Late 70's and very early 80's. I worked for a music store in those days. We all thought they (Ludwig) had lost their minds back then, even. We had some returns from disappointed customers.

A drummer who was a senior in HS when I was a freshman brought in his pride and joy new WMP Buddy Rich set complete with riveted wrap. My Kents looked better...

Around 1980 Ludwig had to switch wrap suppliers and the new wraps they began using were shrinking much more than the older stuff. After a certain amount of time the wrap would pull apart along the seam. Ludwig's response was to try to secure the seam better to prevent that from happening. They decided to do so by mechanical means rather than trying a different adhesive or other production methods. The result was a low point in Ludwig history as the rivets looked bad, and didn't necessarily even work as intended (often the wrap shrank anyway creating elongated holes around each rivet).

Bill Ludwig Jr. addresses this whole incident in some detail in his autobiography. At first they were quite proud of their solution to the problem. They knew their competition was using the same wrap and assumed they would be having the same issues. They felt that they had been the first with a solution to the problem and it would give them a leg up on the other companies which were sure to have the same issue. For whatever reason the problem didn't seem to happen on Slingerland, Rogers, and Gretsch. By then Gretsch and Rogers had pretty much stopped using pearl type wraps anyhow. Slingerland still was but didn't seem to have the same issue (maybe they used better glue..?).

Anyhow after a couple of years Ludwig stopped using the rivets. Either they solved the problem another way or realized what a disaster the rivets had been. Also pearl wraps had become much less popular than natural finishes and the Cortex type solid colors.

I picked up a set cheap for a back line set to be used as the main kit for a benifit and they sounded great and everyone loved the sound . The wrap actually came of easily ( was COW) and the rivets didn’t go all the way through the shells.The shells were classic maple 6-ply.

I had the rivet holes filled and had them painted candy apple red with gold flakes and about 7 coats of lacquer and they are my current live set.

So great way to make a player kit and one of a kind.

I have a Chrome on wood 6 ply 10x14 tom with the rivets which always struck me as odd as the metal wrap on these drums was never going to shrink so there was no point to adding the rivets. Apparently it was a part of the production procedure for any wrapped drum whether it was in danger of the seam pulling apart or not. Cortex (Formica) wraps also would not shrink and therefore wouldn't need the rivets. I don't recall if they also had the rivets.

Ludwig seemed to realize that the rivets weren't especially attractive as they seemed to go out of their way to ensure they weren't visible in catalog and flyer shots of drums and sets. I only recall one instance where the rivets were readily visible and that was in a flyer/poster from late 1980. WFL II even mentioned in his book that they had colored rivets made up to try to hide them better with various wrap colors.

I witnessed an experience similar to that of teverson-sr.

Around 1980 my friend special ordered a Buddy Rich style kit with a 26-inch bass drum. If I recall correctly he waited something like 6 months for delivery. Finally he gets the kit and you where those rivets on the bass drum were located? Smack on top of the shell for everyone to see. It was a disgrace.He had the kit for a few weeks and one of the bass drum leg mounts cracked. Fortunately the local music store backed him up, returned it to Ludwig and got him a replacement kick drum. After seeing what he went through, I swore i'd never touch a Ludwig drum from that era.

Thanks to all for your responses. Very interesting....Hmmmm, I read WFL II's autobiography (The Making of a Drum Company) some time ago, but don't recall reading anything about the rivets. I guess memory is the second thing to go as we age. Sure wish I could remember the first thing. Regards, MB

As an owner of a late 80's Ludwig kit that was originally wrapped in WMP, I can tell you that although they solved the issues with the seams by then and had eliminated the ugly riveted seam, they sure as heck hadn't fixed the issue with the wrap shrinking! They had used the tape method as the fix, like most of the imports were doing at the time. However, temperature changes would still cause the wrap to stretch & shrink. My drums ended up looking like the attached picture. Ludwig wouldn't do anything at the time as they claimed the drums were out of warranty. So, I had to get them re-wrapped. I had to settle for a totally different looking "marine" pearl that I never really cared for as much as the original WMP, since that particular version was discontinued by the manufacturers at the time. Many years later, the original version of WMP became available through Precision drum, so I sprung for re-wrapping the drums again, but this time in the finish I fell in love with when I got the drums oh so many years ago. It's been many years since I did that, maybe about eight, and so far, they are holding up well. No shrinkage! (I was in the pool!!)

Page 86 is where he talks about it. He had the initial idea which was to use tacks to secure the seams. The engineering team refined that notion to using rivets.