Cutting Snare Beds With a Grinding Stone and Drill Press

No more freehand sculpting with a rotary tool!

I got tired of doing snare beds in wood shell drums by carving them out with a handheld rotary tool. That is way too much like sculpture, but I am an engineer, not an artist (to paraphrase Dr. McCoy) so I could never get the two cuts to match closely enough to satisfy me.

I now have a new way to cut snare beds that solves that problem. I mounted a grinding stone with a special bolt so that it can be used in my modified drill press.

Here is a short video of it in action on a junk shell:

It makes lovely uniform cuts in the edge of the drum shell:

I did not want to put a threaded bolt into the drill chuck, so I needed a half-thread bolt to use as the arbor for the grinding stone. Only I needed the half thread at the head end of the bolt, unlike with a normal half-thread bolt. Turns out such bolts are used in some kinds of bicycle locks - it works great!