I recently thought it would be fun to add an intermediate size tom between my 12" toms and the 16" floor tom. I also felt it would be an interesting, and hopefully economical, project to do so by "converting" a marching snare. I found a 1962 Ludwig Gold Sparkle 14"X10" marching snare on ebay. My kit is a 1963 Ludwig Gold Sparkle Hollywood so the marcher was perfect in terms of age and color.
When I received the tom I was very pleased with the good condition of the shell. The Gold Sparkle was not badly faded, the hoops and lugs were very good, the inside was clean and the barring edges were good. It did have a lot of bulky "marching drum" hardware on it and it needed a thorough cleaning.
I removed the marching hardware, the snare throw-off and the butt plate leaving six 1/4" holes and four 1/8" holes in the shell. To fill the 1/4" holes I glued in short pieces of 1/4" doweling leaving them just below the level of the outside wrap. I used a good quality wood filler to fill the small 1/8" holes and to smooth over the ends of the 1/4" dowel in the inside. I matched the white paint to touch up the inside. I had some spare Gold Sparkle wrap on which I used a 1/4" paper hole punch and a 1/8" paper hole punch to make round pieces of wrap to cover the hole patches on the outside. I attached these with a dot of contact cement. The result is that from 5 feet away the patched holes are virtually invisible.
I moved the nearly new Remo Pinstripe head that came on the drum from the top to the bottom and installed a Remo Emperor I had on hand on the top. I have sold the P-85 throw-off and the butt plate on ebay. The bottom line is that I now have a really good looking Gold Sparkle 14"X10" tom for a total (new) investment of less than 50 bucks! At a recent jam session with [old] members of my old 60s rock group I put the tom on a snare stand to the right of my bass, between the 12" tom and the 16" floor tom. It sounds great and the tone interval between the toms is just what I wanted.
Sorry...long story, but maybe instructional.
