GuitarLight Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 Your comment on how Gibson finishes its guitars was pretty amusing but saying pick guards don't effect tone or volume is over the top. Oh Hogeye, and I thought you liked me. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 Your comment on how Gibson finishes its guitars was pretty amusing but saying pickguards don't effect tone or volume is over the top. so the cherry 180 in the thread would sound even better without the double guards then ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hogeye Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 so the cherry 180 in the thread would sound even better without the double guards then ? It would have more volume and better sustain for sure. No one buys a J-180 for it's acoustic properties. This is a rhythm guitar designed for the great rhythm guitar player Don Everly. If you like the size and the look just opt for the J-185 and you will get the guitar the J-180 always wanted to be. It's widely accepted in the guitar community that anything you put on the top(soundboard) will alter the sound. Lay your forearm across the top and play a chord then take your arm off the top and play the same chord. The new "rubber" pickguard that Gibson is using on some J-200's and Hummingbirds weighs a lot more and it has no rigidity. It is a sound deadener for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E-minor7 Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 It is a sound deadener for sure. This is still an important and (for some) rather diffuse question. Several Board-people have taken off their guards here without noticing anything. It has even been discussed whether the thickness of the guard makes sonic difference. Country Westerns/Sheryl Crows have much thinner guards than Hummingbirds, Doves and fx Firebirds and members theorized about that having influence on a possible difference between H-birds and CWs. It's probably a theme for the more scientific types to measure - what a shame we don't have nerds in that department here. I tried to put on a symmetric teardrop guard on my HD-28V at some point. Don't know if it was placebo, but had to take it off - found it lost bass-vibe. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DenverSteve Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 Some may tell you yes but it would be too minimum to measure if there was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanp33 Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 It would have more volume and better sustain for sure. No one buys a J-180 for it's acoustic properties. This is a rhythm guitar designed for the great rhythm guitar player Don Everly. If you like the size and the look just opt for the J-185 and you will get the guitar the J-180 always wanted to be. It's widely accepted in the guitar community that anything you put on the top(soundboard) will alter the sound. Lay your forearm across the top and play a chord then take your arm off the top and play the same chord. The new "rubber" pickguard that Gibson is using on some J-200's and Hummingbirds weighs a lot more and it has no rigidity. It is a sound deadener for sure. It appears that the Hummingbird True Vintage pickguard material is different from the modern classic material right? If so, does the TV material deaden the sound as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuitarLight Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 It appears that the Hummingbird True Vintage pickguard material is different from the modern classic material right? If so, does the TV material deaden the sound as well? No. The pick guard on the TV Hummingbird is plastic...it is just a clear reddish colored plastic, versus the Standard Hummingbird pick guard which is more marbled brown plastic in color. They are basically the same except for visual looks. Neither one will deaden the sound to any real measurable degree as some like to claim. If it did, few people would buy them or keep them on the Hummingbird..which would look naked without one. There is "No documented proof" that a pick guard actually deadens the tone of a guitar to any large degree....just people who think it does. My own standard Hummingbird sings crystal clear, sweet, and unobstructed, I could not ask for more. Most Hummingbird owners will agree with that much! Any tone difference between a guitar WITH a pick guard...and one WITHOUT a pick guard, if it did exist would be so small as not be actually be measurable. So play on, and don't ever let something as simple as a pick guard...found on almost every guitar worry you! It will ring sweet and clear with, or without one. That's because Gibson KNOWS what its doing, while others just second guess! Best wishes ...GL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortyearspickn Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 I agree. I went to Big Boy Toyz and had a half inch of heavy duty pickup truck bedliner sprayed on the entire top of my H'Bird TV and noticed no difference in sound. I did have to change the strings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hogeye Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 There is a poster here that insists on passing on bad information. The pickguard material the Hummingbird TV uses is NOT plastic. It is in fact Celluloid. The molds for the pickguards were lost for many years and when they were found and returned