> ...and got rid of the characteristic "doink" you often get with Ludwig toms mounted on the factory L-arm brackets.

A little trick to fix that:

That'll happen when you mount the tom on the L-arm with the arm pointing up. However, if you use the L-arm pointing -down- then mount the tom, resonance is magically restored. Try it!

John

You can also use nylon washers on the bolts of the original Camco hardware to get the tom mounts off the shell. I use this menthod on all my toms with diamond plates and it works regardless of the shell type.

[RIGHT]FYI[/RIGHT]

That idea sounds reasonable, Orangemi, but does it not stress and choke the shell at all?

The washers go on the bolts underneath the diamond plate, replacing the felt pad that would normally be there and slightly elevating the plate off the shell. You only have 4 very small points of contact with the shell. The plate is rigid and thus the shell is not stressed. You remove 9 square inches of metal that had been bolted to the shell. As I stated previously, it has worked very well with every tom I've used it on. Give it a try, it's inexpensive!

I used the kit with my cobbled together suspension mounts last night. The mounted toms came alive, but the whole affair is bulky and heavy.

Since these Camco tom brackets have a machined receiver that fits through the shell, the mount has a large washer and nut that secures it on the shell interior. I don't think nylon washers would do the trick in this case.