Restoration Details
In 1925, Leedy introduced the Marvel throw off. The system features a set of snares held in tension on a rod suspended under the drum that, when activated, lifts to meet the resonant head in parallel fashion. The marvel throwoff was offered on both wood shell and metal shell drums for a short period of time, discontinued after a cold reception from players of the time.
This rare snare drum came to our shop ridden hard. The hardware was coated in silver lacquer, the single-ply maple shell showed evidence of multiple layers of paint applied over the original finish, and there were impossible-to-locate parts either missing or broken.
After a through documentation and disassembly, all hardware was bathed in solvents to loosen and remove the paint. Once clean, hand polishing followed to be careful not to remove any original plating. The shell had lacquer applied over the original enamel paint. Fortunately, lacquer is softer and easier to remove than enamel, so the layers of finish were removed with great care to reveal the original, complete white enamel finish. Finally, we machined the steel rod that connects the two sides of the throw off from new stock to original specifications, one tension rod was machined and plated to match the originals, and we repaired the throw off side of the system with new rivets.