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Headstock thickness - Freakshow Les Paul?


ProdigPaul

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Hello! New to the forum. I bought a 2002 Les Paul Standard. I wanted to replace the tuners with Kluson SD90SLNDR/L - The vintage-looking locking tuners. I installed them and started stringing the guitar. I couldn't get the low E string through the post hole. A closer look shows that the post hole was very close to the headstock on all of them, and slightly shrouded on the low and high E strings (the high E is thin enough to make it through the post hole). Hmmm I says

 

I called Kluson - "Never heard of that - How thick is the headstock?" - I measured it - It is 14mm at the tip, 16mm at the other end, and 15mm where the low/high posts are. 15mm is .59 inches. Kluson says that .5 inches is typical.

 

I called Gibson Customer Support. I got no information there. They wouldn't tell me what the thickness should be, what is typical or anything. They said they could not offer to modify my guitar, and "it is what it is".

 

I cut bait and re-installed the factory tuners - Which by the way, the post holes are very close to the headstock, but they work. So, just how odd/rare is this guitar? I shudder to think of how much it would cost to have the headstock re-done.

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That does seem odd. I've swapped out for kluson's in the past and it's allways a perfect fit. If you bought the Kluson's at a store, i'd go back and compare to some other's. The 2014 Kluson catalogue list the style you have as having STD (standard) size posts. Maybe another model number would fit, or perhaps it's a manufacturing mistake? Did you compare the length of the stock one's to the Kluson's?

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Did you compare the length of the stock one's to the Kluson's? /quote]

 

The Kluson style tuners on my Custom Shop 345 seem shorter than normal (at least protrude less), and I just figured it was the tuner posts not the headstock thickness.

 

Now I'm going to have to go measure.

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Did you compare the length of the stock one's to the Kluson's? /quote]

 

The Kluson style tuners on my Custom Shop 345 seem shorter than normal (at least protrude less), and I just figured it was the tuner posts not the headstock thickness.

 

Now I'm going to have to go measure.

 

The post height of the Kluson's are not the issue - And they are the same as the Gibson's. I spent time with Kluson support. They said they always have seen 0.5" headstock thickness on Les Pauls. Kluson says there is only one post height for this/these tuners.

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The post height of the Kluson's are not the issue - And they are the same as the Gibson's. I spent time with Kluson support. They said they always have seen 0.5" headstock thickness on Les Pauls. Kluson says there is only one post height for this/these tuners.

 

So what is the headstock thickness of your Les Paul? Does anyone have knowledge on what they *should* be? Thank you!

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So what is the headstock thickness of your Les Paul? Does anyone have knowledge on what they *should* be? Thank you!

I can only offer up the dimensions of my examples FWI-might-be-W.

 

All state from logo-end; mid-tuner-level; lower-end. Measurements taken using a digital caliper and rounded-out to three decimal places.

 

In chronological order -

 

'91 1960 Classic;

0.586".

0.595".

0.600".

 

'93 1959 R-I;

0.586".

0.606".

0.624".

 

'95 1960 Classic;

0.602".

0.616".

0.623".

 

'95 1960 R-I;

0.602".

0.592".

0.606".

 

This gives us a variation of 0.014"; 0.038"; 0.021" and 0.014" respectively.

 

Whether or not this is what they 'should be' is not really applicable.

All Les Paul necks (and, therefore, pegheads) are finished by hand and there can always be small differences from one example to the next.

 

One thing to notice from the figures is that the thinnest measurement is 0.586" so Kluson's claim to have always seen 1/2" thick headstocks seems slightly inaccurate.

 

Philip.

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