The making of the Gibson Nighthawk

[xrr]

Hi all,

 

Searching for information about my new Nighthawk I found this Gibson document that is nowhere to be found but in the internet archive.

 

So I thought I would share it here for the few Nighthawk enthusiasts around, if any ;)

 

The Making Of The Gibson Nighthawk

 

You are about to become knowledgeable about not only the capabilities of the Nighthawk but also the manufacturing process which makes each Gibson guitar a unique and highly respected instrument.

 

This file is also available in a help file format that will work with Microsoft Windows and will give you an electronic plant tour through the "Making of a Gibson Nighthawk", Gibson's newest guitar innovation. You will need to use PKUNZIP, WinZip or equivalent to create MAKING.HLP from this downloaded file (night.zip).

 

In 1903, when the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Company, Ltd., was just a few months old, the Board of Managers needed financing in order to purchase wood supplies for the manufacture of their guitars. As a result Gibson issued stock and raised extra capital because the special sizes of lumber required to make Gibson guitars cost more than they had budgeted for. In other words, good wood was hard to find. That much has not changed. Gibson still can't go down to the local lumberyard and find wood with the special cosmetic and structural characteristics that fine guitars require. Finding wood for Gibson guitars is a worldwide effort involving many wood companies, brokers and even independent loggers.

 

Today, Gibson's manufacturing process continues to require high quality wood and the Nighthawk guitar is no different than any other Gibsons instrument. On our journey through the manufacturing of the Nighthawk, it makes sense that we start with the selection, grading and processing of the Nighthawk's wood.

 

The Gibson Nighthawk uses mahogany for its back and neck. The Nighthawk back and neck are manufactured out of mahogany and are both one-piece construction. One-piece manufacturing makes for better clarity and consistency of tone, and it is also more stable physically than laminated or spliced construction. However mahogany which meets Gibson's quality standards and is large enough to produce a one-piece back, is harder to locate. As a result, a limited number of Nighthawks can be manufactured on a monthly basis. Gibson grades mahogany cosmetically for clarity and lightness of color. This reduces the amount of usable wood as well. However, it is one of the reasons why Gibson guitars are considered some of the most elegantly manufactured instruments today.

 

The Nighthawk's top is manufactured out of maple. The most famous pieces of Gibson maple are the curly, bookmatched tops of Les Pauls, but maple is also used for necks and acoustic guitar backs and sides. Trees in the colder regions of the U.S. produce the whitest, clearest maple. These same trees yield the curly grain that makes the Nighthawk Standard and Custom such beautiful instruments. Curly maple is a freak of nature, and only about 1% of maple trees have the degree of curl to make them candidates for the flame maple tops on these instruments. The Nighthawk Custom's maple top is bookmatched, just like the popular Les Paul Reissue guitars. The term "Book matched" comes from the process of taking a maple billet and "slicing" it in half after which its grain patterns are glued and "bookmatched" together to form the top. This process is especially important for the Nighthawk Custom. Its specifications call for a Gibson curly "Premium Plus" top and great care is taken to bookmatch these tops to ensure a beautiful instrument. The Nighthawk Standard specifications call for a Gibson curly maple "plus" top and the Nighthawk Special is specified to have a plain maple top. If you are not aware of the term curly maple "plus" top or curly maple "premium plus" top, Gibson established these terms as part of a three level grading system for determining the amount of curl or "flame" in a maple top. As a result the Nighthawk Custom has more "flame" than the Nighthawk Standard. In turn, the Nighthawk Standard has more "flame" than the Nighthawk Special.

 

