Nitro Mesh Rim-job

[JustJoe]

Hi everyone, I'm new here to the board and I wanted to share a fix to my frustration. I've had my Nitro for 6 months now and while I love how quiet it is one thing that irritates the heck out of me is height of the rim. It seems to me that the rim on the Nitro is much taller than the rim on mu acoustic kit. To see how much taller they were, I removed the rubber ring. then I took a measurement from the top of the rim to the mesh head. That distance measured 15/32" (11.9mm). When I measured the top of rim to top of head on the acoustic kit it was only 5/32" (3.97mm)! That's almost 1/4" higher than it needed to be IMHO. It also explains why I constantly was hitting the rim and had to hold my sticks different for the Nitro causing a significant slowdown.

The fix:

I gave my snare a quick rim-job ! I first removed the rim. Next I mounted it to a known flat piece of wood with the oversized lip facing up. I found the center of the opening where the mesh head normally goes and drilled a hole for a mount. I inserted a mounting bolt in that hole and mounted the whole thing on my wood lathe (yeah, you need access to a lathe for this fix and a metal lathe would be better). I then proceed to turn the rim and and reduced the rim by 10/32". I re-mounted the newly shortened rim onto the snare and verified measurements. Then I gave it a try. What a difference 30 minutes in the garage made! I can now play just as fast on the small 8" snare as I do on my acoustic 14" snare. Now to work on the 3 remaining toms 

[rhysT]

Another option I've tried with my DM10 rack is moving the snare support arm closer to Tom 1 and attaching the snare pad on opposite side of its support arm. This should allow both pads to be tilted at a similar angle for required stick contact on their head or rim.

[jamangic]

 I don't know why the are so high, too much effort not to hit the rim.
Did you replace the rubber, or just use it without, I was going to try to 3D print shorter ones.  Thanks

[bardbe]

Hi, my first post here!

Just bought a 2nd hand Nitro Mesh kit recently. I'm a beginner and found the ridiculos high rims to be a big hindrance to find a technique that was natural for me without hitting the rims, and glad to hear experienced drummers have same opinion, and took the plunge to trim the rim. I haven't got a lathe, so I took a hack saw and and carefully made a groove around the rim where it bevels out, before cutting it off. That was a bit more than JustJoe did, and now the rim is flush with the mesh head, and it is much easier to play now! I only did it on the snare as the toms can be angled and I just pulled of the rubber rings on these to lower rim a few mm. I think the rim is still strong enough to keep mesh tight and not breaking, but time will tell.

Bard

[AlanK]

I've got the DM10 and never found the rims that high.. but.. when I was replacing my mesh heads I did discover that some companies have a shallower metal base to their head so they sit lower on the bearing edge.. for instance, my Roland mesh heads sit pretty high so the rim isn't that tall compared to my Hart Maxxim's which are a couple mm deeper and make the rim ridiculously high compared. I suppose if you can machine down the rims that'd do it, but what about replacement rims? I wonder if they make ones with lower clearance and if so, would it be too expensive? For me, the extra cost compared to attempting to trim the original rims down makes more sense (as I'd likely destroy my rims but am not a machinist lol).. good luck either way!