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My friend, who is Les Paul fan, just bought a new Les Paul.
He was very excited bless him.
He said it was a 50’s ‘standard’ and that he got it for a really good price. So all good!
Then he told me “it has a spliced neck”!
Unsure of what that meant I said, “do you mean a laminated neck”?
To which he said “I guess so”.
I asked him “how many laminations does it have”?
He said “3”.
I said “that’s odd, Gibson don't do laminated mahogany necks and the only Les Paul necks they did laminate (to my knowledge), were maple ones, back in the 70’s”.
I asked to him to send me some pics but I couldn’t make them out. The neck looked to be 1 piece and I told him, “the two stripes going down the centre of the neck is actually a feature of that particular piece of mahogany”.
He insisted it was laminated and so I asked for more pics.
Then he sent me this one!
This is on top of someone making a video of their new Gibson, with a hair in the finish and another claiming the finish on his LP was… well less than satisfactory.
I thought the Gibson brand had just got out of the fire or am I reading this wrong?
What’s more odd is that the lamination isn’t even equidistant.Last edited by Archie; 03-23-2023 at 06:11 AM.
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03-22-2023 10:25 PM
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That sure looks like more than one piece of wood. FWIW, they did make 3 piece mahogany necks in the 70s (I had one), but that’s not what they looked like.
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They should have sprayed the whole thing gold or black like the old days. Easy fix for hodgepodge guitars.
I don’t think it’s a current QC issue, but rather an ease of communication issue, for every hair in the finish guitar there are thousands of non-viral good guitars.
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They say they would have to waste too much wood to carve it in one piece.
A number of youtube videos show how they make the necks.
I guess if the neck does not look like it came from the factory in the video...maybe it didn't....
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That looks like one piece. Look at the pic near the heel, that's one spot where a lamination would be obvious and it looks to have continuous grain.
The visual quality of mahogany is just not as good as it used to be on Gibsons, especially the lower line stuff.
That said I've bought a few gibbys in last couple years and they were pretty flawless in every way, finish, frets, etc. Had one piece bodies and beautiful grain, and they were lower tier stuff like Tributes and Specials.
They don't sort the lower tier woods like they do CS stuff, but sometimes you get lucky with what they were pulling that day.
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Getting good wood and large pieces is getting very hard.
Most 1 piece laminate tops and backs used to be 1 piece. Now 2.
Mark Campellone told me his great wood sources have dried up and when he finds good wood it is a fortune price wise.
I am sure Gibson is having the same problem. Maybe another reason they don’t make 175’s anymore. Can’t do 1 piece tops.
I think this is the future.
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"Gibson has always been on the leading edge of innovation. We've always done the same thang."
Originally Posted by icr
What a lovely oxymoron
Respectfully I say to Thee;
Keep on doing your thang that you've always been doing and try not to innovate.
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Guys, you know they all got "ears". They've always done the same thang. Nothing is going on.Last edited by JCat; 03-24-2023 at 06:19 AM.
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Yeah, that looks like a sap wood line that coincidentally follows the neck length. The ears look like separate pieces to me. Originally Posted by street
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It looks laminated to me. FWIW it also looks symmetrical.
Doesn't bother me in the least. Potentially even less prone to twisting since the adjacent pieces (typically with grain oriented in the opposite direction) provide stability.
I sure love mahogany. What a beautiful wood.
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Looks like a 1 piece neck with headstock wings to me. It has been like that for a long time.
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if you look @ the first pic it looks like the right 'wing' is very narrow, the left the normal width for a wing.
I'm almost positive it just happens to be a grainline in the wood that extends down the length of the neck and ends before the heel [as someone already mentioned]
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Uh I think you might be right. Originally Posted by street
Ok egg on my face.
Everything at Gibson is fine! You can all go home now!
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As long as Gibson stays away from archtops, I couldn't care less. Go to any guitar show and there's a myriad of plank-cutters - large and small - who out-Gibson Gibsons (and out-Fender Fenders), with even a negative price premium. Making hollow-bodies is a different game. Having dropped the ball, Gibson will face a hard time if they ever attempt a comeback. This will be blasphemy to some, but I think they should draw on the Epiphone presence in Asia and have Gibson-labeled archtops made in those plants, which apparently are far more modern and efficient than the original US facilities.
