Peavey solid block snare makeover Feb '07
before
Natural maple with a very light oil finish of some sort.
during
Here you get a sense of how thick the shell is.
after!
Most wooden drums are made by steaming and bending thin plies of wood & gluing them together to form a shell.
A solid block snare shell is literally cut out of a large block of wood.
In this case 100% maple pieces were formed into a large butcher block & the shell cut from it. The shell is well over an inch thick.
When I bought this drum circa 1996 it had a simple oil finish with the natural maple blonde look.
I added a die cast hoop on the batter side...because the drum wasn't heavey enough already...
Peavey no longer makes these.
Here's a close-up of the original finish.
It has a unique design where the lugs are inside the thick shell. I had to figure out how to remove them.
This is the bottom side of the drum.
A friend suggested I make a tool to remove the lugs.
I used my dremel tool to make this out of a metal corner bracket.
This is how it fit in the lug "cap."
I used two nuts on a tension rod & tightened them to keep the lug itself from turning
This is one of the 8 lugs that was inside the shell.
I tried using sanding sealer to ensure that the maple would take the stain evenly. Ultimately it prevented the stain from taking well.
I have to admit staining over the sanding sealer failed so badly that I took it back to be stripped again ;-(
When I was there a second time, the owner offered to stain & finish it (as the Strip Shop also refinishes furniture). I swallowed my pride & agreed.
While I was there he tried two similar stains: 1 took very well. 1 did not. That was an interesting lesson--that sometimes a different brand works better than another. Interestingly he had the exact stain I tried at home. It didn't work for him either.
the overhaul
There was quite a bit involved in this over-haul:
$20 strip the shell (x 2)
$25 stain & finish at The Strip Shop in Kokomo IN
Purchased two new snare strainers from Peavey (old ones were worn & not working well)
Outfitted it with new snares and heads
The drum originally retailed for around $600.
UPDATE: Finding myself not playing this drum & it being so nice I decided to sell in hopes that someone would use it. So in Jan '08 it found a new home in California via eBay.
