I bought an old stencil kit made of really thin lauan (2 ply is this possible?) with reinforcement rings, actually it sound good.

It was wrapped with a single ply of wood by the previous owner and when he did that, he also covered all the air vent holes on everything, snare, toms, kick...

I'm wondering if I should reopen the holes or not, what will be the differences in the sound? As I said, the kit sound ok, very fat, but the snare is the weak link in the drum, when close miked, the snare sound really weird but from a distance it is acceptable.

Also, I heard about coating the inside of the snare with shellac, does it really make a difference in the sound?

I would like to hear your opinions on those subjects,

Thanks.