True Historic '59 Bavarian Makeover

It's looking great so far! Thank you for sharing. Look forward to seeing the rest of the process!

atcscotland said:

I'm not sure that its about imperfect seams, more so contact between the neck/body and fingerboard. I trust Florian's judgement on it, he certainly knows more about neck joints than me! It looked like a pretty tight fit in the pre-gluing pics he sent anyway...

Click to expand...

Well, look at the pic where Florian has his straight edge across the neck pocket after fretboard was removed, do you see how there is a dip down into the tenon area where it meets the maple top?

Now, look at the pic where the new fretboard rests on the maple top, if you look closely you'll see a brownish layer under the binding. That's ALL glue. When you build an instrument the point of glue is for it do disappear to a molecular level bond so two pieces of wood mate to one, or so I thought. Florian is taking the whole neck pocket and caking it in glue as a filler. Some 'bursts had that glue gap, but many didn't, IMO it just depends on who showed up to work that day! Remember, any gap BEFORE the reset needs to be compensated for even more so when the neck is glued back on either by filler, shims, or glue. If you plane the neck plank...bigger gap at the base of the tenon, if you plane the tenon....bigger gap between it an the mortise...etc The wood doesn't magically expand and come true on it's own.

Before he took it apart the fretboard was definitely well seated to the maple top regardless of the conspiracy known as the "air gap."

That's why I said, do makeover people want perfect seams or do they want their seams caked in glue? For that matter, there's at least one replica builder I know of who thinks all that glue is an important part of the "tone." I'm not sure if that's my feelings on the matter though :hmm If you saw a brown layer between the 2 piece top would you be a happy camper?

I guess what also bothers me is that he says there are gaps, right?

so.... what does he do to magically make the joint tighter?

does he have a special Honey I Blew Up the Kids Machine where he can somehow make the neck bigger? I guess if you soak in water or something that is possible? I don't really know....

or a Honey I Shrunk the Kids Machine to make the pocket smaller?

there was a lot of controversy over the use of a SHIM... which in the end I fell on the side of NO SHIM FOR YOU!

If he is using a shim then he would have to glue that shim somehow-- and well... there is now another piece of wood and more glue... how this is making the guitar sound better I don't know

Logically it makes no sense to me that he can take the neck out and make the joint tighter without adding something OR making another surface tighter while making some other surface have even less contact

DeYtooker what say you about THIS sticky wicket?

He uses wedges of cheese from 1959 to compensate for the gaps. Its the only way to keep it authentic!

Come on you guys, lets be honest none of us know as much about it as Florian himself and I trust his judgement on it. I'm only here to show off some pics of a sexy guitar!

Anyway, if you all behave yourselves today I might post some burst photos. She's looking mighty fine!

atcscotland said:

He uses wedges of cheese from 1959 to compensate for the gaps. Its the only way to keep it authentic!

Come on you guys, lets be honest none of us know as much about it as Florian himself and I trust his judgement on it. I'm only here to show off some pics of a sexy guitar!

Anyway, if you all behave yourselves today I might post some burst photos. She's looking mighty fine!

Click to expand...

Ive heard cheese wedges work great. Good tone. Particularly parmigiano reggiano. That's my favorite Although it might make your notes sound a bit.....sharp?

:rofl

btw I love Scotland ! Particularly dornoch. One of my favorite places on earth

golf, scotch...les Paul's...some of my favorite things!

deytookerjaabs said:

Well, look at the pic where Florian has his straight edge across the neck pocket after fretboard was removed, do you see how there is a dip down into the tenon area where it meets the maple top?

Now, look at the pic where the new fretboard rests on the maple top, if you look closely you'll see a brownish layer under the binding. That's ALL glue. When you build an instrument the point of glue is for it do disappear to a molecular level bond so two pieces of wood mate to one, or so I thought. Florian is taking the whole neck pocket and caking it in glue as a filler.

Some 'bursts had that glue gap, but many didn't, IMO it just depends on who showed up to work that day! Remember, any gap BEFORE the reset needs to be compensated for even more so when the neck is glued back on either by filler, shims, or glue. If you plane the neck plank...bigger gap at the base of the tenon, if you plane the tenon....bigger gap between it an the mortise...etc The wood doesn't magically expand and come true on it's own.

Before he took it apart the fretboard was definitely well seated to the maple top regardless of the conspiracy known as the "air gap."

That's why I said, do makeover people want perfect seams or do they want their seams caked in glue? For that matter, there's at least one replica builder I know of who thinks all that glue is an important part of the "tone." I'm not sure if that's my feelings on the matter though :hmm If you saw a brown layer between the 2 piece top would you be a happy camper?

Click to expand...

Sorry....but I ain't buying it. :dang

As soon as you clamp the two pieces of wood together, any extra glue is going to be squeezed out of the joint. You have to apply a certain amount of pressure when placing clamps on a glue joint. Mating the two surfaces together, and squeezing out any extra glue is what clamping is supposed to accomplish.

marshall1987 said:

Sorry....but I ain't buying it. :dang

As soon as you clamp the two pieces of wood together, any extra glue is going to be squeezed out of the joint. You have to apply a certain amount of pressure when placing clamps on a glue joint. Mating the two surfaces together, and squeezing out any extra glue is what clamping is supposed to accomplish.

