Maybe use a Powertone COB as a donor for parts. I made the snare in the picture with a donor and Koa concert tom shell.

Thats a good idea but I hate to take a good drum apart for this. But on the other hand it will cost a lot of money to buy a shell,hoops,strainer and lugs all seperate. Maybe the best thing is to just get nice chrome Dyna or powertone from the late 70's, early 80's, that would like real nice sitting behind the koa xp8's.

One question, what is that bridge piece doing on the bottom of the drum? Whats it for? Do you have to have it?

Sorry, I meant three questions.

Jeff C

The Rogers geniuses will pipe in here shortly I am sure, however, I think the point of the Dyna Sonic is to have pre-tensioned snares. Therefore, the snares are tensioned independently of their placement on the head. With a standard strainer you tension the wires laterally AND adjust the force of the wires against the snare head with the same mechanism. Therefore, if you have your snares loose against the snare head, the lateral tensioning of the snare wires is fairly loose as well. What if you liked the sound of pulling the wires tight but placed loosely on head or leaving the wires a little slack but pulled tightly against the head. That is where a mechanism like the Dynasonic comes in. The bridge piece is an integral part of that mechanism. I believe that is also why a true Dynasonic will not have snare beds as the tensioning device (i.e. straps or cords have no need to wrap over the bearing edge.

I have never owned one so my take may not be entirely accurate. The concept makes great sense to me so I have often wondered why this did not become more popular with all manufacturers. My assumption is that it was more parts to tinker with and more potential for failure. I might also assume that the additional manufacturing costs and the average drummer's lack of understanding may have also attributed to it not becoming a commonplace concept. Lastly, the Rogers patent may have been broad enough to dissuade competitors.

Regardless, those are seriously cool snare drums.

The Powertone does not have a bridge piece. I think what you are looking at is the picture angle of the clamp on the throwoff.

So if I get a Powertone strainer, I dont need the bridge or frame piece. But if I were to purchase a Dyna strainer then I have to have the frame, correct?

Sorry for the questions, I have not ever seen any of these drums.

I did order the koa veneer today, 233.00 shipped to my door. Getting excited. Now I have to decide what to do with the concert toms. I have two. a 10" and 12". The kit Im wrapping is 12,13,16,22 so I already have a 12" tom. I could cut an edge on the bottom of the 10" concert tom and use the lugs from the 12" to make a nice 10" regular tom and suspend it from a cymbal stand. I dont care for the look of the three toms on one post that you see on these Rogers kits sometimes.

I would trade the two concert toms for parts to make a snare drum or a complete big-R badge chrome snare drum.

Jeff C

If you are using the bridge, you need a DynaSonic strainer. But, the DynaSonic and PowerTone strainers look identical, and I bet a lot of dynas out there have PowerTone strainers on them. The Dyna one (from what I understand) has a small catch to keep it engaged, because the PowerTone strainer will fall to the off position when there is very little tension on it, as can happen with a DynaSonic set up using the snare bridge.

No problem! I'm sure others will be happy to help you understand as well.

In your position I'd make a 10" double headed tom. I seem to remember someone else did this with a blue sparkle one? Anyway, it looked great!

I have a Fullerton COB PowerTone shell if you wanted to go that route. They sound killer but this is not a big R drum, it is a bit earlier than that (script badge). I plan to take and post pictures but I haven't got to that yet...

KOA veneer sounds pretty cool can't wait to see them!! Cool1

Jim, thank you for helping me understand a little more about these strainers.

Can I buy just the strainer and have it work without the bridge or do I need both?

I am starting to think that buying all the parts and getting a shell is going to be way too expensive. I am really leaning towards getting a nice chrome Big-R badge with no serial number. I have seen some for 200-250 range. Also leaning toward making a 10" tom from the concert tom.

Glenn, yes the koa wood will be really neat. I expect to get it this week. Id better get to work on the shells!

Thanks to everyone, this thread has been very useful for me. I really appreciate all of the responses and pictures.

I still really want to build a snare using Rogers hardware and the koa veneer and have not ruled the idea out yet.

Ok guys, I have decided to build the snare drum. A customer called tonight and gave me the go-ahead for a nice job. Now just need to go after the parts.

Check the website for Proshoptucson. He's been doing veneer on Fullerton era drums for some time. Usually has a set or two with 18" bass drums and it seems he has a bundle of Rogers parts and hardware in storage out there.

I got a couple of Rogers 'L' cymbal arms and tilters from him during a period when none were showing up on eBay. He had quite a bit of Rogers stuff when I stopped by last March.