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Ultra Modern Weight Relief

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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136
See above

"Not that it matters to this discussion, but my Orange 2002 Class 5 is 8 lbs exactly, my Black 2006 Class 5 is 8lbs 4 oz, my non weight relieved Tribute is 7 lbs 4 ounces, and my Studio that is fully chambered (xray above) is 7 lbs 1 ounce. I weighed them all when I xrayed them"
I have not weighed my Standard or my Chibson. My Standard is "Modern Weight relief" on the Spec sheet that Gibson gave me (not a retail purchase). Chibson who knows if it has weight relief? Ill post the weight of the Standard when I xray it.
 

Brandon

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Joined
Jul 28, 2001
Messages
250
Just curious.....what technique did you use? Im thinking 90kv @35 mAs????.......(fellow X-ray tech here lol)
Very cool X-rays by the way. Interesting to see.
 

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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I will xray and weigh the Chibson soon and post here. I am not anticipating seeing much on the Chibson. Fairly certain it will not have weight relief. Unfortunately, plain xray will not be of much help in figuring what else is in there (unlesss it has metal in it (or air). Possible we will see some of the layers but more likely it will look similar to the non-weight relieved 2018 Tribute posted above. As for weight I would guess 9.5-10 lbs but we shall see. I am also interested to see what is inside my Standard which is listed as "modern" weight relief on the sheet I got from Gibson. Since it is a prototype, I cant really look it up. I trust what they told me but with any Gibson, especially a one off or prototype there is no telling what we will find.
 

Big Daddy Class

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Just curious.....what technique did you use? Im thinking 90kv @35 mAs????.......(fellow X-ray tech here lol)
Very cool X-rays by the way. Interesting to see.
Kv 70, MAS 1.7, Ma 100 were the settings we used. Remember guitars are pretty still on an xray table! Would love to tell you I calculated all that but in reality we just set it to "knee" on the machine, and it worked!. Those are the "knee" settings. We did not tinker after that because it showed exactly what we were looking for (the weight relief). Maybe in the future we can tinker with it, but currently the xray techs are still loosely amused, so I get to keep shooting the guitars. That CAN change and then Ill be SOL.
 

Brandon

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2001
Messages
250
Kv 70, MAS 1.7, Ma 100 were the settings we used. Remember guitars are pretty still on an xray table! Would love to tell you I calculated all that but in reality we just set it to "knee" on the machine, and it worked!. Those are the "knee" settings. We did not tinker after that because it showed exactly what we were looking for (the weight relief). Maybe in the future we can tinker with it, but currently the xray techs are still loosely amused, so I get to keep shooting the guitars. That CAN change and then Ill be SOL.

Haha. Very nice!!! When I was in X-ray school we shot my r9 and Strat but it was on film. I can't remember the technique we used though lol.
 

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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Haha. Very nice!!! When I was in X-ray school we shot my r9 and Strat but it was on film. I can't remember the technique we used though lol.

Yea, I had one of those (old school film xray). Issue was that they film itself cost around $20 (per shot). Insurance reimbursement for a typical 2 view chest xray was around $60. Throw in labor and the margins of profitability was razor thin. Miss a shot or if the patient breathes or coughs and you are in the red. Now with digital xrays (much like digital cameras) we can shoot as many shots as we wish with the only issue being time (labor) and wear and tear. It really is a whole lot better. Interesting factiod, the materials had silver in them and we had a guy who would come and round up all the "trash" and take it home and bring back bars of silver! He would keep 1/2. It was pretty cool. We all ended up with stacks of those little silver bars.
 
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Mattyc

New member
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Oct 27, 2015
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7
Threads like this just remind me of the early days of the interwebs. Cool people sharing great information. The xrays are awesome!
 

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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So I am sitting here in the middle of ground zero of the Nashville Tornado zone with nothing to do. Power keeps coming and going and I have the xrays so I have been playing with them. Here are views with the color and density adjusted to see the neck tenons. Also note the PCB board is visible in the 2008 studio (others do not have it) and the different densities of the tailpieces...

2008 Studio(short Neck Tenon. notice the gap under the truss rod screw and above the humbucker)2008 Studio Heritage Sunburst.jpg

2018 Tribute Short tenon
2018 Tribute Honeyburst.jpg

2002 Class 5 Orange (long tenon. notice no space under it)
2002 Class 5 orange.jpg

2006 Class 5 Black (long tenon)
2006 Class 5 Black.jpg
 
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Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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I also note that the class 5s have a little spur that comes out of the Truss rod and what appears to be a small channel to accommodate those spurs? I have never heard of that. Both seem to have it. Anyone with any info on that little "spur"? May be one of those things (there are many) that everyone already knows about but I did not realize there were different truss rods and different routings for those rods.
 

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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I also note that the class 5s have a little spur that comes out of the Truss rod and what appears to be a small channel to accommodate those spurs? I have never heard of that. Both seem to have it. Anyone with any info on that little "spur"? May be one of those things (there are many) that everyone already knows about but I did not realize there were different truss rods and different routings for those rods.
I asked George Gruhn about the "spur" (my word, I don't know what it is called). He said it appears to be designed to prevent the truss rod from twisting. He felt it is a good idea (but not vintage he pointed out). I have looked all over the internet and cannot find an example of a truss rod with a "spur". For the record, I also cannot find a photo of the "Ultra Modern Weight Relief" that looks like the 2 that I have, but they are both there in the x-ray.
 

Big Daddy Class

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Jan 11, 2020
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Update on the "spur". I asked a friend at Gibson USA who asked her friend at Gibson Custom. This person's response is that we are seeing the RFID chip, not a spur on the truss rod. I am unclear if this is actually true but it makes sense.
 
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