I have been living with Long Covid/iron deficiency/God-knows-what for almost a year now. Part of my recovery has involved physical therapy in the form of walking, both to get my heart and lungs working in sync again, and also to help with my brain fog.
Knowing that as I regained strength and endurance I’d get bored with just walking, I decided I wanted a marching carrier for a practice pad, so I could add a fun dimension to my walking therapy.
Commercial versions of such a thing have been on the market for a few years, but they tend to be very expensive. I had an older CMI snare carrier and decided I would build something to fit that. I figured that adding a platform to accommodate a normal practice pad was the easiest solution.
I had nearly all of the pieces I needed lying around the shed already. A wooden round platform, some wooden spikes left over from a driveway repair project, various screws and washers, some paint left over from from having our house repainted earlier this summer, scraps of a mouse mat and three angle bars from old school marching snare drums.
I assembled the platform using the flat round and assorted wood scraps, built up and supported with wood glue and screws. I drilled two holes for it to fit onto the carrier. In hindsight, I should have drilled the holes a little closer to the edge, so the platform would sit farther away from me. I may yet decide to do that but for now I think I’ll live with it.
When the glue dried, I took some left over paint from our recent house repainting, and painted the entire wood structure, to protect the wood and seal any holes in the plywood platform.
After trying the carrier with only one angle bar, I decided I really needed three of them spaced around the pad as “guard rails,” and then added strips from a scrap of mouse mat for additional traction underneath.
The pad sits well on the improved platform and when I hit it fairly hard it stays put.
In order for the carrier to fit me properly, I had to cold-set the aluminum bending and turning it into a shape that would better accommodate my middle-aged belly (BELLY!) and my badly-swayed back (thanks for nothing, drum corps!).
If you decide to modify an existing carrier similarly, BE CAREFUL when attempting to cold-set any older metal parts! This is especially true aluminum, because of how easy it is to go too far and break it — and welding aluminum is not easy, even for a pro.
Even with reshaping, the carrier could not be made perfectly shaped to my belly, so to reduce the poking from the vertical part of the t-square, I padded it with the shoulder pad from an old messenger bag.
I also needed to lower the forward tilt of the platform. To do this, I had to saw about 1/4” off of the snare drum prop arm, which made a huge difference.
I took it outside a few times and marched it up and down the sidewalk in front of the house to see how well it worked. After the final alterations, I was pretty happy with how it turned out.
I’m going to bring this along to my next physical therapy session and see what my PT a has to say.
I hope she approves.
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