to Montana Gibson started using them for very special Hummingbirds. These are NOT the cheap rubber version or have anything to do with plastic. They are exactly like the first Hummingbird pickguards and they sound great. Many educated folks that post here know that anything applied to the sound board will inhibit the vibration and change the sound. Gibson uses plastic bridge pins because they are lighter and don't inhibit vibration as much as other materials. We must all remember that the person that is saying this isn't so is the very same person that told us that Gibson soaked a clean cotton rag in lacquer and rubbed it on the guitars to finish them. He even says he has seen a video of this procedure. He hasn't provided us with a link to that video and I'm still waiting to see it. Just for the fun of it I will try to explain the top/soundboard and why they use these materials. Wood is made up of 50% cellulose. Throw in a little water and some resins and you have wood. The finish used to protect the wood is Nitrocellulose lacquer. Starting to get the picture. Nitro is added to cellulose to make the finish. This is an organic instrument. The binding that protects the edges of the guitar is celluloid. The pickguards up until recently were all celluloid. Is anyone starting to see a pattern here? Gibson could make their guitars out of just about anything but to keep the sound original they use the original materials. What a wonderful concept. A cellulose based guitar finished with Nitrocellulose. protected with celluloid binding and a celluloid pickguard. The finish is buffed out to a very thin coat so the top can vibrate freely. The celluloid pickguard sits on top that finish to protect it. The celluloid pickguard is brittle and vibrates WITH the top. The rubber pickguard sits on top and doesn't vibrate. Rubber is used in many commercial applications to reduce vibration. How difficult is this? THis forum is a place to get information and the people that provide it need to know what they are imparting to others. I will try to correct the bad information. So.... Gibson SPRAYS nitrocellulose lacquer on their guitars and they don't make pickguards out of plastic. Anyone that says otherwise is an uniformed troll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuitarLight Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 There is a poster here that insists on passing on bad information. The pickguard material the Hummingbird TV uses is NOT plastic. It is in fact Celluloid. The molds for the pickguards were lost for many years and when they were found and returned to Montana Gibson started using them for very special Hummingbirds. These are NOT the cheap rubber version or have anything to do with plastic. They are exactly like the first Hummingbird pickguards and they sound great. Many educated folks that post here know that anything applied to the sound board will inhibit the vibration and change the sound. Gibson uses plastic bridge pins because they are lighter and don't inhibit vibration as much as other materials. We must all remember that the person that is saying this isn't so is the very same person that told us that Gibson soaked a clean cotton rag in lacquer and rubbed it on the guitars to finish them. He even says he has seen a video of this procedure. He hasn't provided us with a link to that video and I'm still waiting to see it. Just for the fun of it I will try to explain the top/soundboard and why they use these materials. Wood is made up of 50% cellulose. Throw in a little water and some resins and you have wood. The finish used to protect the wood is Nitrocellulose lacquer. Starting to get the picture. Nitro is added to cellulose to make the finish. This is an organic instrument. The binding that protects the edges of the guitar is celluloid. The pickguards up until recently were all celluloid. Is anyone starting to see a pattern here? Gibson could make their guitars out of just about anything but to keep the sound original they use the original materials. What a wonderful concept. A cellulose based guitar finished with Nitrocellulose. protected with celluloid binding and a celluloid pickguard. The finish is buffed out to a very thin coat so the top can vibrate freely. The celluloid pickguard sits on top that finish to protect it. The celluloid pickguard is brittle and vibrates WITH the top. The rubber pickguard sits on top and doesn't vibrate. Rubber is used in many commercial applications to reduce vibration. How difficult is this? THis forum is a place to get information and the people that provide it need to know what they are imparting to others. I will try to correct the bad information. So.... Gibson SPRAYS nitrocellulose lacquer on their guitars and they don't make pickguards out of plastic. Anyone that says otherwise is an uniformed troll. These continued ridiculous, and childish, troll assaults by you of numerous members in AGF show just how uneducated you really are. Anyone with a brain in their head knows celluloid is nothing more than a form of plastic. Period. Trolling will not convince people otherwise, you should know that by now. Celluloid is plastic. The pick guards are plastic. No one ever claimed they were rubber. Look it up...below is the definition. If this forum is a place to attain information, as you claim, they certainly will not get it from your continued assaults on AGF members. Celluloid Plastic pick guards vibrate freely with