Frankenkit

Here is a kit that I built a couple of years ago - "Frankenkit"

The drums I used were :
14" X 6" Ludwig Supraphonic Snare
18" Remo Roto-Tom
14" Remo Roto-Tom
28" X 9" Ludwig? marching bass drum

I attached the Roto-Toms to the ride stand with various clamps. I had clamp on spurs for the marching band bass drum. I just used a snare stand for the snare. The idea was to create a kit that was easy to transport and easy to set-up and tear down. Instead, this thing was a bitch to move because of the odd sized bass drum. Set up and tear down took about 30-40 minutes. My experiment turned out to be a pain in the ass. This is probably the only good picture of Frankenkit.

On the up side, this kit sounded great! The extra large Roto-Toms had a depth of tone that the smaller ones can't even touch. The bass drum was a monster - sounded like a cannon. The Supraphonic snare was awesome and loud. I have since sold all of these drums and I am still kicking myself.

Two more views of Frankenkit :

Crazy Tiny Kit

Update: Tore the kit apart for hardware. The 16"x16" tom/kick just wasn't loud enough. Sadness. I'm still using the 10" tom. I gave the snare to a friend who needed one. The 16" tom is sitting in the garage, waiting to be used for another project.

I've just finished building my Crazy Tiny Kit!
Total Cost : $82 (including new heads!)

Materials :
16" X 16" floor tom
12" X 10" rack tom
12" X 5" snare drum
2 single tom mounts (1 to mount to snare drum, 1 for ride stand)
1 double tom bass drum mount
4" wide piece of board (for mounting kick pedal)
2 screws w/ nuts (for mounting kick pedal)

I bought a Peace 16" X 16" floor tom and a matching 12" X 10" rack tom at a thrift store for $20! I used a Ludwig Accent snare drum (12" X 5") that I had in the garage. I just happened to have the hardware laying around. If you were to buy the hardware, you would spend approximately $80, give or take a few bucks.

I laid the floor tom on its side to use it as a kick drum. Thanks to Lane Hughes at Lane Hughes Woodworking (Salt Lake City) for helping me. Lane drilled the holes for me for $20. If you attempt this madness, be aware that you need a drill press to drill the larger holes for the tom posts. If you attempt to drill the large holes with a hand drill, you'll probably split the shell.

I attached both a single and double tom mount to the top of the floor tom. Placement of the mounts was key. I attached the double tom mount closer to the back of the bass drum (batter side) to allow the snare and tom to be placed closer to me. I attached the single tom mount closer to the resonant head side, in hopes that the ride cymbal, once mounted, would counterbalance the other two drums. (It does!)

I attached a single tom mount to the snare drum. (Snare is the maroon colored drum.)

I put new heads ($42) all the way around - thanks to Dave at House of Guitars for hooking me up. I guess I could've been cheap and used the shitty heads that were already on the shells, but I wanted these babies to sound nice.

Here's what I used:

12" Remo Emperor coated on the snare (Weatherking)
16" Remo Pinstripe clear as the bass drum head
12" Remo pinstripe clear for the tom head.


The kit sounds great, and I only have to use one stand - the hi-hat. Everything else is mounted right on the tiny little bass drum.Don't let the tiny bass drum fool you! The sound is enormous and low-pitched. The 12" X 5" snare adds a really dry pop sound that I like a lot. The 12" X 10" tom is sweet.

The kick drum pedal is attached to a piece of redwood fencing that I cut to about 8" length. I drilled two holes about 2" apart in the bottom of the shell, then attached the board with some screws. I had to cut a notch in the board in order to allow the kick pedal clamp to close all the way. The board also raised the batter side of the kick drum up about 2 inches. For legs, I just turned the tom legs until they held up the whole operation. Pretty slick.

For a sense of scale, here is my new micro-kit next to the bass drum from my Ludwig Epic kit!

And another shot of micro-kit side by side with just the bass drum from my Ludwig Epic kit.Pretty crazy how tiny this new kit is!