While were on the subject I thought this may be good to add here:
Some of the vintage Gretsch floor tom shells were made too close to the actual "drum size" - 14" shell for a 14" drum (should be slightly smaller to fit a 14" head for instance). When the wrap was added it made for a tight fitting head.
I ran into the following problem when I put some Gretsch floor tom lugs on a 16" Gretsch 1953 floor tom with tacked reso head. The drum came with no lugs or hoop. I bought some lugs on eBay...thinking they were all the same. It turns out there are at least two models of Vintage Gretsch floor tom lugs....see attached. The 9120-2 too wide for my drum. I didn't notice the difference when I mounted them.......some 9120-2 and some stamped 0-2 inside the casting. I put my die-cast hoop on the drum and the t-rods would not line up....they were at an angle when I tried to screw them into the lug nuts....so much so that they would strip in no time if I tried to force them on. The hoops I had were new Gretsch hoops. So....I bought two more Vintage hoops off eBay. Still...no luck fitting the hoops to the lugs. That's when I looked at the lugs more closely and found the two different models. The 0-2 lugs are shallower and allow the t-rods to enter the lug nuts at a perpendicular angle.
I was going to wrap the drum - I even bought a whole sheet of Gold Sparkle Vintage wrap (with the hexagon flakes). I could not wrap the drum because once I put the wrap on the drum it would cause even these shallower model 0-2 lugs to not line up with the T-Rods and hoop properly. I tacked a new head on the drum.