Click to expand...

What he said:yah

As promised, here are some pics of the burst finish! Not going to get it faded at all, should do naturally itself. Obviously still to be lightly aged. I think it looks awesome.

First pic...

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Binding scraped.

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Headstock...

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Ambered binding.

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24 hours later...

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marshall1987 said:

Sorry....but I ain't buying it. :dang

As soon as you clamp the two pieces of wood together, any extra glue is going to be squeezed out of the joint. You have to apply a certain amount of pressure when placing clamps on a glue joint. Mating the two surfaces together, and squeezing out any extra glue is what clamping is supposed to accomplish.

Click to expand...

Well, you should buy it because it's pretty elementary stuff here. The clamp only squeezes in one direction from the base of the mortise area to the top of the upper end of the fretboard. Any sidewall gaps don't get squeezed. And, of course, any dips/humps that exist will stay as gaps, that's why you want perfect machining before gluing. If you'll notice the fella uses a caul on the fretboard when clamping to prevent warping the board which means it won't "give" to seam gaps. Wonky surfaces don't just magically fuse to perfect contact, guitars aren't made of Play-Doh.

Add to that, when you steam/head the boards they become a bit sloppy on the surface, it's just natural. They won't be a true as fresh planing a new hunk of lumber, thus the rest of the world only does fretboard/neck resets when it's absolutely necessary.


Exhibit A:



That's a soft looking seam at the fretboard where it meets the neck but even more so where it meets the maple cap. The tough part of the neck joint is getting your tenon fit so that there's perfect contact at the base of the fretboard and the bottom of the tenon and you have a proper neck angle, not at easy as it might appear as there's some geometrical fudging to be done. Obviously, once painted you won't see it.

Lookin good, atcscotland!

J.D. said:

Lookin good, atcscotland!

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Cheers!

I would love to have an example of Florians work!

In todays world, Factory motors don't come completely deburred, or have beautifully flowed heads, or enlarged oil ways...

The verbal volleyball you guys are doing about the neck joint is interesting. What's also interesting is that in all of the Gibson plant vids that show neck construction, all the fingerboards are glued to the neck before the neck is glued to the body. Which means that the wood-to-wood surface contact between the mahogany neck and rosewood board is 100%. If the glue is dry before the neck-body mating, I'm betting that it's very improbable that the rosewood would lift off the tenon surface of the neck to form "the gap". I'm thinking that what's going on is that where the rosewood meets the maple top, that those two strips of wood-to-wood contact are being compressed when the c-clamp is applied at the mating. The way to know for sure is see what the old fingerboard looks like at the tenon side, to see if there's two compression "strips" into the rosewood.

Sorry for the rant. The guitar looks like it'll be killer.

Hi ATCSCOTLAND - forget neck joints, how does she play with the makeover compared to the TH form ?

scovell001 said:

Hi ATCSCOTLAND - forget neck joints, how does she play with the makeover compared to the TH form ?

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Not got it back yet, as far as pics go that's us up to date! Last pics I put up were received from Florian today. As it was it played pretty well, but whatever amp/pedal combo I tried I couldn't seem to coax that 'woody' tone out of it. That's my main reason for going for this, I hated the thick glossy finish. That and the fretboard with the weird lines between dark and light. Florian reckoned they had tried to stain it. If they really let a 'top of the range' LP leave the factory like that I'm shocked.

Hey @atscotland, I'm not trying to rip on you here by any means and it's cool that you're trying to go the extra mile.


Here's my "beef" with some of these threads and the perception they give: You don't have to be a 'burst scholar since there's a ton of information on the originals out there already (except factory details, arghh) and let's think about how they were built by looking at the info. #1 think to know is the tolerances were all over the place and for each one of these tolerances some replica builders tell their clients there's an "accurate" way based on a couple they look at. Open the books, there is no "accurate" neck carve...the carves were obviously eyeballed based on a loose specification year to year but certainly not like today where they compare each one to a steel template at various parts of the neck. Take the neck joining, they had a tool to set the vertical/horizontal angle, then when it's on they measured for the bridge/tailpiece holes, then they punch a little guide hole with the hammer and walk over the drill press. This type of hand work = human inconsistency. Yet, Florian tells his customers all the bridge posts were perfectly off kilter. It's just not true, look at the photos, some tailpieces were a wee bit off the center seam, some not, some maybe a hair closer/further from the bridge. It's just the nature of HOW they were built. They were not built with laser accuracy & that's part of the charm, even the wood jigs wore down with production time. Going on, many 'bursts didn't check and still have a decent gloss to them, many of the boards were relatively light in color and porous, some had shallower neck angles some a bit more stout, even the darned pickups were wound/assembled inconsistently. You can tell they even eyeballed the tuner alignment screws! Today's crazy consumer base would freak out at all that variation.

