You can always try Bass drum lugs. They are usually taller than standard snare or tom lugs.

What is the depth of the shell?

thanx for that.

i wasn't sure of the ins and outs of free floating snares.

i'm looking at some old premier double ended lugs on e bay at the moment.

they should do the trick. the shell is 7 3/4" deep.

could anyone help me with how to mark the shell for the lug box holes??

To measure for lugs, use a flexible measuring tape like for sewing, measure the circumference of the drum and divide by number of lugs. This your spacing. At each lug position stick a strip of masking tape from top to bottom. Draw a line at each lug point from top to bottom. Calculate where the lug holes go on the lines. Measure about 10 times and drill. Then start cussing.

awesome!!!

thanx atom!

heres some pics of the shell.

Now that is cool! ^^^

it certainly looks the part.

whether it's gonna sound the part is yet to be known.

i'm completely new to the drum building thing, i've just finshed my first project.

and that was only a 13" tom shell with the lug box holes already there, so all i had to do, was to basically put a snare together as you would do normally.

but i'm giving it a whirl, you never know, i might be good at it!! :)

That's really cool-looking, but hopefully the raised areas don't cause you problems with seating the head or attaching the hardware...

I forgot to mention, when you get your lug spacings you want to use a square to draw the lines so that the lugs are properly aligned.

It's hard to tell from the pics, but that bearing edge looks pretty rough, especially at the weld. It may not be practical to work it so that it's nice and precise, but you'll want to remove any uneven rises in the edge so they don't puncture the head or make tuning a complete nightmare.

Because of the raised surfaces on the steel, affixing lugs might be problematic. I mean, how are you going to get them flush to the shell? I've got two ideas off the top of my head: (1) Seat the lug on top of some sort of gasket material that you can work flat - maybe some epoxy or something. This could also help line up the lugs with the holes in the rim, compensating for the undersized shell. (2) Use tube lugs. If the lug attaches to the shell at a raised point, grind that particular spot down so that it's flush with the rest of the shell's surface.

...or you can make it a single-tension drum and skip trying to figure out how to attach lugs.

to be honest with you dog...it is!

but to be fair, it's my mates first attempt, he just did it one day at work during a break, and it was only from memory(i showed an old pearl export steel shell).

i tried a skin and rim on it toay, and, unfortunately, it might have to be back to the drawing board.

it's not a true circle, and like you thought, the raised pattern makes it a tight fit for the skin.

bit of a bummer, i was all excited til i tried the actual components on it!! :)

ah well. we can but try again.

thanx for all your posts. they've been most helpful.

Cool1 Bowing