I'm going to completely refinish my drums, and as a part of the cosmetic changes, I want to fabricate my own tom suspension mounts. My set is a beginner's 5 piece Ludwig Accent CS Custom that I have added 8" and 10" Toms to. My 8" tom came with a Ludwig factory suspension mount already on it. I like the way it sounds, so I want to make all the other drums sound as good. The 2 challenges I face are as follows:
1) My tom mounts are for tube style arms, thus there's a hole in my 10", 12", & 13" toms.
I thought about using either wood putty to fill in the hole, or just covering it up with some aluminum tape and making cosmetic adjustments to make it look right.
2) I looked at suspension mounts on musiciansfriend.com, and was impressed with the TAMA design as shown below. I want the challenge of designing and building, as well as not spending as much money to buy what I can readily make.
http://drums-percussion.musiciansfriend.com/product/Tama-Rockstar-Tom?sku=583009
Does anyone have experience with this? Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated. Thanks!