Ludwig II: a big snare drum

Last year, I purchased this drum from an online seller. I had kept my eye on it for almost a year, and watched as the price fell and no one bit. I made an offer below the most recent price and it was accepted.

The drum arrived with a fine layer of dust, and two batter heads that looked like they'd never been played.

I let it sit, dealt with other things, and sort of forgot about it for awhile.

Then the shutdown came along, and suddenly I had time to take the drum apart, clean it and rebuild it to make it playable.

 I dismantled the drum, looking carefully at each part and seeing how much time and effort it would require to clean and improve and learning a little about drum construction in the 1970s.
(Left: Note how the wrap is integrated with the mahogany ply; taking that off would be above my paygrade.)

Then I looked at the hardware.
The rims, though showing rust spots, were not warped and would clean up nicely.

The snare strainer was incomplete and missing parts. Having encountered the same model on Ludwig I, it was easy to decide to replace rather than repair. It's a lot of metal for a pretty lackluster design, and since I only had the strainer and no buttplate, I felt no guilt at all. I replaced it with another, simpler strainer set of the same vintage that I knew would work fine.

 

Ive run into this issue before a couple of times when restoring/rebuilding old drums: when is it preferable to repair an original component, and when does it make more sense to replace it?

I asked friends on the FB marching percussion group for their thoughts. Most rushed to suggest I try to repair the original snare strainer, even though the strainer itself was incomplete and not so special to begin with. Then someone else pointed out that my drum had only eight lugs, not the twelve lugs which came with the drums outfitted with Super-Sensitive strainer. Those fancier drums were used by a few championship drum corps back in the 1960s and 70s (Including the Des Plaines Vanguard, whose drums were finished just like this one). But my drum came from a guy who took it home from his high school at the end of his senior year, because the school was buying all new drums for the following year. While I have no proof of any of this, I'm pretty sure a drum corps back in the day would've spent the money for a high-grade drum.

I would say that it's probably best to take it on a drum-by-drum basis. If you're planning to resell the drum one day, keeping everything as original as possible means a higher resale value. If you're going to keep it and play it, I'd say there's no harm in installing non-period parts to make it dependably playable. That's what I chose to do with this one, with no regrets.

I also had to decide which batter head to use. While I like the flat, wet sound of pinstripe heads, the Power Stroke head would require -- or invite! -- more tightening than I really felt comfortable doing on a drum this old and lightweight. So I chose the CS black dot, which provides a more focused sound and would have been perfect for the period anyway.

Cleaning the drum took about three hours total, including some problem-solving and adaptation.

I had to drill one small hole to accommodate the replacement strainer; the butt plate fit the old holes perfectly.
I used a rust-eraser from my bike tool kit to buff out the rust spots by hand, which took some time. Then I polished everything with a bit of Never-Dull, a polish that has been on the market since the 1950's and which is still sold in stores -- because it works and it's non-toxic.
My can dates from probably the 1960's. I scored it for fifty cents at a yard sale and it's mostly full.
And it works like nothing else, which is why I always had a can at my bench when I worked in the bike shop. Just look at how gleaming that chrome is.

I also had to decide whether to actually remove the lugs in order to clean them. To test for rattles, I pulled off everything but the lugs, and shook the shell hard. Nothing. I set it on a lawn chair, and tapped it all over. Nothing. No rattles and clicks. A good sign, so I decided to leave the lugs alone. I tightened the bolts inside very carefully, each gave me about an eighth of a turn, just enough to make sure everything wouls stay put without risk of stripping the threads.

Finally, it was time to reassemble the drum.

I am pleased with how it turned out.
It's bigger than the marching snares I've played before -- my high school band used 14's when I was there, and this is a 15" snare, with a big sound.

I plan to take this to the park tomorrow so I can try it out and chop a little on it, while fine tuning the sound.

Assuming everything works, I'll shoot a little video and toss it up here.