As you know field snare drums are expensive.  Is it possible to make your own field snare using a floor tom, or perhaps some other ideas? 

Sometimes you have that old marching snare from the 70's or 80's lying around the band hall, turn that into a field drum.  If you don't have one lying around the band hall you can get one off of ebay for pretty cheap.  Put a renaissance batter head on there and you have a nice sounding field drum.  15"; drums work well but even the 14"; drums sound pretty good.  I think the key is gut snares, wire snare don't seem to have that ";course"; sound you hear in the recordings.

I've also heard of people taking toms (perhaps a 14"; or 15";) and attaching snare strainers and guts to them. This will take some pretty accurate drilling, but you could turn an old junker into something that could serve its purpose.

If all else fails, check Ebay.

[quote author=Scott4175 link=topic=2981.msg15747#msg15747 date=1235447066]
Sometimes you have that old marching snare from the 70's or 80's lying around the band hall, turn that into a field drum.  If you don't have one lying around the band hall you can get one off of ebay for pretty cheap.  Put a renaissance batter head on there and you have a nice sounding field drum.  15"; drums work well but even the 14"; drums sound pretty good.  I think the key is gut snares, wire snare don't seem to have that ";course"; sound you hear in the recordings.
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This is exactly what I did. Cupertino High School (where I went) had a closet full of old red sparkle Rogers drums from the 70's that had been collecting dust for 20 years. In college, I taught there for a few years and the band director was kind enough to offer me one of the old 15"; snare drums. So I stripped it, finished it with a nice stain/lacquer, and put some guts on it. It was a tedious process, but was a lot of fun.

Building drums is a really fun process.  One of the pieces I have my middle school doing requires concert toms (at least 2, but would prefer 4).  My current set are barely holding together, so for the price of one set of nice new ones, I ordered the shells/hardware/etc and am building them.  They'll look fine, they'll serve the purpose and save me and the school tons of $$.  Now if only we could do that with timpani...

Anyways, the methods of drilling a floor tom is one way that some fife and drum corps would build their own drums.  They would get the hoops, take a floor tom, drill it, get some rope and voila... instant field snare.

Actually, I am in the process of doing this right now. I've ordered the parts from www.drummaker.com : Keller 12x14 shell (have it drilled and prepared with a snare bed, etc.) lugs, tension rods, rims, air vents, strainers, butt plates, etc. All told the drum will cost a little over $200.00. The pearl philharmonic concert field drum is over $900.00, so that is a great price. The website has online lessons on finishing the drum. They look beautiful.

Wow, I love all of these ideas!  I might start out with a piece of junk drum and make it a field snare...and then go with UNT/BD idea from drum maker.  Awesome ideas!

You  may also want to check out www.jamminsam.com

Last year I restored an old 15"; Slingerland TDR and got my black sparkle wrap from these guys. The method was so easy. No glue!!! They also included a free tool for inserting the air vent grommets. It worked great! The badge looks factory installed!

I couldn't find a gut strainer on ebay or craigslist anywhere, but the end pieces I had were intact. So, I made my own snare wires out of weed-eater cord. They are neon blue and look awesome. Sound pretty decent too! I only use this drum once a year to march in an Alumni group, so it served the purpose for me!