CHECK OUT THIS OLLIE, EH?!!

Here is a custom-built "Ollie" snare drum that I serviced for a friend.  The components were simple: a heavy, solid-wood shell and chrome hardware.  The only challenge was to clean the drum and make it sound better for the owner.  These photos show how dirty the chrome was:

And here is the same drum after my thorough treatment:

I did not mess with the wood shell at all. It was clean, nicely stained and coated with something like polyurethane so I didn't feel I needed to do anything to it.

To make this drum "sound better" I used an Aquarian "Super-2" coated head, a new style of thick-skinned snare drum head that has a built-in "control ring" to dampen the overtones.  I noticed that this drum does not have any kind of tone control mechanism on it, so I thought this head would help quiet it down a bit.  This snare also had these wires on the bottom:

The owner thought this over-sized set of wires may be a contributing factor to the drum's loudness, so I replaced them with a standard 20-strand set.  I found that when I played the drum hard it sounded pretty good, but then I began to lose the "snare sound" when I played softer and nearer the rim.  I put the large set of wires back on and liked them better.  I think you need the big set for this deep snare drum.

So I think I have this snare looking and sounding good, but that is really a matter of opinion.  It's hard for me to know if this will be satisfactory to the owner because all drummers have unique playing styles, strengths and so forth.  I like a really tight, crackin' snare drum with some ring but other guys might prefer a lower-toned, drier sound.  You just have to knock around on it and find what you like.