I've always wanted a deep, wood-hoop snare for my collection. After finding a rather beat up mid-60's Ludwig 10x14 marching snare on eBay for next to nothing, I decided to try my hand at a conversion project. I've never really done any drum building or serious restoration before.

1) I used a heat gun to carefully remove the old duco-sparkle wrap. Not too bad once I got the hang of it.

2) From the bottom edge, I cut the shell down to 7-1/4" using a table saw.

3) I used a warm water soak to remove the original maple reinforcing ring from the waste bottom piece. I then re-glued and re-installed the ring flush to the "new" bottom edge.

4) Using a homemade jig, I drilled 16 new holes for the bottom lug casings.

5) I drilled new holes for the snare strainer & butt plate, 90° from where they were originally located.

6) I filled all unused holes (the 8 remaining original holes for the bottom lug casings, the original holes for the strainer & butt, plus a couple other extra holes that someone had drilled at some point) using Minwax High Performance 2-part wood filler.

7) The original white Reso-Kote finish on the shell interior was in pretty bad shape, so I gave it a light sanding and re-finished it with Zinzer white shellac.

8) I brought the shell to Precision Drum Company and had them expertly re-wrap it in Black Diamond Pearl (to match my '66 BDP Ludwig kit), and re-install the badge with a new brass grommet. I also had them re-cut both bearing edges and the snare beds. They do great work!

9) I also bought a set of 1" unfinished maple hoops with 1/2" inlay cuts from Precision Drum, and a set of BDP inlays.

10) I finished the maple hoops with black enamel, followed by 4 coats of Zar clear gloss polyurethane (rub down lightly with #0000 steel wool and a tack cloth in between each coat), and installed the pearl inlays.

11) Finally, I scored a nice set of 60's Ludwig claws/tension rods/washers. To make the tension rods work for this drum, I brought them to my buddy's machine shop and had him cut off about 3/4" from the total length, and then cut about 3/8" of additional threads on each.

It took me about 2 months and a lot of effort, but I think the drum looks pretty good. Most importantly, it sounds amazing!

Any comments are welcome.

JohnB