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Various snare drum owners have found that this particular polycarbonate design of snare strainer designed by Greg Nickel, has a design fault that causes the adjustable side of the snare strap mounting to break away from the threaded tension screw.

Since this particular design was released, Greg has produced a metal version of the polycarbonate part that often broke.

I bought this particular Dunnett Ti 6x13 snare drum at reduced cost because the strainer had already broken. So I gave the strainer to a friend of mine (who runs an engineering company) and he fixed it in the following way:

Top view	The 10mm hole was drilled where the threaded polycarbonate bolt used to be.
Bottom view	The hole must be drilled using a pillar drill otherwise it will not be completely vertical. Unfortunately, I was not organised enough to take a photo of the strainer in its broken state.

An 18mm diameter bar was lathed down to 10mm leaving a collar at one end. Then it was centre drilled and threaded to fit the tension screw.

Front view	Once I'm happy that this fix works, the rod will be glued into the hole.
Bottom view	The round collar will need a chord taken off its edge in order to allow the snare strap to pass over it without being buckled.
Top view	Here's where you find out whether you've drilled your hole accurately or not! The threaded insert must be exactly parallel to the thinner guide rod.

	Strainer lever in the up position
	Strainer lever in the down position.

© Chris Whealy, 2005