So, what happens is these threads are used as fuel on MLP & here for people to say "Gibson is doing it all wrong" when the Gibson is really just as accurate depending on which 'burst you want to laser scan that afternoon.

Someone saying they'll build you an accurate 'burst is like someone saying they'll build you an accurate Heritage H-150. Go look at various H-150s, neck carves, heel carves, tops, angles, etc show quite a good deal of variation. If some guy measures 5 H-150's and tells you he's going to build an accurate one the first question should be "which one." When no two are identical accuracy becomes a bit silly, but you could say there's a "ball park" and certainly the Gibson is in the ball park in stock form. And, as for the experts from Gil Yaron to Florian to the heads of the Custom Shop there's still a good measure of disagreement on some of the details from glues to mahogany origins believe it or not.

That's just the part I don't dig, the idea that there's this 100% accurate 'burst replica out there and Gibson is just faking the details when they've literally laser scanned more 'bursts than anyone else.

deytookerjaabs said:

Hey @atscotland, I'm not trying to rip on you here by any means and it's cool that you're trying to go the extra mile.


Here's my "beef" with some of these threads and the perception they give: You don't have to be a 'burst scholar since there's a ton of information on the originals out there already (except factory details, arghh) and let's think about how they were built by looking at the info. #1 think to know is the tolerances were all over the place and for each one of these tolerances some replica builders tell their clients there's an "accurate" way based on a couple they look at. Open the books, there is no "accurate" neck carve...the carves were obviously eyeballed based on a loose specification year to year but certainly not like today where they compare each one to a steel template at various parts of the neck. Take the neck joining, they had a tool to set the vertical/horizontal angle, then when it's on they measured for the bridge/tailpiece holes, then they punch a little guide hole with the hammer and walk over the drill press. This type of hand work = human inconsistency. Yet, Florian tells his customers all the bridge posts were perfectly off kilter. It's just not true, look at the photos, some tailpieces were a wee bit off the center seam, some not, some maybe a hair closer/further from the bridge. It's just the nature of HOW they were built. They were not built with laser accuracy & that's part of the charm, even the wood jigs wore down with production time. Going on, many 'bursts didn't check and still have a decent gloss to them, many of the boards were relatively light in color and porous, some had shallower neck angles some a bit more stout, even the darned pickups were wound/assembled inconsistently. You can tell they even eyeballed the tuner alignment screws! Today's crazy consumer base would freak out at all that variation.

So, what happens is these threads are used as fuel on MLP & here for people to say "Gibson is doing it all wrong" when the Gibson is really just as accurate depending on which 'burst you want to laser scan that afternoon.

Someone saying they'll build you an accurate 'burst is like someone saying they'll build you an accurate Heritage H-150. Go look at various H-150s, neck carves, heel carves, tops, angles, etc show quite a good deal of variation. If some guy measures 5 H-150's and tells you he's going to build an accurate one the first question should be "which one." When no two are identical accuracy becomes a bit silly, but you could say there's a "ball park" and certainly the Gibson is in the ball park in stock form. And, as for the experts from Gil Yaron to Florian to the heads of the Custom Shop there's still a good measure of disagreement on some of the details from glues to mahogany origins believe it or not.

That's just the part I don't dig, the idea that there's this 100% accurate 'burst replica out there and Gibson is just faking the details when they've literally laser scanned more 'bursts than anyone else.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with you, I don't want a guitar that is an exact replica of any particular burst, I want a guitar that is 'my' burst. That has as many specs as an original '59 and feels like a one off (the same way all the originals were, like you said). I'm never going to try to pretend it's a real burst. So stuff like moving the tailpiece is indulgent and perhaps a bit silly but hey, my tailpiece is wonky and most of yours probably aren't :teeth. It's all a bit of fun to have a unique, one off, 'hand built' (sort of) LP. Like I said my main reasons are the finish and the board!

atcscotland said:

I totally agree with you, I don't want a guitar that is an exact replica of any particular burst, I want a guitar that is 'my' burst. That has as many specs as an original '59 and feels like a one off (the same way all the originals were, like you said). I'm never going to try to pretend it's a real burst. So stuff like moving the tailpiece is indulgent and perhaps a bit silly but hey, my tailpiece is wonky and most of yours probably aren't :teeth. It's all a bit of fun to have a unique, one off, 'hand built' (sort of) LP. Like I said my main reasons are the finish and the board!

Click to expand...

Amen to that, with a true old guitar I'd say....the wonkier & more individual the better, that's how I know mine are real, whomever did the side dots on my old ES guitars needed a new pair of glasses.

Its been pretty quiet on this here thread for a while, but finally my LP is complete and en route back to me (not got my hands on it quite yet!)...

Here's some more pics while I await her.

Finish checking.

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Nibs!

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Aged and oiled fretboard.

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Hardware, pre-ageing.

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And post...

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Moving on to the final pics! (I should also add that nothing was bought pre-aged, all done by Florian!)

Truss rod cover.

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Tailpiece and stud.

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Knobs.

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Headstock with USA Grovers circa 1970-ish (not Pat Pend ones).

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Wizz covers aged by Florian.

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