the top and do little if anything to obstruct tone or volume. Likewise trying to frighten other AGF members into thinking that the pick guard on their guitars will ruin and obstruct the fine Gibson tone and volume of their guitars, is insidious. ...and ridiculous. It's trolling. If your not happy here why not get out, and stay over in the Martin and other guitar forums? Then you could pretend to know how they are made also!. As usual, your comments are uneducated Hogwash written to incite discord in an otherwise peaceful room of good people. Read the definition below (if you can read), and stop misleading other people. Celluloid : a transparent flammable plastic made in sheets from camphor and nitrocellulose, formerly used for cinematographic film. motion pictures as a genre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 These continued ridiculous, and childish, troll assaults by you of numerous members in AGF show just how uneducated you really are. Anyone with a brain in their head knows celluloid is nothing more than a form of plastic. Period. Trolling will not convince people otherwise, you should know that by now. Celluloid is plastic. The pick guards are plastic. No one ever claimed they were rubber. Look it up...below is the definition. If this forum is a place to attain information, as you claim, they certainly will not get it from your continued assaults on AGF members. Celluloid Plastic pick guards vibrate freely with the top and do little if anything to obstruct tone or volume. Likewise trying to frighten other AGF members into thinking that the pick guard on their guitars will ruin and obstruct the fine Gibson tone and volume of their guitars, is insidious. ...and ridiculous. It's trolling. If your not happy here why not get out, and stay over in the Martin and other guitar forums? Then you could pretend to know how they are made also!. As usual, your comments are uneducated Hogwash written to incite discord in an otherwise peaceful room of good people. Read the definition below (if you can read), and stop misleading other people. Celluloid : a transparent flammable plastic made in sheets from camphor and nitrocellulose, formerly used for cinematographic film. motion pictures as a genre. Not quite sure where this rant came from, but I think you are painting with a fairly broad brush here. Yes, celluloid is a thermoplastic material, but it is dramatically different in both chemistry and mechanical properties compared to most modern plastics, which are primarily derived from various petrochemicals. You can probably come close to some of the generic physical properties of celluloid with petro-based plastics, but celluloid is unique in some ways, and has a justifiable mystique when to comes to making guitar trim and other bits such as pickguards. Celluloid is such an archaic material that there are only a couple of manufacturers in the world. It is also, as we all know, thermally unstable and highly flammable, which makes it problematic logistically. In fact, if you ship a celluloid pickguard, you are technically shipping a flammable material. But of course there are other flammable cellulose products, such as paper, so nobody thinks a lot about it. Nobody thinks much about shipping a wood guitar with celluloid trim and nitrocellulose lacquer as a particular combustion problem, but don't light a match to it. As I understand it, celluloid is getting harder and harder to come by. Most of it is apparently purpose-made in relatively small batches, primarily for the high-end writing instrument market. Finding the stuff for pickguards is getting harder and harder. Want to know if your pickguard is cellulose? Put some alcohol on it, and be prepared to freak out when it turns white, as celluloid dissolves in alcohol. Fortunately, alcohol evaporates quickly, so your pickguard will quickly return to its old self unless you have drowned it in alcohol. I learned this one the hard way many years ago, when I tried to clean some residue off a celluloid pickguard with solvent alcohol. I have personally sought out celluloid for replacement pickguards, and will continue to do so. And yes, ivoroid (as in binding) is also celluloid. Don't know if they still use that, or have replaced it with something pumped out of the ground. You can certainly recognize "tortoise" celluloid binding on some old Gibsons and Martins, because it is crumbling away, and may actually be a threat to your guitar. Most people here know about out-gassing celluloid pickguards, but it happens to bindings as well. I keep deteriorating celluloid bits isolated in plastic bags from other guitar parts. I can't bring myself to throw them away: they are a bit of history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuitarLight Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Not quite sure where this rant came from, but I think you are painting with a fairly broad brush here. Yes, celluloid is a thermoplastic material, but it is dramatically different in both chemistry and mechanical properties compared to most modern plastics, which are primarily derived from various petrochemicals. You can probably come close to some of the generic physical properties of celluloid with petro-based plastics, but celluloid is unique in some ways, and has a justifiable mystique when to comes to making guitar trim and other bits such as pickguards. Celluloid is such an archaic material that there are only a couple of manufacturers