1) I think the wrap will push it down but if you're worried put some wood glue on the area and clamp it down with some wax paper between clamp and shell.

2) The nick is tiny and won't make a nick of difference :). But if you're worried about it yes fill it with wood filler or glue+sawdust.

3) You're going to love them!

I agree with the wood filler and wood glue suggestions.

As far as sound, the 3-ply, 24-in kicks are some of the best sounding kicks I've heard- fat and boomy. I typically prefer the sound and tone of the 6 ply toms versus 3 ply toms, but since your toms are big they should sound extra fat and boomy like your kick, though not as loud as 6 ply drums would be. I think you'll like 'em.

Thanks guys! Not too worried about the bearing edge yet. Hopefully it just booms and sounds good! I’ll probably put a felt strip there and just see what happens.

Just picked up some goof off and some stripper to get the glue off of the shells. Will probably glue down some of the big splinters and fill some small areas here and there and they’ll be ready to wrap! I’ll be sure to share some pictures once they’re finished :)

What about just putting a few coats of lacquer instead of wrapping them? Are the shells too banged up? When i get nice mahogany tubs, i treat the shell with wax or polish as much as possible.

drumFX-Those are gorgeous. I’ve definitely thought about that. The mahogany looks great, but I’ve never wrapped a kit before and I really like the “Ginger glitter” wrap Ive found. Also, I’m having a hell of a time getting the glue off (as expected :))

On that note-For getting the old glue off, I’m using an orange citrus stripping gel and goof off. I’ll put a thick coat of gel on for 30-45 minutes, scrape it with a plastic scraper and then put some goof off on the rough side of a kitchen sponge and try to rub the rest off. So far I’ve gotten about 1/4 of the glue off with about 4-5 goes using that process. There is still a very little bit of “fuzzy” residual glue left and a couple of small areas that is just clean wood. Is it imperative I strip it completely clean to wrap them? I kind of want to regardless because I’m just sort OCD about it, but I haven’t even gotten finished with the rack Tom yet and still have two giant drums to go haha.

If you want to....But you definitely don't have to. Is it regular thickness wrap? If so, i like to use hi-bond 3m carpet tape to wrap drums. I stay away from the glues for obvious reasons. I have wrapped probably 60-65 kits so far with that stuff.

Oh man. Tape sounds great haha. I don’t have the wrap in hand, but I assume it is a standard thickness. I’ve not done a lot of research on tape vs glue, but I’ll look into it.

I’ll attach a picture of where I am on this rack Tom. You can see at the bottom of the picture, the shell is nice and smooth, which takes a hell of a lot of work to achieve. At the top of the picture is just after scraping off the gel and rubbing it with some goof off. Not really putting any elbow grease in it leaves some fuzzy glue left behind, but is still fairly smooth.

There are two camps regarding the tape method with no neutral people among those who have wrapped drums. I am a champion for the high bond two-sided tape method. It works just fine if you take your time. This method is also more forgiving if you ever want to change the wrap for another color. I would not obsess with getting the shells as smooth as a baby's back side. just get them fairly smooth, and then prime them with a light color paint for light colored wrap or darker primer paint for a darker color wrap. The tape will bond very well with a completely dried primered shell.

Is priming the drum crucial? Just curious. Also where do you actually put the tape? This is sounding pretty nice.

I went to a local drum restoration shop just a bit ago and the guy mentioned that sometimes drums would have high and low spots in the shell which could sometimes cause air bubbles after wrapping. Which, I suppose could also happen with tape too. Never thought/heard of that before, but it makes sense.