After some trading and discussion, John at Revival Drum Shop refurbished my Leedy Drum Master by installing a replacement throw-off and swapping in square-headed tuning rods, which made the drum more user-friendly and less prone to failure.
Here's a blueprint of the original strainer design (thanks, Michael Windish), followed by a photo of the replacement (an era-close model from the 1950s). The original throw-off was broken and missing parts and I could not be bothered to search high and low for a rare replacement, so I asked John to find something era-adjacent and reliable:
The other end of the strainer system worked fine and looked sturdy enough to remain in place.
Once home, I asked my Sweetie for about half an hour to put the drum through its paces. We live in a little house with no meaningful soundproofing so she tries to be understanding of my need to drum, and I do most of my drumming at home on pads or heavily muffled drums. But I needed to hear this drum really sing, and get a sense of what I'm working with.
Is is an ideal concert drum? Not in the modern sense, though it would certainly fill in nicely when a "field drum" is called for in a wind ensemble. In fact, it's just a deep, warm sound that could work alone or with a drum kit. And sometimes, I just want to play a live, wide-open drum for its own sake.
Here's a video where I try out some things, including different mufflers and tunings. In the end, I can't tune it super-high as its over 80 years old, with a very lightweight shell and wood hoops, so some compromises and lowered expectations are in order. Still, it's a truly fine instrument that I will enjoy the heck out of, and I'm glad I have it.
Homemade snare muffler.
I have another commercially-made one on order but this will work for now.
The head that it came with is fine for the time being. Eventually I'll replace it with a standard Remo Ambassador head.
My goodness, what a gorgeous drum.
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