fjminor
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2005
- Messages
- 3,623
;Introducing a Dave Johnson Makeover - The African Burst recreation.
This recreation was the most difficult and the most costly. To me, The African Burst is the quintessential Burst.
I have been looking for THE Historic that has this type of offset Curly Maple top, but to date have not been able to find it,
so if I cant find it, I guess I need to build it. Hello Dave.........
Attempting to pursue creating this top went through a lot of maple planks. I nearly killed my friend Paul Taran which supplied most of the Curly Maple for these project guitars. I was feverishly going through a 7 foot tall stack of Curly Maple, when after looking at two pieces, somehow those two pieces where balancing the whole stack, once the pieces were removed from that stack, it came crashing down,
missing Paul by inches and was only stopped by his industrial strength planner. Now Paul is about 80 years old, a tall gentleman that works these industrial strength machines like he was 20, but when that pile dropped, just the pure noise from that crash I thought would put both of us in the hospital with heart attacks.
When I had what I thought was the perfect top, paired two pieces together, the wood color was just too different and in talking to Dave,
would stick out like a sore thumb when the color tint is applied.
Another set of wood in which I really thought was it, it was perfect, all from the same piece of wood, so the color of the wood was identical, it had the perfect flame appearence to the African Burst, only to see that beautiful curl fad away when the two pieces where planned down to size.
That is when I realized that choosing the Curly Maple tops are not as easy as I first thought and I now take back any criticism I gave Gibson in not understanding why they cannot get these tops right, especially for their Signature and CC series recreations.
Again, my thanks to Dave putting his heart into these guitars. Slight aging and checking, neck re-profile, top carve on this one is just sick, Brazilian Board, vintage style binding all around, vintage style truss rod, all of this and more contribute to make this an incredible Guitar.
The sustain on this guitar is like no other. Like a perfect storm, the totality of these items makes for a truly amazing guitar.
Without further delay, some pics now, more pics to come.
This recreation was the most difficult and the most costly. To me, The African Burst is the quintessential Burst.
I have been looking for THE Historic that has this type of offset Curly Maple top, but to date have not been able to find it,
so if I cant find it, I guess I need to build it. Hello Dave.........
Attempting to pursue creating this top went through a lot of maple planks. I nearly killed my friend Paul Taran which supplied most of the Curly Maple for these project guitars. I was feverishly going through a 7 foot tall stack of Curly Maple, when after looking at two pieces, somehow those two pieces where balancing the whole stack, once the pieces were removed from that stack, it came crashing down,
missing Paul by inches and was only stopped by his industrial strength planner. Now Paul is about 80 years old, a tall gentleman that works these industrial strength machines like he was 20, but when that pile dropped, just the pure noise from that crash I thought would put both of us in the hospital with heart attacks.
When I had what I thought was the perfect top, paired two pieces together, the wood color was just too different and in talking to Dave,
would stick out like a sore thumb when the color tint is applied.
Another set of wood in which I really thought was it, it was perfect, all from the same piece of wood, so the color of the wood was identical, it had the perfect flame appearence to the African Burst, only to see that beautiful curl fad away when the two pieces where planned down to size.
That is when I realized that choosing the Curly Maple tops are not as easy as I first thought and I now take back any criticism I gave Gibson in not understanding why they cannot get these tops right, especially for their Signature and CC series recreations.
Again, my thanks to Dave putting his heart into these guitars. Slight aging and checking, neck re-profile, top carve on this one is just sick, Brazilian Board, vintage style binding all around, vintage style truss rod, all of this and more contribute to make this an incredible Guitar.
The sustain on this guitar is like no other. Like a perfect storm, the totality of these items makes for a truly amazing guitar.
Without further delay, some pics now, more pics to come.
