Weird... The pro pedals (not SK) are Taiwan.... The Speed king is made in NC... The Accent pedals are china.

Unless they just made a foundry at the plant the only metal fabrication I saw was the plastic drum head rim bands nothing else, made in china boxes where stacked to the ceiling, I live only 70 miles from the factory??

Also Kevins and Myself are going to do a Photo factory tour Soon, Like was recently done on the DFO, so as to dispel many myths and misunderstands of the Monroe NC factory!

In Fact I just found the DFO LINK this will Plainly show No metal fabrication In the Monroe NC plant! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5705842&id=387985835855&fbid=418073365855#!/photo.php?pid=5705888&id=387985835855&fbid=418073655855

Then Ludwig is lying to all of us. The last recent article I read in Modern Drummer about Ludwig clearly stated that the Speed King is the last piece of hardware that is totally made in the USA in house in Monroe. Unless that's changed very recently, they are supposedly made right here in the USA.

Now, maybe its possible they sent the tooling overseas to have the parts cast and then they are shipped back here for assembly....

Sounds like some loctite 242 (the red stuff) on the outside of the bearing where it fits into the post may be in order for the fix. Should be good as new after that. Unfortunately, if you do use the 242 red, you'll need to apply heat to the bearing and post in order to remove it in the future if you should ever have to do so.

It's obviously one of two thing either the writer got it wrong, or the Speed King is only assembled here in the USA, this photo tour of the Ludwig plant was taken only a month ago, and you can plainly see that there is no foundry or metal fabrication other than as I stated the Drum Heads aluminum metal band, that's it!

It would make sense that the article inferred they are assembled here. A lot of drum companies claim they are making custom drums when in fact all they are doing is slapping the things together. It's an unfortunate bit of acceptance that our drumming society has adopted. Very few actually BUILD the things. The SK may have gone this road. Who knows.

Its like the old argument about Toyotas being "American made" now. Yes they have an ASSEMBLY plant in the US now, but the American workers are just ASSEMBLING Japanese made parts for a Japanese company. We, the American public, buy these things thinking we are doing the American worker good. What is overlooked is the fact that the profits from the sales of these Toyotas go right back to Japan, NOT American workers.

So to compare my argument to the drum industry....I would rather buy "cheap Chinese crap" with the Ludwig name on it than Pearl or Tama, or Yamaha, or Mapex, or whatever foreign company. At least when Ludwig has them made overseas the profits come back here to the American company......

My bet is, like I said before, that the parts are made overseas now and that they are assembled in Monroe, technically making it made in America. Yes they are cast in China or wherever, but its an American company having that done over there, then impoting the parts over here and having American workers assemble them, keeping the profits here for the American company and hopefully, ultimately the American workers in the Monroe plant. (I don't know that they have stock options or not...)

With all that said, the tooling that the speed king is made on is the same old tooling that it was made on in Chicago all those years ago. I'm sure that it is well past its prime now and needs to be re-tooled in order to help fit and finish issues like this one. I've heard rumors that this is in fact in the works in order to bring the quality back up to what we expect from a speed king.

I won't get on a box, but I will say I don't like this goofy Universality way of doing business. I still love the quaint idea of custom hand crafting. Very few companies do that these days. Shame. I miss it. Violin