And on top of that, Kevin, unless you play very light and/or behind a screen, your liability would be ridiculous. As the term states, "stick choppers" will likely cause splintering and parts and pieces of sticks flying toward the eyes of your beholders....They may sound good and look good, but they are very dangerous for audience members that like to be/sit close to the stage.

Haha, well I don't think any of the early guys had the trouble of skewering any audience members!! Jazz, blues, western swing...that sort of stuff.

Thinkin' go with the new hoops, jonnistix???

Get some 60s COB sticksavers.... worth the bucks, and NO Pitting !!

COB stick savers are probably my all-time favorite hoops. For me at least, they're the right mass, the right stiffness, and because they're brass, they don't rust or pit. Once I polished them up, the original ones on my 1956 Slingies looked good as new even after decades of neglect.

But I still might be tempted to try stick choppers on your toms, just for sake of correctness. (Plus they just look cool.) I wouldn't be worried about splintering sticks or anything. I mean, how many loud rim shots do you play on your toms?

If you have a hard time getting your hands on some stick choppers, there's no shame in using 2.3mm hoops. Personally, I'd opt for new stick savers -- to me at least, outward flanges just don't look right on Slingies. (On a side note... Drum Factory Direct has new Slingerland-branded stick savers?!)

And since you mentioned heads... You might have a hard time getting Ambassadors or other modern-sized heads to fit your old drums. Since the introduction of plastic heads around 1957, standard drum shell sizing is actually a little bit smaller than the labeled size. A 14" shell is really more like 13 7/8". When your drums were built, a 14" shell was exactly 14 inches. Today's heads are made with modern-sized shells in mind, so sometimes they're a snug fit on old drums, if you can get them on at all. Aquarian makes their American Vintage heads specifically to fit older drums and they're the only ones I've tried that fit properly on my old Slingerlands. They slide right on and float properly so they don't bind against the shell when tuning or damage the drums' finish.

Just a quick note for what it's worth... I purchased some of the 2.3 sticksavers from Drumfactory, and within six months they had begun to rust.

They had a label on them... made in Taiwan.

Were those the Slingerland-branded ones or the generic (WorldMax) repros?

Well, my brother was a very heavy hitter and even with modern hoops we were always getting someone hit and stuck with a piece of wood from his sticks. It got so bad we ended up putting him in a cage of plexiglass.

Could you provide a link to the Slingerland branded ones... I can't find them.

I would like to check them out....

You don't mean the S-hoops, do you ?.... here's the link to DrumMaker.

And enter SH148 in the search box.... it will take you to a 14 inch 8-hole snare rim.

LINK...........

They don't look much like Slingerland sticksavers of old to me...

What I know about the rims I received is they had a sticker on them that said Made in Taiwan, and they rusted within six months.... I can't speak to World Max's involvement.... I just don't know. And I haven't seen any rims there branded as Slingerland.

If you click on the link in my post above, go to the manufacturer drop-down box and select Slingerland. I've attached a screen capture.

I'm pretty sure the non-Slingerland "stick savers" at Drum Factory Direct and a lot of other places are made by WorldMax. Some of those sites list the manufacturer's part number, which cross-references perfectly to the ones found on worldmaxusa.com. They've got the top flange pretty close, but the "ears" or "tabs" on the hoops where the tension rods pass through don't match original Slingerland hoops. The repros are perfectly flat there.