Kent Snare - Work in Progress - Now Completed

A few months ago I lucked into this 5.5 x 14 Kent snare on eBay. Kent was a drum company in Upper New York State that built reasonably good quality, reasonably priced drums. This snare has a very good maple shell, with well cut bearing edges and snare beds, and a really nice red sparkle wrap that is still bright and tight on the shell.It had a broken snare strainer (not uncommon, apparently), eyelet lugs, and what appear to be COB single flange hoops. I've decided to install Champagne lugs and an Ayotte strainer (this strainer has a variable spacing for the screws) and am not drilling any new (or larger holes). I'm also leaving the bearing edges and snare beds, as they are just fine. I'll be hanging on to the original hardware. I'm waiting on some clips from DrumFactoryDirect, and will be completing the snare as soon as I get them. Stay tuned ...
Updated - finished it up last weekend (March 4) and I was happy with how it turned out. And no sooner had I finished it than I sold it (and passed along the old hardware with it). 

1960's Ludwig Acrolite

This is the third Acrolite I've owned. Every drummer should have one - at least. All original as far as I can tell.

"Slingerleedy" - 5.5 x 14 snare

Recently picked this up - my first Leedy, and probably not my last. The Leedy company was purchased by Slingerland in the 50's, and this drum (dates to the 60's) is essentially a Slingerland 3 ply shell with Leedy badge and lugs. I really like the lines on the Leedy lugs - Leedy had single ended snare and tom lugs with similar lines that are even nicer looking; I'm keeping an eye out for a set for a future build. This snare has the Rapid strainer Slingerland used on its own snares. This is a 5.5 x 14 "6 lugger" with a blue sparkle wrap still in very good to excellent condition. The hoops appear to be COB Sticksavers. The Rapid strainer on this snare was broken when I purchased it, so I replaced it with one I had on hand (and the one I had was missing the original neoprene/ rubber washer, and I have used washers from my local hardware store to replace them.

It's Not a Radio King, But ...

It will do nicely for now. I recently finished this 6.5 x 14 snare, built up on a nice Vaughncraft steambent single ply maple shell. Bearing edges are roundover with a 45 degree inside cut. Lugs are reproduction Beavertails. The wrap is an out of production "Malechite" wrap that I bought from Precision Drum (they have some interesting rare, no longer in production wraps). It's very hard (at least for me with my limited photography skills) to capture the colours of this wrap - black and green. Hoops are reproductions of "Sticksaver" hoops. The throw and buttplate are from drumsandsome.com.