice when you find a good one.

Enjoy,

John

Ok, a little update on the project.

The snare is all done.

Most challenging was tucking the calf heads. I had never done it but after a few attempts, it went quite OK. The shell size is 12 1/2 inch and I want to keep the original look and feel so calf was the way to go I guess.

The strainer still needs some work as it will not stay in its active position.

The sound is nice but still sound a bit "boxy". Once the heads are fully dried up and settled in, I will crank it up a bit.

I'd love to find 13" 12 strand wires in stead of the ones I have installed now. Somebody knows where to get those?

I took John's advice and installed the washers.

Up next is the floor tom,...I'll keep you posted.

that drum is gorgeous, I love the wrap.

Nicely done!

But I was thinking about the internal washers... Since the shell is so soft inside and we are talking about a single point mount, I would like to offer a slightly different approach- have some scrap shell pieces cut and replace the existing screws with longer ones (and washers) but go through the piece of shell on the inside to spread the load. I know it may affect the tone but bear with me:

If you put washers on there, and tension it up, the washers will also embed into the shell, making a 'halo' mark around the original screws if you were to ever go back to original, washer-less condition. This is just an opinion, and I think it is far better to see it being played and enjoyed, but I thought I'd throw that out there...

Also, if you wanted modern heads, I believe Remo will make heads in any size if you wanted to see how it is with Ambassadors on it for example.

Puresound offers 13" 12-strand snares too.

Really sharp looking drum regardless of age, but particularly because of it!

If you can't find 13" snare wires for your drum of even if you find them and they're too long I'd custom make them by loosening the wires at the plate (using a soldering iron) at one end cut them in size and resolder the wires back to the plate and mount them on the snaredrum. and voila, custom made 12 1/2" snare wires.

anyhow, you have a very nice snare drum. congrats.

Thanks for the good tips fellas,

I'm hopeless with the soldering iron so I guess I better start practicing.

I thought about maybe cutting a 20 strand model on both sides into a 12. In other words, cut off the plates and 4 wires on each side. Just a thought,...

J!m,... below you'll find a close up of the washers I used on the interior.

Your suggestion to use longer screws will not work as the lugs are not screwed on from the back. You push through the lug and tighten with a nut.

The washer will leave a mark but no other option I guess.

Meantime, also the tom is all cleaned up.

It's a bit of a strange beast, a boxed up drum.

I took a shot from the interior to show how it's done.

I've been in contact with a Belgian Marius Renatus collector, he told me he has a couple of sets from the 30's and 40's and all his toms are closed at the bottom.

The sound isn't to bad but it isn't very loud and sounds rather muted.

I guess in the days without amplifiers, it wouldn't have been to much of a problem.

This set came with a tom-basket but the person told me that the bracket on the back was factory installed as an option to mount it on the BD hoop.

Over the weekend I'm tucking 2 calf heads for the 26" bass drum.

I'll keep you posted.