The snare beds may likely be an issue, but you could fill them. Instead of regular wood filler, I would reccommend a 2 part wood repair epoxy for stuff like that. It dries much harder, and is more suitable to hold a shape on its own like you need. Wood filler is just good for filling holes where no structural strength is needed.

Most people would tell you never to drill holes in a drum, but this one is pretty much past the point where that matters. So if you like classic lugs, I say go for it. But imperials or bowties would match your bass drum better (I think so, anyway).

Don't try to sand that glue off, you'll drive yourself nuts and never get a really clean shell. Go to Home Depot or whichever store you prefer and get some adhesive remover. You'll find it by the paint stripper. Much easier and a better result. You'll also need some "after wash" or mineral spirits to clean off the excess. Oh, and some serious gloves.

You'd be surprised how expensive wrap gets, so you may as well paint it to match the bass drum if you like that color.

Any particular brands you'd recommend for any of those products? Anything I should steer clear of?

Yeah, I think that's what I'll do. Match the paint and so on.

thats gonna be a fine project. i would get some imperials to use in the center holes lugs. i think it would go nicely with your long imperial bass drum.

ive got several 12x15 marching snares and 10x14s that i have used as toms. no need to fool with the snare beds in my opinion. they even sounded good with snare side hoops. but i always use a batter hoop to make things look right.

looks like ludwig drilled your muffler holes off in comparison to your badge. gotta love that!

good luck...

mike

Definitely thinking Imperial is the way to go at this point.

Now that you mention it, I noticed with the muffler holes that the bigger hole is on top, whereas a lot of the mufflers I've seen require it to be on the bottom. Is there a specific era of mufflers I should be looking for?

Sounds like Mlayton is probably right about the snare beds. If its working for him, it should work for you too. I was just thinking it would be hard to tune evenly with the lower tension of a tom head.

The adhesive remover brand I used was Zinsser, and it worked great.

Some mufflers had the knob above the mounting screw, some were the other way around. I don't recall the years, but you'll usually never see a year for them when listed on eBay or wherever. Just make sure you look at the pictures and get one that has the knob on top.

I converted a 15" Slingerland marching drum into a tom MANY years ago and never did anything with the snare beds. It sounded fine. I did put a batter hoop on the bottom however.

I also agree that Imperial lugs center mounted would work really well with that bass drum you have...

Although wrap is expensive and requires patience and skill to install, sometimes you can find deals on discontinued or slightly off-color batches of wrap material from the usual suspects. it WILL be expensive however, and if you are on a tight budget, the 'paint and a lot of labor' method is the most economical way to go.

Nice buy there. I was looking at that one myself. But I was thinking of cutting it down and making a 5" deep snare. I would start out with getting it set up and playable. You might love the sound, and if so you won't have to worry about the snare beds. If you trust yourself enough you could cut away enough of the shell to bring the drum into true, and recut the bearing edge. I understand that's not novice work, but I just wanted you to know it is an option.

Maybe that's what I'll do then. Get all the hardware set up so that I could put some skins on it, tune it up to see how it sounds, and then go from there.

I do know a guy who could recut the bearing edge for me, he said he'd do it for about 30 bucks. Worth it?

Oh also I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I tend to crank my skins way up, big band style tuning. Would that make the bearing edge issue less of a liability?

That's a Sharp looking bass drum and I Love that color! Can you somehow paint the tom and the others you will add to match the bass drum? I would go with all center mounted Imperial Lugs keeping everything to match the bass drum. If you plan on filling some holes in the tom and the bearing edges are not perfect, I would have them re-cut by a pro. Or at least trued so that they are level, even, and have no dings or dents in the area of head contact. That's really important regardless of your tuning style, The better the bearing edges, the better they are going to sound and the wider the tuning range..IMHO anyway.. I would also work on getting a 16x16 and have them done at the same time so the paint matches. Sometimes a great paint finish can be cheaper than expensive glass glitter wrap..Especially if all of your drums are in the larger sizes. Just my thoughts anyway