Oliver Snare Drums

Got a nice pic from Robert Milanowski, a jazz drummer here in Wisc. He's always been great about sending things my way and telling me how the drum's doing. As always, Robert, thank you.

My kit stripped down for that rock stuff. 

You may wonder if the t-rods are bending or are not aligned properly. They are perfectly vertical. What you're seeing is the shell's shape, which is not vertical, but angled top and bottom.

Finally wrapping this one up. It's for a friend on a very tight budget, so expensive hardware was out. Of course I want him to have a nice drum, so rather than just fasten cheap lugs to a run-of-the-mill shell I decided to play to their design. Looks nice. 

This is taking forever, but here's a completed stave of this snare's center band and how it's put together. The interior will remain flat with raised verticals between staves. The rest of the snare will be completely different. 

Some really nice stuff from our wood pile. Making the very best use of this that I can as there's only so much of it.

Here's 8 of 16 sections that will line the interior of my current snare build. The crazy stuff is applewood from a dead limb of a tree in our yard. The rest is black walnut & oak. Still designing the outside of the drum. 

Now to fill everything back in with different wood.

Thought I'd show some of the steps involved in this next drum, which I'm building for myself, finally. The outside will be the lighter, spalted wood, the inside is apple. But beyond that I'm adding lots of design work, including black walnut, oak & maple. These sections are about 2.5" wide to give an idea of scale.

So this is part of a non-drum project, but thought I'd post because I like how black walnut looks against yellow pine.

Some finishing work ahead but looking good. 

Just about ready to take it off the faceplate and finish the other side. The groove in the shell is where I'll separate it and attach the other maple cap.

Not sure if you can make it out, but I'm following the outside contour through to the inside on this one. I'm planning to cap the ends with maple... Still lots to sort out.