Great explanation of True Historics vs. Regular Historics with comparison pictures

AA00475Bassman · Mar 20, 2017

deytookerjaabs said:
The normal procedure (though there are exceptions) when you do a reset is to sand the warped/mangled heel & body inserts flush. Then, you measure/cut and glue strips onto your neck heel (all 3 sidewalls in this case as the gaps are very large). After that you spend some time slowly sanding it until you get a gap free tight joint all around. I'm not sure what Mr. Florian did but from a couple pics it looks like the gaps are simply caked in glue, that's amateur hour 101 if so and hope that's not the case. Having been around these forums, seeing many of these guitars, I'd say I have yet to see a "historic" model with a big factory gap from the bit we can see in the pickup route, this is how they all should look:

Once again, a neck reset on a new guitar is just...sigh. Once in a while an old guitar with a loose pocket will come apart with just a tiny bit of work, that's always nice. But, that's after decades of weathering, that new joint takes a lot to get apart. Even though it's hide glue, it needs every mm of it to be melted for the whole thing to come apart and Les Paul's have about 15 square inches or so of heel/body contact which is A LOT.

Are your referring to post #362 , I see what you are pointing out in reference to gap & glue . Just looked at my pickup pocket on my R8 looks nothing like the neck set on the makeover . Lots of glue even looks pooled at the end of neck tenon & body gap . Is photo in post #362 common for a neck removal & set ? I questioned the removal of the neck from the start .

deytookerjaabs · Mar 20, 2017

AA00475Bassman said:
Are your referring to post #362 , I see what you are pointing out in reference to gap & glue . Just looked at my pickup pocket on my R8 looks nothing like the neck set on the makeover . Lots of glue even looks pooled at the end of neck tenon & body gap . Is photo in post #362 common for a neck removal & set ? I questioned the removal of the neck from the start .

It was a few times in the thread but the picture that showed the "gap" with the straight edge you could see a large gap in the sidewalls. Not uncommon to have a gap like that after all the steam/loosening etc, I highly doubt the sidewalls of the neck base were like that from the start. Either way, you want wood/wood contact on all seams, and mahogany is so porous to begin with it should fit real tight without a drop of glue.

Here is your joint:

Pretty tight fit ^^^^^

Base of neck after being removed, notice it looks pretty wrangled up.

^^^Now the gap in the sidewalls is greater than the gap under the board was!

And, don't forget, different woods shrink/swell at different rates from day 1. What probably happened here was the mahogany shrunk, it has no other way to go being glued in on the other 3 sidwalls, but the maple top kept the fretboard from staying seamed up. Probably happens to a LOT of Les Pauls come to think of it. If that neck blank shrinks, no way that fretboard will sink at the base with it because it's being held up by the maple top, in fact it might be a product of the maple top & mahogany body expanding. Like I always reiterate: wood moves.

Personally, I'm not some master luthier here. I studied in spare time with our tech & repair girl when I taught for 7 or so years at guitar & vintage shop while in music school. I also did an apprenticeship for over a year with Ian Schneller have done lots of personal or semi professional guitar work & repairs in my spare time.

From what I'm seeing, I don't know Mr. Florian but this does not look good at all to my eyes.

AA00475Bassman · Mar 20, 2017

Why not sand maple cap skip a neck set ?

deytookerjaabs · Mar 20, 2017

AA00475Bassman said:
Why not sand maple cap skip a neck set ?

I mean, I can't even begin to fathom the board removal from the start let alone the possible resolutions. Again, once steam or heat start getting involved something better be wrong to call it an "upgrade." There's 10,000 lesters online right now with many having pretty boards and a few being Brazilian from the factory. The guy, Florian, selling the "gap" as a factory mistake is straight dishonesty in my opinion, no one knows if there was a gap like that when new but I HIGHLY doubt it. It's a product of shrinkage/expansion in and area where there are 4/5 seams. That board needing oil too, the brazilian board, I've got some pretty boards on my guitars from that era and they never got a drop of oil to look the part, in theory the stuff is dense. The whole thing to me isn't far from what I think could happen at a trip to your local mechanic.

Pellman73 · Mar 20, 2017

AA00475Bassman said:
Why not sand maple cap skip a neck set ?

I've thought the same thing and the only thing I thought was if the fretboard was truly flat to the neck from the head stock up to the end of the tenon and you sanded the cap to get it flush you may be bending it down at those last few frets.

