New Drum Kit Day: WestCraft drum kit close to complete

Last week, I found a bass drum at one of my favorite junk shops for $25. It was a cheap, low-end drum from the late 1980's, nothing special but it was almost complete and the wood shell was in good shape.
It was bigger in diameter than I'd wanted, but in the end it turned out to be the drum I took to Kaleb at WestCraft Drums for refurbishing. I asked him to complete the hardware and paint it to match the snare drum he had refurbished for me a couple months ago.

I picked it up yesterday, came home and set up my new minimalist kit. And I began getting to know it, and to know myself as a kit drummer again.

Video at https://www.facebook.com/beth.hamon.9/posts/3704847102977126

A few glamour shots below.

I had Kaleb cut the bass drum down from 14" to 8" deep. He kindly added a couple pieces of missing hardware, including legs to fit the existing brackets.

He even repainted the plastic strips on the rims to match the drum shell (and the snare drum he'd done earlier).

Setting it up took more time than I thought, mostly because I had to sort out the cymbal stands and choowe a snare stand that would get the snare drum low enough for me to sit where I like in relation.

Here's the finished kit as it sits for now.
The existing tom mounts should serve well enough for my purposes, even as I'm still figuring out exactly how to make them work.

These aren't the cymbals of my dreams, though the hi-hats have been a nice surprise. The ride is way too ringy and has too many overtones.
The crash cymbal is, well, cheap. Heavy, slow to respond, not terribly sensitive.

So I'll be looking for some lighter more responsive cymbals down the line.

But the bass drum feels a little less "big" cut down to 8" depth. It sounds nice and punchy and will only need a small external muffler.

I'm using a boom-arm assembly clamped to an old tom arm and for now it works; once I get the rack tom back I'll figure out a better way for everything to go together.

Ideally, the rack tom will fit into a smaller practice pad basket, which in turn would fit onto an arm to fit into the second hole. I'm hoping my rack tome, cut down as well, will be shallow enough to work alongside the ride cymbal.

There will be more tweaking involved before this kit is where I want it.

But the two refurbished drums sound fabulous.
And as I can afford to, I'll slowly trade up to better cymbals in the coming months.

I'm really thrilled with how this turned out. If you're in the Portland area and you're thinking about some new drums, you might want to consider giving your old drums some new love. Kaleb Shields does incredible work -- and as a bonus, you can opt for a beautiful front bass drum head painted by his wife. (See above for how she made my bass look like the Big Blue Marble.)
Happy drumming!