Vintage Corner: Slingerland drum UPDATE

 Last summer I was gifted with an old Slingerland marching snare drum that was in need of a lot of love in order to make playable again.
Because of the gouging and scartches in the wood, I decided to make it a player instead of attempting a museum-quality restoration.

Wth my eye surgeries, the High Holy Days and other details delaying the process, my brother-in-love showed me his progress on repairing the big crack in the snare-side hoop. I took pictures last night at his place. The hoop will need a few more days to dry and set up, and then he'll drill tiny holes and make dowels using bits of bicycle spoke I gave him.

Here's the plan: after the wood has thoroughly dried, Ron will leave the clamp in place and set it very carefully in his drill press, where he will drill 2 to 3 holes lengthwise, top to bottom of the hoop edges. Then he'll cut down some "dowels" made of bits of bicycle spoke (stainless steel), insert them in the holes, and perhaps add some kind of epoxy as he inserts them. (Since they're not wood, they won't expand so some kind of glue will be needed to hold them in place.)
When they're dry, the edges of the spoke bits can be carefully filed flush with the top and bottom of the hoop; or he can choose to cut them a little short so the ends will be counter-sunk and then he can fill with wood putty.
Either way, the idea is that these tiny dowels, stronger than the wood, will help keep the hoop in place and prevent further cracking. The hoops are maple, a very dense and brittle hardwood.
The tuning of this drum will NOT be super high-tension, so the hoop should be able to withstand the forces of tuning and maintain its shape for a long time to come.

Here's a couple of pictures of where things stand at present.

This weekend, I'll begin cleaning up the chrome hardware rods and hooks.
I hope to have this ready to play again before the New Year

Day one: Slingerland redux

After fixing up the four concert snare drums for my friend, I turned to the drum he gave me.

I'm offering a photo dump of each step of the process.

The badge, and the lack of date-stamnping on the inside of the shell -- helped me determine that this drum was likely made in the early 1970's. I will spend some time trying to date it more accurately using the serial number, but drum companies often used new serial numbers on older drums during transitional periods of manufacture. I'll see what I can find out.

After removing the lugs and taking off the wood hoops, you can see that there was a LOT of dust, which looked and felt like fine, dried mud -- my friend said this drum might have been to Burning Man.
I wiped down everything with a damp cloth to get the worst of the dirt off, and to get a closer look.

Underneath the dirt, the Mahoghany ply shell shows some gouges and scuffs, enough that I'll elect to clean and sand lightly, rather than attempt a full restoration. I like the patina, anyway; and there's no need to remove it all.

The maple hoops are another story. They get the brunt of the abuse on a drum this old, and show compression from the lug clamps and some cracking on the lower hoop at the snare cutouts. Maple is a more brittle wood, and can easily crack under strain. I am hoping that because the cracks are partial, I can figure out how to repair them. I'm envisioning gently and carefully clamping the cracked pieces back into alignment, ideally in a bench vise, then drilling small holes, carefully installing wooden dowels and glue, clamping all that in place and letting dry. I'll talk to some woodworking friends to see what they suggest, as the cracks aren't all the way through and I'd like to save the original hoops if I can. (Plus, new wooden hoops are not cheap.)

This wood already glows a little after an initial wipe-off of dirt. Once it's cleaned more and then waxed, it will positively shimmer!

The worst of the gouging and scuffing appears at the part of the shell most likely to have been scuffed, by a belt buckle or jeans waistline button.

This right here is a big part of why I won't try for a restoration, but simply make this a player again.
Even sanded out, there will be a depression that can't be filled attractively with wood putty.

Attempting anything with wood inlay or parquetry is way above my abilities.
And as I said, I actually like that the drum shows signs of honest wear from use.

The metal hardware, chrome-plated and very simple, should clean up nicely with a good wipedown and an application of some Quik-Glo.

Stay tuned. I'll take photos at each step of the rebuild and share them here.

Happy drumming!

the ritual: taping up new sticks, and more

It's early summer, and the beginning of the marching season for so many of us.
Whether you march with an uber-modern DCI corps or your community band, summer is the time to play outside!
And so I've been readying myself and my gear.

1.  The heads that came with my Ludwig drum were, along with the snare hardware, pretty beat. The snare-side head had a hole almost as big as my pinky finger. It wasn't too close to the edge of the shell or I would've replaced it sooner. Still, when I noticed a split forming in the batter head -- a CS black dot that was almost as old as the drum -- I decided to bite the bullet and replace both heads.

2. While I was at it, the original strainer mechanism was beginning to fall apart. The tensioning screws for each individual snare had fallen out, and a few snares were missing. The remainder were showing a little surface rust. So after pondering my options, I replaced the entire thing with something simple and more modern (Gibraltar, for all its plainness, sells excellent, serviceable parts that stand up well to daily use). After all, this was never going to be a showpiece. I bought it as a player and the random scratches in the finish never bothered me. I got some trade-in on the parts at Revival, and the new hardware went on fairly easily. I only had to drill new holes for the butt plate.

3. I finally managed to re-shape the steel leg rest I'd scored, so that it would fit my older, larger thigh. (Don't blame that on weight-gain; my quads are a lot bigger now from all that cycling then they were when I was fourteen, and the platform had to be spread a little.)

 Early 1970s Ludwig 10 x 14" marching snare, with angle bar and new heads and strainer.

 With only eight lugs, there is no point in putting a super-high-tension head on this drum. It was meant to have Mylar heads and that's what it's got. I opted for the Power Stroke, which is what my marching snare drum had my senior year of high school. A tad later than the drum, but it sounds crisp and clean.

Mylar heads are tuned lower, meaning that the player has to do a little of the rebound work themselves. But if you tune the batter head a little high than the snare head, you'll get a crisp, dark sound that those of us of a certain age still know and love.

4. Next up: Sticks. After trying several different makes and models, I finally took my friend Mary's advice and went with the Vic Firth Jeff Queen signature model. Although Jeff designed it as a "solo" stick, honestly it's a fine ensemble stick, especially for smaller hands and for use on Mylar heads. With my arthritis, it's the stick I've kept coming back to. So when I pulled out my sticks after my last band practice and saw the telltale ridge (see photos), I knew it was time to buy new sticks and wrap them in fresh tape.

The ritual used to go like this: I'd go to the music shop, spend about half an hour finding two sticks of the same model that matched in pitch (in those days I'd settle for 1/4 to 1/2-step apart if I had to); then begging the shop owner for a quantity break on 4 pairs (he almost always said no, unless he'd just smoked a bowl), and then taking them home and setting out the stuff I'd need to wrap each pair in a fresh layer of white electrical tape. In high school, this would be trimmed in thin stripes of royal blue tape at both ends to make the sticks match our school colors. (In corps we didn't bother with trim, because the snare line went through sticks too quickly on tour. I swear, sometimes they'd tape up new show sticks every two to three days.)

This is something of a tiny ritual for me, and taping up new sticks always takes me back to my teen years as a marching member, in a sweet way.

I'm mostly packed for Honk! weekend, and looking forward to a great time playing live in the streets of South Seattle this weekend. I'm playing with the Unpresidented Brass Band. If you read this blog and come to the festival, find our band and say hello.

 

Above: a little vid. I'm just farting around, playing whatever I feel like. Sometimes it's nice not to have a plan. Cheers!