On on the other hand, if the fretboard was effectively curved up off the tenon then sanding down the cap would get it back to true flat

deytooker-- im with you that it looks like there are big gaps on the side where it was gut-n-tite originally and this part of the makeover I can't see making it better and I think perhaps all of us are trying to understand it... something is and has been fishy about it from the get go.

a lot of what he (Florian) is doing is cool and I think orreman is going to have a spectacular guitar--

but I also think (orreman perhaps you can get an answer?) when asked specifically why he is doing something and if he says it's "ancient Chinese secret!" And things don't make logical sense --it would be nice explain it to us obsessive Guitar geeks so we can understand.

if he could explain to us why that small gap warranted a full neck reset and THEN what did he do and how was this an improvement?

i thought (and the record supports this!) he sanded down the maple cap-- and it looks like in that one pic there is some dusty wood shavings and the screw hole to the pick guard looks to have been sanded over too . But if he did that then would he have needed a whole neck reset?

CAGinLA · Mar 20, 2017

This is an epic thread derailment, folks! :3zone

RocknRollShakeUp · Mar 20, 2017

Fascinating thread!!!...::keeps munching on his popcorn::

Oh, and I was going with the "tenon not tall enough and settling in leaving a gap" theory...then renderit made some great points with his rendered graphics that this explanation may/would not work...then Pellman posted a nice picture of a beautiful chair he made...well to give your chair the "proper" lespaulforum treatment: well..that chair..is ok..but it would have been A LOT better if it had brazilian rosewood veneer and 50's steel screws..and hide glue made from virginal unicorn hide (awesome job with the chair, my wife would pay $800-more for that chair)..and then deytook has been making some really incisive points about shrinkage...tenon shrinkage..that doesn't sound all that much better, let's try again..shrinkage of wood..oh dear..well shrinkage, due to steaming..although when I'm in a steam bath I get a little frisky and the opposite of shrinkage may occur...god that's gross..sorry I just grossed even myself out ...sorry, carrying on..shrinkage due to the process of using steam to remove a glued in neck tenon --- you know what, maybe this line of thinking explains it. We may have been operating under the false premise, or false dilemma, that the neck tenon with it's air gap was present before the process undertaken to remove said neck! Maybe like deytook is saying, it may just be a byproduct of the neck removal process! ...hmmmmm...The mind boggles..

EDUT: ok now I'm getting paranoid. The above was meant to be a lighthearted funny attempt at a "Half time recap", just to lighten the mood. With a genuine point at the end. I hope no one got offended! And if I wasn't clear enough, that really is an awesome chair, amazing job!

marshall1987 · Mar 21, 2017

renderit said:
No. No. No! Look at the pictures. If the FB is NOT on the neck you would see the gap on the side of the neck at the body joint. No way around it short of BENDING THE FINGERBOARD. If that occurs you can see OR hear it on the frets ABOVE THE BODY. Damn guys, I don't think this is rocket science. It is pretty simple geometry.

This....:dude:

marshall1987 · Mar 21, 2017

B Ingram said:
In Orreman's picture, I clearly see 2 faint dark lines extending downward from the corners of the neck pocket. I put the arrowhead tips right on those lines. I am using a MacBook Pro with an Intel Iris display at 2880 x 1800 resolution. I don't know of anyone else is not seeing the same 2 lines, but if not I wonder if it's down to display quality.

FWIW, after finishing I also see a faint dark line showing the location of the maple plug where the tailpiece stud was relocated. Florian did an outstanding job of grain-matching, but on my computer the line is there (but is definitely covered and not visible when the tailpiece is installed).

Based on the vertical lines and the elimination of the nearly 1mm gap pictured when Florian put the neck (sans fingerboard) back in the neck pocket, I presume florian added wood to the neck pocket to make it less-deep. There's obviously wood-to-wood contact in the photo with the neck backed out, and we know the fingerboard had been glued back to the top of the neck.

So Florian either:

Added wood to the bottom of the neck pocket, or

Added wood to the bottom of the neck tenon, or

Added wood to the full length of the top of the neck, or

Added wood to the bottom of the fingerboard.

Of all the above choices, and given the 2 lines I see, I believe he added wood to the bottom of the neck bottom to eliminate the ~0.73mm gap he clearly photographed.

But Florian did not pass a photo showing new wood glued into the bottom of the neck pocket. So when I say, "I don't know..." I mean I have no direct evidence making it 100% certain this is how the gap was eliminated. I'm inferring based on the information I have available.

(My day job is making inferences based on incomplete information, while clearly articulating the quality of evidence and the resulting level of confidence in the inference; PM me if you want details, as I don't care to blast my resume on the Internet).