in the world. It is also, as we all know, thermally unstable and highly flammable, which makes it problematic logistically. In fact, if you ship a celluloid pickguard, you are technically shipping a flammable material. But of course there are other flammable cellulose products, such as paper, so nobody thinks a lot about it. Nobody thinks much about shipping a wood guitar with celluloid trim and nitrocellulose lacquer as a particular combustion problem, but don't light a match to it. As I understand it, celluloid is getting harder and harder to come by. Most of it is apparently purpose-made in relatively small batches, primarily for the high-end writing instrument market. Finding the stuff for pickguards is getting harder and harder. Want to know if your pickguard is cellulose? Put some alcohol on it, and be prepared to freak out when it turns white, as celluloid dissolves in alcohol. Fortunately, alcohol evaporates quickly, so your pickguard will quickly return to its old self unless you have drowned it in alcohol. I learned this one the hard way many years ago, when I tried to clean some residue off a celluloid pickguard with solvent alcohol. I have personally sought out celluloid for replacement pickguards, and will continue to do so. And yes, ivoroid (as in binding) is also celluloid. Don't know if they still use that, or have replaced it with something pumped out of the ground. You can certainly recognize "tortoise" celluloid binding on some old Gibsons and Martins, because it is crumbling away, and may actually be a threat to your guitar. Most people here know about out-gassing celluloid pickguards, but it happens to bindings as well. I keep deteriorating celluloid bits isolated in plastic bags from other guitar parts. I can't bring myself to throw them away: they are a bit of history. From what you write Nick, it almost sounds like it may not likely that most modern day pick guards are made of celluloid, since it deteriorates like the old celluloid plastic movie films did, but more likely a more pure form of plastic, versus celluloid plastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hogeye Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 I've read Guitarlight's rant several times and all I can get out of it is that I have insulted members of AGF. I'm not sure but isn't that the Acoustic Guitar Forum? Isn't that the old Taylor Forum? I never post there because I own Gibson guitars so I have no idea what the heck he is talking about... This is the Gibson forum. He suggests that I need to go to the Martin Forum. I play Gibson guitars and don't play Martins. Why would I go there? Does this person even know where he is posting? So... To all the AGF( whatever that is) members that post here and own rubber guarded Hummingbirds I'm sorry but you get no apology from me. Well it's all very enlightening and amusing to say the least. The original poster wanted a pickguard for his Hummingbird. I saw a picture of the "new" rubber pickguard that he posted. Now I'm created an international incident. It was for sale for $100.00 and isn't worth $.15 cents. Just sayin'..... In Montana there are a lot of folks that like to participate in outdoor activities. Gibson sold old pickgards and scrap pickguards to the folks for fire starters. You just shave some of the celluloid pickguard material in a pile of wood and light a match. Better stand back a bit as the stuff burns hot. I bought many of the guards when they came up in the wood and scrap sales over the years. I bought a box of stuff for a dollar and when I got home it was full of Excellante and Frontier pickguards. They were left over from when Montana was making a run of Epiphones. They are very cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuitarLight Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 I've read Guitarlight's rant several times and all I can get out of it is that I have insulted members of AGF. I'm not sure but isn't that the Acoustic Guitar Forum? Isn't that the old Taylor Forum? I never post there because I own Gibson guitars so I have no idea what the heck he is talking about... This is the Gibson forum. He suggests that I need to go to the Martin Forum. I play Gibson guitars and don't play Martins. Why would I go there? Does this person even know where he is posting? So... To all the AGF( whatever that is) members that post here and own rubber guarded Hummingbirds I'm sorry but you get no apology from me. Well it's all very enlightening and amusing to say the least. The original poster wanted a pickguard for his Hummingbird. I saw a picture of the "new" rubber pickguard that he posted. Now I'm created an international incident. It was for sale for $100.00 and isn't worth $.15 cents. Just sayin'..... In Montana there are a lot of folks that like to participate in outdoor activities. Gibson sold old pickgards and scrap pickguards to the folks for fire starters. You just shave some of the celluloid pickguard material in a pile of wood and light a match. Better stand back a bit as the stuff burns hot. I bought many of the guards when they came up in the wood and scrap sales over the years. I bought a box of stuff for a dollar and when I got home it was full of Excellante and Frontier pickguards. They were left over from when Montana was making a run of Epiphones. They are very cool. lol.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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