Okay, the title may sound somewhat bombastic, but it's not that great.
Long story short, I needed some smaller kick drum to drag around - nothing of big quality or price. So naturally, I went for Amati. I'm not sure if they ever produced kick drums of this size, but they sure made floor toms. So I got myself one typically abused Amati from 70s-80s. Bottom hardware and muffler gone, wrap stripped off and whole thing painted black. Whatever. I wanted to make this thing as cheap as possible, because I planned to transport it around in rough conditions, so me and my dad just bent two of the legs and moved the third bracket to between them and we replaced the rubber end by a piece of pertinax shaped as a bass drum hoop fragment, so I could attach the pedal. Of course I could buy 18" bass drum hoop and claws, but that would likely cost more than the shell did...
It works quite nice and neat, with no further investments, except for the drum head. But I was thinking about getting a 14"x14" tom-tom (sadly, they didn't make them as floor toms, as far as I know) and some 3ply 12" and making a bop-sized kit out of all of it. If I'm going to re-paint it I might also clean up the shell and re-cut the edges in the process. And this is the moment when I seek you advice;
-look at the edges. They are sure ugly and shoddy made, however, should I bother and re-cut them?
-if so, how? Should I re-cut them completely to 30° or should I round the outer side, wich SHOULD be round, but commies just made it sloppy, or should I just sandpaper it?
-what head should I use? I'm talking about bop sizes, but I don't really intend to play bop on it. I play more of rock and ska and I'm looking for that kinda smacky "modern" sound.
Thank you in advance for any advices or opinins.
Photos are here... ImageShack changed a bit and now I don't know how to put them directly into my post.
http://img826.imageshack.us/f/shell1r.jpg/