PM sent.....

ff1337 · Mar 21, 2017

Idk at the end of the day it's Orreman's money. But putting plugs in my guitar to adjust a tailpiece is just not my bag baby. I can clearly see the plug. Now if it wasn't pointed out the layperson may not notice it, but me as the owner of that guitar that would bother the fuck out of me. I guess maybe bc the TH is such an expensive guitar that it's mind boggling to some of us to feed even more money into it. Taking a neck off, discovering a gap and then shimming, growing wood or whatever the ancient Chinese secret is to correct it was. I did have a conversation some time ago with Kim at historic makeovers and I do believe that in order to put the braz board on the neck has to be removed so I get that if you want a braz board that's what one needs to do. I'm one of those people that I'd be too afraid that once the neck is removed and reset that it may not feel the same. It may be better or worse. No reissue will EVER be a real burst, but my TH is real enough for me.

Pellman73 · Mar 21, 2017

RocknRollShakeUp said:
Fascinating thread!!!...::keeps munching on his popcorn::

Oh, and I was going with the "tenon not tall enough and settling in leaving a gap" theory...then renderit made some great points with his rendered graphics that this explanation may/would not work...then Pellman posted a nice picture of a beautiful chair he made...well to give your chair the "proper" lespaulforum treatment: well..that chair..is ok..but it would have been A LOT better if it had brazilian rosewood veneer and 50's steel screws..and hide glue made from virginal unicorn hide (awesome job with the chair, my wife would pay $800-more for that chair)..and then deytook has been making some really incisive points about shrinkage...tenon shrinkage..that doesn't sound all that much better, let's try again..shrinkage of wood..oh dear..well shrinkage, due to steaming..although when I'm in a steam bath I get a little frisky and the opposite of shrinkage may occur...god that's gross..sorry I just grossed even myself out ...sorry, carrying on..shrinkage due to the process of using steam to remove a glued in neck tenon --- you know what, maybe this line of thinking explains it. We may have been operating under the false premise, or false dilemma, that the neck tenon with it's air gap was present before the process undertaken to remove said neck! Maybe like deytook is saying, it may just be a byproduct of the neck removal process! ...hmmmmm...The mind boggles..

EDUT: ok now I'm getting paranoid. The above was meant to be a lighthearted funny attempt at a "Half time recap", just to lighten the mood. With a genuine point at the end. I hope no one got offended! And if I wasn't clear enough, that really is an awesome chair, amazing job!

i thought it was funny

renderit · Mar 21, 2017

RocknRollShakeUp said:
EDUT: ok now I'm getting paranoid. The above was meant to be a lighthearted funny attempt at a "Half time recap", just to lighten the mood. With a genuine point at the end. I hope no one got offended! And if I wasn't clear enough, that really is an awesome chair, amazing job!

That's it! The gloves are off! You **($)%! Do you know; do you even have an inkling; a clue of how long it takes me to put them on? They were the fancy ones that went clear up to my elbows. They actually went quite well with my dinner dress! And now they're off! And now I'm trying on these with the backstrap and light mesh backs. Maybeez a plain leather? So many choices, so little crime. Neoprene it iz...

marshall1987 · Mar 21, 2017

"air pockets" on a guitar? ...... My airplane flew through an air pocket last week, but not my guitar. :dang

perhaps these are simply small voids instead.

RocknRollShakeUp · Mar 22, 2017

i thought it was funny

renderit said:
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That's it! The gloves are off! You **($)%! Do you know; do you even have an inkling; a clue of how long it takes me to put them on? They were the fancy ones that went clear up to my elbows. They actually went quite well with my dinner dress! And now they're off! And now I'm trying on these with the backstrap and light mesh backs. Maybeez a plain leather? So many choices, so little crime. Neoprene it iz...

:hee

you guys are awesome, thanks for the good attitude!

J T · Mar 22, 2017

renderit said:
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That's it! The gloves are off! You **($)%! Do you know; do you even have an inkling; a clue of how long it takes me to put them on? They were the fancy ones that went clear up to my elbows. They actually went quite well with my dinner dress! And now they're off! And now I'm trying on these with the backstrap and light mesh backs. Maybeez a plain leather? So many choices, so little crime. Neoprene it iz...

Still wearing those high heels?

renderit · Mar 22, 2017

They are cowboy boots Bucko!

Well, this thread is now up in smoke! My work here is done. Moral of the story: Don't ask a question which can be answered with one word with one syllable after presenting a wonderful movie. We will certainly take it on a tangent if the cosign is not available but we will swerve to avoid a hypotenuse.

thejaf · Mar 23, 2017

Well...I noticed that the jack plates on both TH and R9 are not vintage correct. When will Gibson ever get it right :##:laugh2::spabout

Great explanation of True Historics vs. Regular Historics with comparison pictures

AA00475Bassman

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deytookerjaabs

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AA00475Bassman

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deytookerjaabs

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Pellman73

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CAGinLA

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RocknRollShakeUp

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marshall1987

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ff1337

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Pellman73

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renderit

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marshall1987

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RocknRollShakeUp

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J T

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renderit

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thejaf

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