They look great. Unless I was waiting to find a WFL floor tom I would wrap the Ludwig in a matching wrap. Or wait for a WFL and wrap it.

Nice kit.

Thanks, that's good advice. Ideally I would like 8x12 and 14x14 toms, but they're hard to find in WMP and especially with a WFL badge. I might wrap this 16" floor tom, but when I look at the WFL shells the wrap was glued to the ply before the wood was even formed into a drum. So maybe re-wrapping a Ludwig shell might make it less Ludwigy. I'm still very tempted to wrap this drum. If I do I'll post it here. :)

Is that a factory natural finish or did someone strip it and refinish it? If it's "factory" you don't want to rewrap it as that is a pretty rare bird. Also, depending on when it was made, if that's the factory finish and you add a layer of wrap to it it's possible that heads will no longer fit right. If it's a drum that someone stripped then do whatever you like but the factory walnut (or mahogany or natural maple) is pretty rare so keep it original or sell/trade it to someone who needs it.

Chances are if you rewrap it in any of the modern WMP wraps it's still going to stand out like a sore thumb anyhow because the lack of yellowing on the new wrap and the newer wraps usually have a much smaller chip pattern. Your best bet would be to keep hunting for a WFL or Ludwig floor tom in original WMP. That was a fairly common color so one should pop up eventually. A WFL or Ludwig drum made between 1955 and 1968 should be pretty much the same construction as your WFL's, including the wrap going into the seam.

BTW: Just in case you didn't know, WFL and Ludwig are the same company and the drums were made the same way in the same factory. In 1955 Bill Ludwig Junior bought the Ludwig trademark back from Conn Musical Instrument Company. At that point the Ludwig family were able to rename the company they had started in the late 30's, WFL (William F. Ludwig), as the Ludwig Drum Company. The drums were still sold under the WFL brand name for a couple more years before they transitioned over to the Ludwig brand in late 1958. The drums themselves didn't really change, just the name on the badges. The production details did evolve over the years but the three ply shells stayed about the same until 1968 when, among a couple of other changes, they started to apply the wrap to the shell after it was formed.

Check out item number 181755488579 on ebay. Remove the snares and throw off, add some legs and you have a nice interim floor tom until the real deal comes along.

Hi, thanks for the info. I am very familiar with the history of Ludwig, but I didn't realise that this tom was a rare type. I've owned another Ludwig drum in this natural finish. It was a 67 Auditorium snare. I figured it was rare. Thanks for confirming that. It is without a doubt factory and not a drum that has been refurbished. I had a chance to buy the matching rack tom and bass drum. Seller listed the kit as separates on eBay. I messaged seller for a total cost of shipping on all 3 drums, but before they had the chance to reply the bass drum had sold. I thought about buying up the 2 toms, but before I could make up my mind, someone bought the rack tom so I ended up grabbing the floor tom while it was still there. Seller was practically giving the kit away. I added up the cost of the 3 drums and it would have been less than 550 dollars. Drums all appeared to be in great condition. Each shell had matching date stamps Mar 22 1968.

Oh well, I tried! I'm happy with the floor tom and I won't be rewrapping it.

Thanks a lot.

I had a 12 x 15 natural maple wfl and sold it for 350 I did not know how rare they were