I have nothing against laminated necks. I also think that book-matched laminate tops and backs look pricier than full-width. That's how their solid-wood counterparts look anyway.
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I agree re: one piece v:s 2 piece laminate tops and backs. Originally Posted by Gitterbug
For some reason the one piece just doesn’t look right.
I was thinking about this only earlier today.
I’m quite sure the one piece tops and backs are knife cut veneers, in which case it’s a .6mm decorative layer. Yet I can’t seem to find evidence of it looking at a cross section of the laminate.
This means it is either thinner than .6mm or it is indeed a full 1.5mm, roughly the thickness of Gibsons maple laminates, (either side of the poplar). In which case that is not a corner cut and ‘just for show’. That is a wide piece of solid maple that has been resawn, which I respect.
I don’t known if lumber yards can knife cut veneers that thick. If they can, then I swing back to not being that impressed ha!
Basically if they have splurged on a really expensive piece of 16” wide, super figured maple (if that even exists) then fair play.
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Originally Posted by Gitterbug
Blasphemy? Nah, but they should move the Epiphone brand back here. Why not?
As for their classic archtops, they would ship American spruce and maple half way around the world to have people attempt to make L5s and Super 400s? Why? All the materials and knowledge are here. The instruments may be more expensive when slave labor isn't used, but that's OK. You can always get a Telecaster with an EQ pedal.
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This is correct IME. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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This guitar was made over 10 years ago. Wildwood Guitars in Boulder, CO always seemed to get the best out of Gibson.
How different or similar this is to the "problem LP" in the OP - and what difference it makes - is something I'll leave to those who know more about the topic than I. (please pardon the "modern" chandelier reflection, that will be history soon)
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They made the headstock ears wider than they used to and carried them all the way down the neck. Three pieces. Third photo shows it clearly. The necks in the factory clip show ears that terminate outside of the peg holes. First pic shows ears on the inside of the peg holes. And as expected, you can see in third pic some grain lines right at the heel that terminate unnaturally into the lamination. If it was in focus down there it'd be unmistakable.
In some pics the lamination on the actual neck is hard to detect. Quartered mahogany grain blends very nicely. Except for the color difference in the third photo blows it big time.
I've got nothing against laminating wood. Do it everyday! Well I don't anymore but the guys in the shop do.
My bigger beef with the workmanship is this: if they had to do it the least they could've done is make the wings the same width! The centre lamination is off centre. Look at where the lams are in relation to the tuner backs in the first photo. A solid 1/8th inch difference. You're fired!!
A Gibson for a really good price isn't always a Gibson though...
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Difficult to tell what's going on with Gibson archtops at the moment,
but judging by what I've seen in recent videos of custom shop tours, new L5s in the Reverb Demo shop, and one of our own forum members new L5 received last year ...
Recent Gibson custom shop tour ... looks like they are still making archtops in 2022
Gibson has been quietly building and shipping new L5s and maybe even Super 400s even though they are not in the current catalog.
They weren't taking any new orders when I checked last year. but my guess is they may still be working to fill backorders.
There have been rumors of a new archtop program in the works, but who knows. At least they seem to have kept a hand in the game.
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175s had 3 piece mahogany necks in the early '70s after they switched from maple. They played and sounded great and were more stable . I had one, it was one of my faves...
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I still prefer the look of 1 piece laminated tops.
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Hey listen, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t say no but in all that sea of figured maple, I just like to have something that breaks things up. Originally Posted by vinnyv1k
I still prefer the look of 1 piece laminated tops.
Would I still prefer it over plain or cathedral’ing?
Yes!
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I tend to agree with you on this one, too. Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
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The weirdest thing happened today. I hated those robotunners when they came out. I always feel like I can tune my guitar better then an arbitrary digital tunner. I use both my eyes and (especially important) my ears when I tune. Just today I realized that at a gig the stupid robotunners would make my bigsby more practical. Maybe I would not have things as sweet, but hit one button and I could fix the drift. Weird ehh.
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Yeah, but you’re assuming they actually worked. I think that was the big issue, you still had to tweak them. Originally Posted by st.bede
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