John,
Most excellent work my friend! This is fascinating.
I might suggest taking that floor tom cradle to a local small machine shop. I bet you could have a similar one fabricated for not much money. I have stuff like that manufactured all the time. It would cost more than a typical used piece, but may be worth it.
What's missing from the bass drum is that long rail they used to put on big bass drums to attach stuff to. The 'straps' on the drums are steel bands that have a holder for a spade tom arm. I also did not get the tom holder attachments that would mount the toms to the missing bass drum rail. It's just an old school rail mount system I'm talking about. Nothing 'exotic' about it. A lot of those old trap kits had that rail system on the bass drum.
Squint - I'm going to follow up on your suggestion! Thank you. I'll let you know if I have any luck.
John
John,
The only difficult / expensive part of that process would be having it plated. You could consider fabricating in aluminum and leaving it raw. The fabrication would be expensive but it would look pretty good without the plating.
Scott - The fabrication in aluminum would be fine and I don't think it's a difficult thing to make either. The $ is going to go to man-hours! Depending on 'how long' it would take to cut, bend, drill and assemble the parts, the job could get crazy expensive real fast. It would be really nice to have both cradles the same, but I'll take anything that comes along so I can set-up the drums, 1-up (13") 2-down (14", 16".) If I mounted the toms the way they were meant to be placed originally, on the 28" bass drum, I'd have to stand up to play them!
I want to be able to set them up so I can play them. I'll need a second tom cradle for that. I'll make a couple of calls and I'll be interested to see what kind of prices I get quoted.
John
John, that is a neat looking cradle. If you want one that looks close to that one.You could measure up the parts and cut the pieces with a hack saw yourself. Looks like you need a 10 foot piece of 3/4" x 1/4 " flat stock and a foot or so of 2"x 3/16", that would make the parts. (Not there just a guess at the size) You could use cold rolled steel and paint it, or maybe use stainless steel, if you want the chrome look. The stainless would cost more and is harder to work with. Someone with some basic blacksmith skills could make one for you. Someone that has a torch/good vice and it good at bending / twisting metal. That part should not take much time for someone to do. I used to do that kind of stuff years ago.
Then just buy 3 castors, drill some holes, put it together and your in the "tall cotton" man.:D
Tommy - I'm going to look at some of the many snare stands I have and see if one of them can't be modified to serve as a cradle... cut down/shorten an existing stand. (?)
It's an idea...
John
Tommy - I'm going to look at some of the many snare stands I have and see if one of them can't be modified to serve as a cradle... cut down/shorten an existing stand. (?)It's an idea...John
john
I have a 12x15 Ludwig marcher that I use as a floor tom with one of my kits. I took a regular nothing fancy Ludwig stand that came with a blacro and modified it. simply cut out a section on a couple of the pieces using a hacksaw. then filed the edges smoothly. 15 minute job easy. ive used it for about 5 years with the 12x15 with no problems.
mike
Mike, I went through the boxes of antique hardware and I found a snare stand that is -perfect- for a cut-down project! I'll post a photo of it later. If I can make this work, I'll have a cool stand for the 14". I want to set the 14" and 16" toms up side by side. This old snare stand may allow me to do it.
John
OK, MY BAD... I didn't read the date right and I didn't mean it as I was mad, just poking fun at John.
Sorry if it was misunderstood and sorry I didn't look at what was going on harder.
I will crawl back to the corner and look for a crack to crawl in to and die.
