Leedy, Conn & Brass/Nickel-Era Hardware Guide: Broadway Parallel & Single-Tension Designs

The brass and nickel decades built drums the modern way never did: single-tension shells pulled from one set of thumb rods, Broadway parallel strainers pulling both heads at once, brass shells under nickel plate, and 10-24 threading where a modern 12-24 rod seizes. Leedy of Elkhart built the professional version — Broadway strainers, distinctive beavertail and coffin lugs, excellent 3-ply shells — while Conn stencils and Walberg & Auge hardware covered the working bandstand.

Verify like a restorer of old brass: stampings first, because Leedy hardware interchanges heavily with Ludwig and Walberg & Auge — buy the stamping, not the silhouette. Broadway parallel mechanisms must move freely with complete end clips; single-tension thumb rods measure differently from modern double-ended rods. A 12-24 rod starts in a 10-24 lug then seizes and strips both — verify pitch with a gauge before forcing anything.

Working catalogs file these rows by maker and by hardware word — Leedy, Conn, Broadway, Walberg & Auge, plus nickel and brass hardware with pre-war era cues — and the counts below keep whole drums and filed parts separate, live and from the archive, so you can see exactly what the evidence rests on. When the thread decides the restoration, ask us: we gauge pitch against the part in hand.