Hmmm..I just double-checked my '69 shells and they do not have the wrap tucked into the scarf....AND, the shells are stamped from JANUARY, 1969. Weird, huh?

A slight oddity on my '69, 12" tom tom is that the small lugs are mounted closer to the ends of the shells than on my '67 12" tom tom. I've seen other tom toms where the lugs are mounted closer to the middle of the shell, too. I would have thought they would have been using some kind of jig for such measurements...but, in some cases, it seems just....random!

I can't explain why your APRIL, 1969 shells have the wrap into the scarf. That is a weird one...(to me, anyway).

Hypothetical Situation #1:Maybe someone called in sick and a former shell builder filled in for them and just forgot to do it the "new" way and made a few clear, maple interior shells the way they had always done...and just stamped it and put it out there. *shrugs shoulders*

Maybe the wrap was important being there top of the expensive wrap

Interesting minutia discussion. I checked my no-date stamp 1966 "Hollywood" kit and my date-stamped Dec 31, 1968 "Hollywood" kit. Both have the wrap in the scarf joint, as expected.

More interesting however, is the fact that all 3 toms on my Dec 1968 kit have the lugs closer to the edges of the shells than the toms on my 1966 kit. (I haven't checked the bass drum lugs.)

So this was an intentional change in construction, not a result of sloppiness. But that begs the question of Why?

Another "rabbit hole" for us to dive down into!

Regards, mb

That IS interesting, Marty. I seriously doubt that Ludwig's decision had anything to do with sonic-research....but, yeah...WHY?

Could it have had anything to do with keeping the wrap "bolted" down by the lugs, closer to the edges? I know that, sometime in the early 1970's, they changed the glue formula and had all kinds of problems with it shrinking and pulling the wrap with it.. But, other than that, I can't guess why they would change the lug orientation.

Sometimes product managers order changes in the products to justify their paychecks. This happens all the time in the musical instrument making business. "God forbid that we don't make changes in the long-time best selling products or the "suits" will realize that they don't need me". Even the great Leo Fender was only marginally successful when he tried to re-invent his iconic guitars and amps. One of the sharpest minds in product management was the late Dan Smith. When Dan headed up all things guitar for Fender, he constantly bounced new ideas of the wall and introduced many new models with varied success. However.....throughout Dan's tenure, he was enormously successful when he went deeper into the realm of the original-spec instruments. There were (and still are) two types of guitars made by the company--the newest innovations in cosmetics and function and the instruments that might have come off the line 50, 60, and 70 years ago. Some product manager at Ludwig must have been desperately trying to hold on to his job by ordering those manufacturing changes.

Wasn’t that around the time bill senior stepped back , and bill jr , took over operations ?

Bill Ludwig Sr. left his office for the last time on July 7, 1973 and died sometime later that same year. (from Bill Jr's autobiography) But I don't know when Bill Sr. stepped back and let Bill Jr. take the reins.

Re: Ludwig's repositioning the tom lugs closer to the edges of the shells in approximately 1968, it's only 1/4". I certainly would never have noticed if O-Lugs hadn't mentioned discovering the difference between his 1967 and 1969 12" toms. And I subsequently found the same thing on my Fall 1966 and Dec 1968 kits.

After purchasing the date-stamped Dec 31, 1968 kit earlier this year, I cleaned them up and - while tuning the 13" tom with new heads - I noticed that I had less available threads showing on the tension rods, than I was used to seeing. I found this curious and chalked it up to perhaps the non-threaded portion of the tension rods were longer than normal..or they were the wrong tension rods. But they all seemed identical, and were in the same minty condition - and the drum tuned up fine - so I never gave it another thought until O-Lug's post.

"Geeking out" on this stuff sure keeps my brain engaged! Trying to stay one step ahead of Alzheimers!

Regards, MB

Hey Marty!

Actually, when I received my '69 kit, I noticed that I couldn't tension the heads past a certain point before the unthreaded collar of the lug screw would come in contact with the thread insert....and then that was as far as it would go -which made it possible to only get to a low "tuning" range...

...Then I realized that the seller had inadvertently switched out the shorter screws from the tom tom and put them on the Supra, and visa-versa. Once I switched the shorter lug screws back to the tom tom, everything was fine and both the tom tom and the Supra could be tensioned as-needed.

But, yeah, I scratched my head on that one for a minute, too, and just wrote it off as one of the many inconsistencies that could be found on Ludwig drums of that era. If it was a design change decision, then it was a strange direction to go in.

I'm actually kind of glad, in a way, that Marty has some drums that display this "phenotype", too, and that may drum wasn't just a drum that got made late on a Friday evening around quitting time...heh heh

We should probably put the questionnaire out there and see just how many of these "Close to the Edge" drums exist from that era. It might be a help in future ID questions.

All the three ply shells have a scarf joint so I assume you're talking about whether the wrap goes into the joint or not. Certainly there would be some transitional overlap as shells made with the wrap already on them were used up while new shells were made without the wrap on the shell.

Several changes happened at around the same time (circa 1968): They stopped making shells with wrap already on them (although still bending a flat piece of 3 ply plywood into a shell, just without putting the wrap on first), they opted to use maple as the inner ply of almost all their production (wrapped drums still usually had a mahogany exterior ply and, of course the poplar inner core remained) and they introduced the Standard line of drums.

In my mind the introduction of the Standards may have played a significant part in the decision to stop wrapping the wood before forming the shells. The Standards used the same shells (although some retained mahogany interiors) but utilized a completely different selection of wraps. With a new selection of 15 unique new wraps to produce they may have run out of room to stash pre-wrapped shells all around the plant as they had previously done. At that point it made more sense to produce "plain" shells and then wrap them as ordered than to stockpile various finishes all over the place. But those stockpiles would explain why pre-wrapped drums might continue to show up for a year or two after that production process was ended.

I don't believe it's pure coincidence that this change was made at around the same time as a second line of drums was added but I have no first-hand knowledge to back that up. Ludwig was the last company still doing things that way prior to 1968 and if you think about it it was probably not the best way to do things as tastes changed in what finishes drummers wanted to order. Rather than trying to anticipate demand for a particular wrap it was more sensible to just make bare shells that could be wrapped in any wrap as needed, especially when there were around 30 different wraps for customers to choose from (depending on what line they were shopping from).

Anyway, just some thoughts on this.

Thanks, K.O., I appreciate (we appreciate) your chiming in on this discussion - and the other thread on Ludwig's change to lug positioning on the shells. Interesting stuff - I continue to learn from your knowledge, experience and thoughtful analysis regarding my incessant questions.

And yes, when I earlier referred to the "elimination of the scarf joint," I mispoke - I meant the wrap no longer "going into the joint."

Fun stuff! And thanks to Mark, Jaghog, O-lugs, Leedybdp, and Dan for regularly chiming in with their feedback.

Regards, MB (Marty Black)