Project Complete: West Craft drum kit

 The drum kit I began envisioning months ago is finally complete.

Obviously, there will be some tweaking while I dial in the exact position of the drums and cymbals, but it's set up and ready to play.

I spent time yesterday trading in a few bits in order to finish the kit, and setting up what I had.
Today I took delivery on the rack tom, which Kaleb had repainted and clear-lacquered for me.
I installed the new hardware, mounted it on the tom arm I'd shortened down in my bike workshop, and installed it on the kit.

It has been well over a decade since I had a drum kit, and my playing is rusty. But I thoroughly enjoyed taking the complete kit on its maiden voyage. In addition to this short video, I invited my wife to come in, admire the kit, and sing a few bars (strictly OFF-camera) of "Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn," a favorite she used to cover with her Klezmer band when we were first dating, while I accompanied her on brushes.
It was glorious.

I think I'm pretty happy with the kit overall, though the bass drum probably needs some additional tuning before it's dialed in. It's a bigger bass drum than I'd wanted, but it's what was available; removing depth helped quite a bit for both sound quality and portability.

The kit was cobbled together from these drums, each of which Kaleb repaired and refinished:

-- late 1970s Pearl snare drum
-- early 1980s CB700 rack tom
-- late 1980s unknown brand bass drum

I supplemented the existing hardware I already had (stands and such) with a Pearl ISS rack mount for the tom, and the bass pedal is a Peace (budget brand) model I got at Goodwill. I've left the Goodwill price sticker ($6.99) on it.

If I do it right, all of the hardware will fit into a giant messenger bag, the cymbals will fit in a cymbal bag and the drums will each fit into padded gig bags. I may find a way to modify a deeper 14" tom bag to take both toms with a layer of padding between them, but at this point I'm just glad to have a complete drum kit to play again.

Special shout-out to Kaleb at West Craft Drums for the stellar job refinishing and refurbishing these old drums to make them look and sound so good. I hope to enjoy playing them for a long time.