O-Lugs - You could try some of those guitar strings that have been known as “Silk & Steel” or “Classical” guitar strings, they are wound on silk (Nylon??? These days). Probably need to source some used strings from your friendly classical guitar player. Get his low strings!:2Cents:

:)

That's a great source idea! I'll be pestering my guitarist friends all weekend for their old strings.

After examining these type of snares compared to guitar strings...they are similar, but the guitar strings are wound tighter than the snare wires are....if this makes sense. For a toy drum I'm sure they would be fine.

The snare anchor should have been a thick, heavy, stiff leather piece. I had a co-worker that swore he had some, but has yet to produce any for me...so I improvised on my own project using wooden "craft spoons" that i got at Jo-Anne's Fabrics & Crafts. I then cut them to the shape I needed and drilled the holes, gave it a coat of paint, threaded the snares through and called it a night.

Hope this helps a bit....

YES! Thanks very much!

I may have not described what I am looking for in the way that I should have.

The "wires" that I am looking for contain no metal component or windings. They are just plain braided "silk" -almost like shoe laces (hmmmm....mmmmaybe...).

That's a great idea for the butt plate thing, LD. Thanks!

Ludwig-dude - If I understand what your saying, guitar strings that are wound on “Silk” are probably not as “tightly wound” (they're softer some using real silver) as the ones wound on steel. I’ve compared some classical strings to my old marching snare wires and they might work very similarly. Unless you mean that they have "finer" wound coils (yikes hard to describe, so I may be misinterpreting what you are saying). One other thing with the guitar strings though, you could try a variety of string gauges so the snap might be somewhat adjustable based on thickness and fineness of wrap coil.

I would be afraid to use something that creates much resistance -as in a guitar string of any kind. The drums in question have the most primitive tensioning system anyone could think of -basically a U-shaped piece of steel screwed onto the wooden hoop with a sliding, threaded insert that tightens with a small thumb screw. Plus, wouldn't it be difficult to get a guitar string to make the bend through the butt plate (which is really more of a "plug"....but I'm not going to type that! HA! ;))??

So, now, I'm thinking about locating some, small diameter, waxed shoelaces and using those. They seem to be most like the original style snare material.

I mainly asked just in case there was a supplier of that type of "string" (for lack of a better descriptor). I figured that guys like Mike Curotto probably had to re-string a few snares with some kind of facsimile of what was used in the old days. Maybe there is. Mike, if you're out there looking in....

Yes, finer wound coils is what I meant to say....

You could always get a roll of gut "cord" from cooperman. I believe this is what you speak of when you say waxed, braided shoelaces.

Cooperman?