I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. They had a chance to go the extra mile and "man up". They did not. To me this is not a question of liability as much as "honor".

I don't blame them. 30 years ago is a long time. And the warranty was for the person who spent the full price with them. Not for someone who bought a used one and then wants to try and leverage the company to get a brand new one, so to speak. Lets be realistic. Hand hammered's are not cheap. In their point of view, he bought it used to save a couple of bucks. If it's even theirs to begin with. There's a lot of fakes out there. On top of that, when is a good statute of limitations to such a thing. Because if they're guaranteed for life, I have a couple of Radio kings that need some parts that "I think" should be covered.lol:p

She can now continue being the conversation piece she shouldn't have been but has been since the left turn at Albuquerque in the production process.

:)

I'm with teverson, the company is not liable for 'replace or repair' after the warranty expires. Which in this case was decades ago. But Ludwig missed an opportunity to do some great public relations work here, to 'stand behind' their product and their customers by putting the drum right. What a message it would send if Ludwig had assumed responsibility for the their own mistake and not lay it off on the poor consumer because "too much time has passed." They missed an opportunity to do the honorable thing, fix their own mistake and support a Ludwig customer.

Move the strainer and butt over one panel and play that drum! Send Ludwig several photos showing what you had to do to correct -their- mistake.

John

Just to put this straight again from my point of view:

I don't blame Ludwig at all for being straight and strict on their 3-year warranty. Over the last week I have heard more than a handful of people having similar problems. There would be a lot of "making up" to do.

LoLoLoLo

But I hoped for a while :-)

To get back to the drum itself: I found a skilled drumsmith over here in Germany who will get the drum in perfect playing condition - moving the strainer and butt-end - altering the Snarebed if needed - closing the extra holes I hope as well...

I'll post some pics once it's done :-)

Ludwig probably wouldn't want to set a precedence of fixing people's old drums for free, regardless of who was originally at fault. They'd find themselves with a lot of "extended warranty" expectations suddenly coming out of the woodwork.

The Monroe factory is about 20 miles from me.

If I had that drum I wonder what they would say if I walked in the front door with it?

LoLoLoLo

That is the smoothest attempt at a con job I've ever seen… as in, send the drum to me.. ;)

Yeah, I have several slightly out of round Ludwig drums from the early 70's along with bearing edges that were not cut 100% properly. The drums sound great but if that door were to open, how far should this go?

I talked to the drum builder today. He told me, I wouldn't believe how many faulty LUDWIG snares he has had in his hands in the last almost 30 years of him being in the business. And A LOT of them had wrong snarebeds. Sometimes at the wrong place like mine, sometimes 4 of them, sometimes more! Also snarebeds on the top bearing edge seem to have happened more than once...

Same goes for as he called it "really really badly made" bearing edges on both wood and metal shells...

Seems like Ludwig had a lot to do at one point or the other, and wasn't able to cope with it qualitywise...

Coffee Break2