Alright, so I was stripping the outside of the drum last night and got a good look at my nipple situation. First off, I was wrong on my sizing. I did drill 1" holes and have 3/4" nipples.
I bought the type of nipples that flare or expand in the middle, so my lock nuts FELT tight, but that was because they weren't screwing up tight against the drum, even with the screwdriver/hammer technique, they were just screwed as far up on that nipples as they could go.
At this point I'm realizing that I didn't fark up the drum, just bought the wrong eqipment. So, I'm going to get her painted up and learn to use this thing with some magnets and worry about adding the fun stuff to it later.
You know, K.I.S.S