Kit dilemma.

MJD

Silver Member
When i was a teenager i found a vintage Ludwig kit on the street. The bass drum and rack tom are silver sparkle and the floor tom is a strange burgundy pearl type wrap. the bass drum hoops are the same color as the floor tom. It sat in my room where i had first my yamaha 7 piece and then my Tama 5 piece which was eventually lost. when i joined my new band the Ludwig was my only kit. I had never really fixed it up. Just put new heads on it. It sounds amazing and i had it set up in my room not going anywhere. So i got a cheap Groove percusion bop kit and it sounds perfect but only looks halfway passable. I intend to get it rewrapped but i need to fix the Ludwig up first. Then a thought struck me, i could get the Ludwig rewrapped so all the pieces match. Then another thought struck me, these are vintage three ply drums, from the 60's judging by the floor tom finish, might not restoration be the way to go leaving the original wrap intact? I cant decide and thought i'd share my dilemma with my fellow drummers and see if they had any thoughts on the matter
 
There are two types of vintage kit. A collectors kit and a players kit.

Collectors must be all original in order to obtain top dollar on a resale, so in this respect a re-wrap would definitely effect the value. Of course, collectors must also be all original and yours sounds as if it could be mismatched from two different kits

Unless the thing is pristine and actually came from the factory with mismatching finishes, then true collector value isn't gonna be there anyway. So any effect a re-wrap would have on value is gonna be negligible. Sounds like this is very much a players kit.....in which case, re-wrap away.
 
Maybe this isn't news but why not leave the Ludwigs alone? Clean them up but don't re-wrap them. I had a kit re-wrapped once and the tone it had was gone, so I'm afraid to do that now. If the floor tom is still a sparkle, nobody would really notice that it's not an exact match, and you only see half the drum anyway when you're playing. This I would consider a slight mismatch. It's not like Benny Greb using his natural wood bass drum with his white marine pearl toms. And besides, if he doesn't care, then it should be ok for you.

Maybe take the hardware off and give them all a good cleaning and polish - maybe make your bass drum hoops solid black. If they sound great, I'd leave them alone otherwise.
 
This I would consider a slight mismatch.

Silver sparkle and burgundy pearl a slight mismatch? I reckon blind Freddie riding a galloping horse could spot that one mate.

As for the re-wrap, I'm not denying external mass is not gonna have at least some effect, but swapping one wrap for another wrap that is relatively similar (as far as mass is concerned) having a material effect on the tonal qualities of the shell? I'm not sold. You'd get a greater tonal difference by swapping flanged hoops for die cast, than you would by re-wrapping a drum, surely? For all intents and purposes......and without the use of scientific micro measuring equipment, the concept of a humble wrap completely killing the existing tone makes no sense to me.
 
the concept of a humble wrap completely killing the existing tone makes no sense to me.
Agreed. Swapping one wrap for another of similar mass should make no difference whatsoever, but there's a caveat here, & that's how the original wrap on some earlier drums was integrated into the outer ply/seam. I've never done this myself, so I might be talking out of my arse here, but I do know a couple of players who've had bad experiences as a result of a rewrap on older drums using this construction. I don't know why. Maybe whoever did the rewrap wasn't experienced with these drums? Anyone's guess really.

Maybe Steve or Harry can shed some light on this.
 
Silver sparkle and burgundy pearl a slight mismatch? I reckon blind Freddie riding a galloping horse could spot that one mate.

As for the re-wrap, I'm not denying external mass is not gonna have at least some effect, but swapping one wrap for another wrap that is relatively similar (as far as mass is concerned) having a material effect on the tonal qualities of the shell? I'm not sold. You'd get a greater tonal difference by swapping flanged hoops for die cast, than you would by re-wrapping a drum, surely? For all intents and purposes......and without the use of scientific micro measuring equipment, the concept of a humble wrap completely killing the existing tone makes no sense to me.

OK. I didn't see that he said it was a burgundy pearl. I thought it was still a sparkle. Oh well. But I still say, if it already sounds good, who cares what it looks like? I'm approaching this as not messing with the sound that is already there. I've seen old videos of how the big four applied wraps and when you do it with big rolling machines applying equal pressure, that's much different than some guy in a shop applying glue, letting it sit, and then rolling the shell to apply the wrap, and then applying clamps to hold down the seam. Sometimes you get lucky and it comes out great, sometimes you don't. Modern DW FinishPly drums would be the ultimate in wrapping technology today. I'm not keen on taking the chance if you already like how they sound. Whether or not the perceived difference is big enough, you won't figure that out until the job is done.
 
I would remove the old wrap and rewrap them with a wrap color that would have been used during their time period. I would make sure that the badges are reused and the wrap is glued tightly to the shells.
I would also have the edges serviced and unwanted holes filled if needed at the same time.
 
I would not spend money on a rewrap for the Groove Kit personally. If I did not need the Groove kit, I would sell it and buy a matching floor tom for the Ludwig.

The current floor tom may be of interest to someone else, so maybe you could sell that and fund a matching floor tom.

You can order matching bass inlays from places like Jammin Sams. Other than that I would not mess with applying new wrap unless the current one is badly split, missing pieces, etc.
 
The bass drum and rack tom are silver sparkle and the floor tom is a strange burgundy pearl type wrap. the bass drum hoops are the same color as the floor tom ...... any thoughts on the matter
Pictures would be nice. Here's a list of Ludwig colors. http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/ludwig_finishes.html Try to find what you have (floor tom wise).​
I'd say first, you need to establish if the floor tom is an original wrap, or not. If it's not original. Re-wrap it to match. If it is original .... I'd sell it, and then buy a matching silver sparkle floor tom. Since you originally got the drums for free .... putting a little money into the kit ..... not a bad idea. Without pictures, hard to say what your kit's worth. Somewhere between $500-$1000, probably. And having matching colors would certainly up the desirability of the kit.​
 
Thank you all for your responses. @ harry conway, going by your link the floor tom is ruby strata from the 68 catalog. Since the bass hoops match the floor tom i have always been unsure as to whether this was a kit built that way or whether someone frankenstiened it prior to my finding it. I suspect the latter but all the pieces do seem to be of the same vintage, the shells all share the same type of construction and the wood is the same color. All i know is that i love the way they sound and theres no way i can get rid of them but i want them to be more gig ready than they are now after what has to be 40 odd years of abuse.
 
Back
Top