Welcome!

Put one hoop on the floor, put the head in it, put the shell on top, line up the threaded "receiver" claws under the hoop on the floor with the "guide pegs" on the shell [they're definitely not called that :)]. Then put the remaining hoop and head on the top of the shell, run the rods through guides, and into the receiver claws.

You might run into the situation of the rods needing to "bow" through the guides, as in being bowed in toward the shell. So when the end of the rod reaches the receiver claw, it's off-center to the hole by about it's own width. You just gotta bend it up and into the threaded claw, making sure not to cross-thread it. Cross-threading will present as suspiciously stubborn continuous resistance to tightening of the rod.

Hope that helps - I find it hard to articulate this stuff sometimes...

Mitch

That's about as well as anybody can describe it, Mitch!

John

Thanks John! I forgot to address this though -

Whichever rod you put in first, the one opposite it should go in next. Then do the same, perpendicular to the line between the first two rods, &etc...not sure of the term for this but it prevents lop-sided tensioning.

Mitch

Welcome to the forum.

I use a speed square on the hoop. Tad bit of tension and then can slide rods/claws to position. Also a handy tool to check that the tension rods are straight. Before you strip the lug insert/receiving claw. :-)

Creighton

Thank you so much...

what if the head is kind of stiff (new) and its is hard to get the claw to meet the tension rod?

Here is a photo of the drum :)

Wow that is a nice drum!

By "meet" do you mean reach? As in the rods are no longer long enough to span the width of the drum, because the new head has a shallower collar than the old one, so that the hoop doesn't slide down onto the shell as far?

I would expect there to be enough extra length on the rods to accommodate different head-collar depths, however the drum was manufactured while calfskin was in use, so maybe not.

If you have actually run into this problem, the only solutions I can think of are either using a calfskin head with a deep enough collar, or replacing the rods with longer ones. Okay that second option kinda stinks...:)

Mitch