Ludwig Lug Splay Solution

Bermuda? Any news on the official position Ludwig has on this?

Seems to me they dont see it as an issue as much as some do or they would change it. Its obvious to all but maybe only perceived as a problem to those who havent heard their explanation. It could be part of their "design" instead of a mistake as many seem to think.

Toolate.. do you have photos of this on modern Ludwig Toms/Kick ????????????????
 
I have noticed splay on Ludwig drums in the past during close inspection such as replacing heads; But, until I saw this thread I never gave it much thought.
Dang you guys! Now you have me looking for splay in every drum that I see :(
I hate you all :)
 
I have noticed splay on Ludwig drums in the past during close inspection such as replacing heads; But, until I saw this thread I never gave it much thought.
Dang you guys! Now you have me looking for splay in every drum that I see :(
I hate you all :)

Just play your Luddies a while, Bob. You'll be over it by tomorrow.
 
It could be part of their "design" instead of a mistake as many seem to think.
There's no way it's a deliberate design decision. If it was, it would be applied consistently, & they'd be marketing the hell out of it. I'd love to hear the design rationale behind that :)

It's plain & simple. It's a quality control issue. Probably due to either worn tooling, or lax tolerances, or both. Ludwig know it's there, but hey, why should they do anything about it. Players suck it up, & the affected drums still sell.

Facts: very slight lug splay can occur on any drum. There's enough wiggle room in the tension screw holes in most hoops to allow a degree of drift. Additionally, many modern pressed hoops have a significant draft angle, so encourage the screws to drift to the outer extreme of the hole. Such levels of splay have no adverse affect on the drum.

Significant splay however does have a negative affect on the drum. Ok, it's more noticeable with tube lugs, but even with insert lugs, it presents uneven & undesirable strains on the shell. Shells are designed to take axial & compressive forces, not tangental forces. Such forces harm shell resonance at best. At worst, they can warp the shell, especially under uneven tension conditions. Thankfully for Ludwig, it appears that most of the drums with splay are metal snares, that are more resilient to permanent deformation.
 
I'd love to hear the design rationale behind that :)

The new "Splay Lug Design" feature allows for a wider tuning range by allowing more tension to be applied to the head. The Splay design effectively compresses the heads collar by applying an inward force not seen on many lesser made drum kits. Wow your friends with acellerated rebound, and that rimshot CRACK you can't find anywhere else. Get your new Splay Snare today, where quality drum kits are sold!





For a limited time only!
 
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I'd love to hear the design rationale behind that :)/QUOTE]

The new "Splay Lug Design" feature allows for a wider tuning range by allowing more tension to be applied to the head. The Splay design effectively compresses the heads collar by applying an inward force not seen on many lesser made drum kits. Wow your friends with acellerated rebound, and that rimshot CRACK you can't find anywhere else. Get your new Splay Snare today, where quality drum kits are sold!





For a limited time only!

LMAO!!! Nice one :)
 
The new "Splay Lug Design" feature allows for a wider tuning range by allowing more tension to be applied to the head. The Splay design effectively compresses the heads collar by applying an inward force not seen on many lesser made drum kits. Wow your friends with acellerated rebound, and that rimshot CRACK you can't find anywhere else. Get your new Splay Snare today, where quality drum kits are sold!





For a limited time only!
Perfect! :) I'll rush off & change our designs immediately. Man, have we been missing a trick here ;) ;) ;)
 
The new "Splay Lug Design" feature allows for a wider tuning range by allowing more tension to be applied to the head. The Splay design effectively compresses the heads collar by applying an inward force not seen on many lesser made drum kits. Wow your friends with acellerated rebound, and that rimshot CRACK you can't find anywhere else. Get your new Splay Snare today, where quality drum kits are sold!

LUDWIG should hire you as a PR man.



You gotta look close people, you may not see it, lug splay... or maybe don't look close if you're considering buying.

LUDWIG CHIEF- L2008 $1,300
 

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Perfect! :) I'll rush off & change our designs immediately. Man, have we been missing a trick here ;) ;) ;)
Then your older used drums will be advertised on eBay as, "Rare Pre-Splay Guru's" :)

I actually think the splay adds visual appeal to the snare's. Kind of a, "crown" look :)
 
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Anyway, back to some semblance of seriousness...

I was over at Donn Bennett's a few months ago, and as we had just had this conversation about lug splay, I was going around checking the Ludwig snares they had in the store. To be sure, newer snares had the most obvious splay, but out of five or six used snares (I want to say three of which had B/O badges), two had noticeable splay as well.

In my mind, it's just something I check for when I'm buying a snare, no matter who makes it. There's certain manufacturers and certain lugs for whom it seems to be more of an issue.

Does it affect tuning, sound or whatever? It would take much more perceptive folks than me to determine that. What I do know, is that if I'm plunking down four to six benjamins (or more) on a snare drum, I would expect the little engineering touches such as making sure the tension rods were parallel with the shell to be spot on. I would expect lug splay in a $75 snare drum, not a $1300 limited-run snare.

Given Ludwig's recent history and where, for example, their hardware has been compared to what it is as of the past two years, I have hope that the hue and cry will be acknowledged and the engineers will address the issue, even if it's a simple fix like changing the rims. I don't think the gasket fix is a good one; I don't think I want a bunch of rubber all over the shell (not that a snare's shell is that free to vibrate even in the best of cases).

I don't think I'll buy a brand-new Supra any time soon, and even the vintage ones will have a very good inspection prior to me shelling out the dough. But I do still want a Supra. It's still the best snare in recording history.
 
OK, so lets analyze the cause of the splay with factual evidence.

