Seems the most cost effective would be for you to do the shell prep and let him buy the parts and ship to him to put them on himself. Not rocket science to put on parts. The real job of shell prep is the most important work.

^ +1

That sounds like a reasonable alternative or plan "B" when offering a price quote -

Plan A -full conversion: shell prep, drilling, assembly; parts and labor = x$$$$

Plan B -partial conversion: shell prep, drilling; labor = x$$ (customer parts and assembly)

Gary,

I'm not a Ludwig guy at all, but the few Ludwig concert toms that have passed through my hands already had rerings and bearing edges on the bottom. Is this the case with this Octa-plus set? If so, they just have to be drilled for the lugs, correct?

I agree with the previous advice regarding giving the customer the two options. Drilling should be relatively easy, but purchasing all those lugs, rods, hoops, and heads is the real expense of this project.

Keep us updated.

Mike

I have a Sound Projector 2 kit which I believe has the same concert toms as the Octa kits.... I considered adding bottom heads and there are bearing edges cut, but the concert toms had higher lug counts than double headed toms. So the 12" and 13" toms on my kit have 8 mini lugs as opposed to 6 large classic lugs on double headed toms of the same era. Also the depths of most toms are different to my preferred depths. The 12" is 11" deep and the 13" is 12" deep, and cutting them down is beyond my skill level.

These two factors put me off doing any kind of conversion as I wasn't sure if adding the extra mass of 8 lugs would be a good idea. Eight lugs on a 12" drum seems like a lot, although I'd be interested to see what other people's thoughts are on this.

It's a lot of work and parts r impossible geez

Seems inevitable that at some point concert toms will be "in" again and folks will wonder why everyone "butchered" up their original concert toms by adding bottom heads.

Just a matter of drilling the holes and gathering up the required parts. The smaller lugs will be a giveaway on toms 13" and over which used the bigger lugs on double headed drums.

The octa-plus was/is an iconic set to a certain generation and I'm not sure messing one up is the wisest move...but they are yours , or rather his, to do with as he sees fit.

Not necessarily. One of my 6 ply kits has small classic lugs on all mounted toms.... they are also the deep toms. All original...

Lug sizes (and how many were used) kind of goes out the window in the six ply era. Lot's of changes as the power tom era started to take hold. Also, c'mon, we're talking Ludwig here so nothing is ever set in stone ;)

Exactly....