When I bought this snare, it had a lot of history. It had been re-wrapped and had damage from a lot of holes. At some stage in the past, someone had even put the snare on the batter side of the drum (!). It has the solid maple shell so judging from it's age, I think it is probably a 61-63 RK. Although it sounded great, I just wasn't happy with the state of the drum. For one thing, the throw was on the wrong side and the inside of the shell had been scratched and graffiti-ed - it was a mess. I didn't mind the choice of Rapid strainer - it was a players drum but I did want to see some dignity restored to it - if that sounds strange, well I guess it is. When I set about figuring out how I could move the throw back to the correct side I found more holes with even a metal washer epoxied into the shell as filler. So I had no choice but to dremel them out, cut a clean hole and then sand down a piece of rock maple to fit. Then I filled the interior gouging with a hi-quality cellulose filler and painted it with tan paint - close as I could get to the Slingerland tan. Now that it's finished, I love playing it and looking at it. One day I hope to own an original RK but I wouldn't sell this one to do it . . .

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