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Oops, the Unsung factory closed in 2016 (or ca. 2012 according to MtnCat's post above.)
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10-30-2023 04:28 PM
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You're right, not the factory, the firm: I've written to Epiphone
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Regarding the tone of the Epi Elitist, some years ago I had the opportunity to compare my Elitist directly with a L-5 CES. In general, the electric sound of the Epi was someway close to the L-5, that typical mellow, midrange Jazz-box sound. But it was far away from the liveliness, i.e. attack and dynamic of a L-5.
And regarding the construction of the top, I was also curious what it means, "solid spruce top". I pulled out one pickup and one of the pots close to the f- holes.
Both sections of the top showed the same profile, i.e. approx. 3-4 mm thick of solid spruce with a thin layer of approx. 0.5 mm of another wood on the bottom side. I think that thin layer might be there to stabilize the top helping to avoid any cracks during pressing into form.
Can we still call that a "solid top" or is it already to be called laminated?
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I read about the thin layer at the bottom side as well. At this point it’s anybody’s guess. ?
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Hmmm... Today I received the response to my email to Epiphone.
This was my email:
"I bought a used Emperor Regent. I'm very happy with it. I think it's built in the Unsung plant in 2010. Looking on the Internet it seems that the top of the Regent is made of selected (laminated?) spruce. But the top of mine is solid: I check in the dark the grain with a passing light from inside and, using an inspection mirror, I also found that the grain above corresponds precisely to the grain below. I'm sure it is solid: could it be an anomalous specimen?"
This is the answer:
"In our spec sheet is mentioned just select spruce top, so we assume is solid. Glad to know that you're happy with the instrument."
It's a bit disappointing: it seems to me to be the answer that anyone reading the unclear specs could superficially give, not that of an expert. At this point, however, I don't know how else to find out more and I don't have much time left to dedicate to the matter. I'm still curious but unable to find out more easily...
Meanwhile I play, worse than I would like, but happy. Furthermore, having read some opinions here, I am thinking of changing the, although good, standard pickup with an (Aaron-UK) Armstrong 12 pole floater handwound. Here in Italy the price of the handwound (Kent-USA) Armstrong 12 pole floater is a bit excessive for me and I don't think there is a big difference between the two.
Greetings to everyone and... good music!
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"Select" is almost always code for laminated.
It really doesn't matter. Laminate is not a bad thing in a jazz box. Enjoy that guitar!
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The only definitive way to find out if it's laminate or solid is to loosen a section of one of the f-hole bindings (where the two ends of the binding meet) and re-glue that strip after. I'm not recommending that you do this unless it's really bothering you and you are experienced with this type of work.
Last edited by Tal_175; 11-08-2023 at 01:11 PM.
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your gonna love it with that 12 pole! I went through the same thing trying to get an answer on the top. I spent a lot of time, contacted many dealers, talked with many owners. In the end I had to concede it was lam but the consensus from everyone including top pros is that these are laminates of the same quality of Sadowsky or lam D'Aquisto and they play just as well. I also personally think with the frequensator tail piece and the beautiful headstock ornamentation its one of the best lookin archtops ever.
Enjoy
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IME, you never get a straight answer to questions like this. Epi gives a spec to a builder for what woods are supposed to be used where, but that builder is building for other brands. It's inevitable that things will get mixed up here and there, and something will get built "wrong". Maybe no one noticed along the way, or maybe they did and let it go. I very much doubt that anyone is shining a light through every top in the factory and tossing out the ones that are built with pressed solid instead of lam by mistake, or vice versa. I suspect that the published specs (e.g. ,"select spruce") are deliberately vague in part to cover for inconsistency in the builds. I maybe wrong about this, but I would think that it's actually more labor intensive (and expensive) to laminate and press into shape 3 (or more) pieces of wood than it is to press one piece of the same thickness into shape.
Originally Posted by StefanoGhirardo
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The good news is, you did get a response, and pretty quickly. The bad news is, Epiphone doesn't have a clue of what "select spruce" stands for.
John A.'s comment about one layer of wood being easier to press than three, with adhesive in between, is interesting. Why, then, are single-ply pressed tops so rare as opposed to multi-ply laminates. Why were they more common in mail-order guitars of yore than today?
Going over to pickups, I brought the ER back into my test guitars arsenal. Its current PU is a "Sky" six-pole mini-humbucker designed by Kent Armstrong. Against the full-size humbuckers of my other test guitar, an Epiphone ES-339 Pro, the Sky loses out on volume a lot. With a low-powered amp, such as the Quilter SuperBlock US in my case, the difference really matters.Last edited by Gitterbug; 11-08-2023 at 05:18 PM.
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If the volume really matters to you, you can use a boost pedal. That does sort of defeat the portability issue, though, requiring another piece of gear plus a cable. Compromises must be made, somewhere.
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Interesting question. I'm a wood worker with a bit experience in steam bending and a lot in glue laminating. Note that I've never built a guitar and am a little unsure of how they actually press a solid top. Originally Posted by Gitterbug
In my work steam bending is slower: you have to wait for the wood to cook, press it and then let it cool down. The wood is made plastic by a combination of heat and moisture and it takes some time to make it bendable. Steaming also puts more moisture into the wood than glue, so it takes longer to come back to where you want it.
In production lamination you can use a glue that responds to heat to set it quickly. Like... maybe 5 minutes in a hot press. The heat also helps to remove moisture introduced by glue.
Glued laminates are stronger than steam bent even if the grain is oriented the same direction in the layers. Cross grain lamination is stronger still.
Here's another option for making a laminated solid spruce top. If the grain is oriented in the same direction, from the same billet of spruce and laid with care it's going to be very difficult to find the laminations. The grain lines will be quite well oriented as well. Forum member Grez:
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Something else that came to me while cooking myself in a hot bath. Heat and steam have been available to us for a very very long time. Wood glue has come a long way in the last 80 years. For EG: Elmers came out sometime around the 2nd World War.
It may be that in the olden days, steam pressing was quicker, cleaner and cheaper. And once set up for steam pressing it might've been safer to stick with what you knew.
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