As I see it there are two things that can cause splay.
1) The outside diameter of the drum shell
2) The height of the lug casing from the shell.
Is that true?

This is based on the fact that hoops are standardized and changing the hoop to one that is made by another manufacturer doesn't affect the splay on metal ludwig snare drums.
Is that true?

Ludwig makes several types of metal shell snare drums and splay is seen on each type of metal shell.
Is that true?

Ludwig snare drums that show splay come with three types of lugs, and splay is seen with all three lug types. (tube, bow tie, imperial)
Is that true?

In what manufacturing year did splay begin to occur?

Lets answer the above questions to find the true cause of the splay.

If the answer is that undersized drum shells are the cause of splay then is it a deliberate design by Ludwig to ensure that the rim of the head doesn't make contact with the drum shell?
Ludwig makes drums with standard hoops and standard dimension lugs so changing the O.D. of the shell is the simple option to achieve this.
 
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If you check out their snare drums with die cast hoops you'll notice that everything lines up perfectly. I have two Ludwig snares, both with die cast hoops (one of them using Yamaha die cast aluminum hoops) and there is no tension rod splay. NONE.
 
If you check out their snare drums with die cast hoops you'll notice that everything lines up perfectly. I have two Ludwig snares, both with die cast hoops (one of them using Yamaha die cast aluminum hoops) and there is no tension rod splay. NONE.

I noticed this as well which leads me to think it's more the new triple-flanged hoops than the diameter of the shell as the cause. I would think an undersized shell would cause some degree of splay no matter what hoops you used...unless the holes on a standard die-cast hoop don't project as much as the holes on a standard triple-flanged hoop. I don't know this for sure because I've never measured it.
 
LUDWIG should hire you as a PR man.

When Ludwig laid you off back in late 90s, did they at least provide you with a severance package?

Losing your job is no joke. It takes a long time to get over something like that, if it ever happens at all.
 
OK, so lets analyze the cause of the splay with factual evidence.

As I see it there are two things that can cause splay.
1) The outside diameter of the drum shell
2) The height of the lug casing from the shell.
Is that true?

This is based on the fact that hoops are standardized and changing the hoop to one that is made by another manufacturer doesn't affect the splay on metal ludwig snare drums.
Is that true?

Ludwig makes several types of metal shell snare drums and splay is seen on each type of metal shell.
Is that true?

Ludwig snare drums that show splay come with three types of lugs, and splay is seen with all three lug types. (tube, bow tie, imperial)
Is that true?

In what manufacturing year did splay begin to occur?

Lets answer the above questions to find the true cause of the splay.

If the answer is that undersized drum shells are the cause of splay then is it a deliberate design by Ludwig to ensure that the rim of the head doesn't make contact with the drum shell?
Ludwig makes drums with standard hoops and standard dimension lugs so changing the O.D. of the shell is the simple option to achieve this.


Someone should just axe LUDWIG directly, see if they're even aware, if they even care.

Either the shell is undersized, or the lugs are undersized, which ever way they want to deal with it.


Their molds could have shrunk due to wear, aren't they using the same molds they used back in the covered wagon days?


deliberate

No way, that word 'maybe' could be used to describe their approach to 'not' dealing with the problem.


I noticed this as well which leads me to think it's more the new triple-flanged hoops than the diameter of the shell as the cause. I would think an undersized shell would cause some degree of splay no matter what hoops you used...unless the holes on a standard die-cast hoop don't project as much as the holes on a standard triple-flanged hoop. I don't know this for sure because I've never measured it.

The SUPRA shells are deep drawn aluminum, hence the one piece, maybe the plugs they draw them over have worn down, or were too small to begin with, they don't want to mess with the original diameter, even if it might never have been correct.
 
Yeah, this about the 5th (or so) Lug Splay thread.... I never heard, or thought about it until Les brought it up years ago when I joined in '08.

Regardless what someone's "tolerance" of "splay" may or may not be, LUDWIG is owned by a larger entity, that until a few short years ago, practically put nothing into the company.
Good enough reason for many people to say " 'eh, they kinda blow, whatever".
The people WORKING at Ludwig may have wanted to change some things, but the bottom line is the higher ups wouldn't do it (not really cool for us, but people weren't buying either).
Things have changed in the last few years, and are still changing. Having talked to a few Ludwig people, Kevin Packard for one, I can say they are striving and working to put out the best product possible, with very high quality standards.

All well and good some will say, but, I'm as picky as anyone else is, and I haven't had any of the issues others have had, so I still give them my business.

Ludwig drums sound like what I want drums to sound like.
No other drums have given me the same satisfaction in sound,playability, feel etc... and like most here, I've played just about everything. You have the kits that cost an arm and both legs, but not a ton of people are buying them. Those companies, say like Craviattio, have the luxury of starting from scratch, with nothing that's been used for years, and then something in the process changes, which may incur lug splay or whatever.
earl and Yamaha will come out with a new line and change the lugs to go along with the shells. Ludwig hasn't done that really until the Keystone's and some people had an issue with it. So how do you win?

My Mach lug Maple drums (going back to '90,up till 'early '12) don't have the splay. My '07-'10 CM's are all straight. I had a couple special sized drums made, using Ludwig hardware, and they are all straight too.

My Hammered 402 will get a little on a a couple lugs, and that's really the only one-ad it's also not that much unless I take off the head for some reason, and re-put it on (it's never going back to the same spot where the rods were straight. The '09 402 I sold was actually pretty straight,
One lug somewhere on the bottom of the BB snares might not be perfect, but everything else is pretty dang straight. My CM snare with the bow tie lugs is perfect all the way around. That one is from '09 I think.
The new Acro Classic is really straight--almost exactly perfect all the way around.
 
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