The idea is to give it a cleaner look. I usually place my rack tom on a snare stand, so bracket was redundant.
In order to plug the holes properly, I followed a few steps:
1. Filling the existing holes with pieces of wood, whether it's plugs (cut with a plug cutter) or wood patches, carved to shape. I sometimes had to enlarge the existing holes to fit a standard plug, like I did with the damper mounts. It's OK if it's not very clean, it's only the first step of the process.
2. Hollowing out a shallow cut (using a forstner bit for holes or a router for shapes) that overlaps the filling plug, both sides of the shell. Then glue thin patches trying to match woodgrain. This has 2 advantages: give a cleaner joint (thanks to superficial routing) and a stronger bond (finishing plugs kind of seal the filling plug into the shell).
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| A very convenient one handed Makita wood trimmer, perfect for that kind of light woodworking. The copying ring follows the edge of the jig, that's 2 mm wider than the cut. I used hot melt glue on masking tape to fix the jig to the shell. |
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| In this case I used a piece of thick gloss cardboard from a shoebox to cut the routing jig. Worked fine. |
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| There you have it. A nice pill-shaped cut, ready to have finishing patches glued. |
3. Sanding or routing off the finishing plugs flush with the shell.
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| Here a few 15mm finishing plugs, actually one long plug cut into slices |
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| If you pick the right wood tone, plugging can become barely noticeable |