Now let's talk about the Nighthawk's fingerboards. Gibson's Nighthawk uses either ebony or rosewood for its fingerboard. The Nighthawk Special and Nighthawk Standard have rosewood fingerboards and the Nighthawk Custom receives the more elegant, harder ebony wood. Gibson's ebony comes from the African country of Cameroon and its rosewood comes from eastern India. Gibson's vendors are aware of the high-quality wood required to make guitars , and the wood that arrives at the Gibson factory is of the finest grade available. Still, it must go through more grading processes before it is turned into guitars. First, the rough mahogany boards are planed and then graded by color and weight. Neck-quality mahogany must have the grain lines viewed in a cross-section of the neck running straight from fingerboard to the back of the neck. This adds strength to the Nighthawks neck and helps prevent warping. Most customers are familiar with the different grades of maple tops on Les Pauls, but they may not know that the mahogany for the backs is also carefully graded for color and weight. Wood color is graded as A+, A or C. The lightest-colored (A+) mahogany is used for the lighter finishes, such as the Translucent Amber finish on the Nightawk Standard or Antique Natural on the Nighthawk Custom. When examining one of Gibson's instruments finished in these colors, take note of how the mahogany back and neck of these instruments are clear and unblemished. Rosewood and ebony are graded for consistency of color and straightness of grain. Ebony is black only in the heartwood. There are typically sections with gray streaks and spots, and these must by identified and removed. Gibson's suppliers know how picky we are, and they take care to select suitable wood; consequently, waste due to imperfections is less than 5%.

 

As you can tell, there is a good bit of work which goes into a Gibson Nighthawk even before its wood is shaped into a body or neck. Gibson takes great pride in every step of the making of its guitars and its employees take great in making the best guitars in the world. Gibson instruments are manufactured by people who care about the manufacturing the best guitars in the world. And as we outlined earlier, this starts with the selection and grading of the wood. Now that Gibson has conducted exhaustive searching, selecting, and grading of the wood, we are finally ready to begin transforming it into a Nighthawk guitar. For the solid mahogany back, boards are cut to the proper length for guitar bodies. In the process, workers cut out all imperfections, such as wormholes, knots, stains, and cracks. Then the boards are sawn lengthwise to the proper width. Next, the blanks are sanded and prepped so that they can be glued to the maple top. Throughout the process, the wood is continually graded for weight and moisture content. Wood is custom-dried at the Gibson factory fair-dried first, and then kiln-dried to further bring down moisture content. Kiln time varies from piece to piece but may take as long as 10 days for wood with a high moisture content.

 

The Nighthawk top blank starts off a little over twice the thickness and half the width of a body. It then goes through the re-saw process where it is sliced in half and opened up to make the Nighthawk's two-piece top. We don't know until we open up thise book of maple whether the wood grain will be flamed or plain. The two top pieces are then glued together by hand, placed in a hand-screwed clamp and left to dry for one hour. When the tops are dry, they are matched with backs. Tops have been graded for degree of curl in the grain, backs for weight and color. A+ tops are put with A+ backs, A tops with A backs, etc. This tedious process ensures an aesthetic unity that sets Gibson apart from other makers of guitars. It also means that at times there are excellent curly maple tops available that are waiting for corresponding backs, a process that slows down production. The tops and backs are glued together and put in a hydraulic press under 900 pounds of pressure for four hours.

 

After all this work we still have only a body blank rectangular unit of wood. It's time now to start making it look like a guitar. Body shaping is done on a Computerized Numeric Controlled router. In 1994, Gibson replaced the old router with a new one that cost half a million dollars. It has eight cutting heads and the capacity to shape hundreds of bodies a day. Routers shape the body outline and also the control cavities in the back. After another machine routs out the pickup cavities, we finally have something that looks like a Nighthawk body. Now we need a neck to go with the body. The Nighthawk's one-piece mahogany neck is challenging to produce. Only about 25% of the mahogany is suitable for a one-piece neck. To start with, a one-piece neck requires 10-quarter boards, 10 quarters of an inch or 2.5" thick, which is a quarter inch thicker than required for a body. A laminated neck requires 5-quarter wood. Like the wood for bodies, neck wood is band-sawed into a general shape. Then, because of the crucial need for stability in a guitar neck, the necks are "sticker stacked" on a shelf and cured for a minimum of three weeks in order to achieve an equilibrium of moisture content. Sticker stacked is a term that is derived from old machine shapers that were called stickers. After curing, the blanks are graded for twist and relaxation. It's a time-consuming process, but it ensures that problem necks are weeded out before they become Gibson guitars. In the mill room, wing blocks the small pieces of wood that make the headstock wider and are matched for color and grain and then glued onto the neck blanks. Now the blank is ready to become a neck. Necks are shaped on a rotary profiler, a machine that carries the neck blank on a carousel through several shaping processes. The rotary profiler takes care of about 90% of the work. The rest is done by hand using hundreds of individual fixtures. The back of the neck is shaped on a special shaper which is essentially an oversized router table. The neck is routed for a truss rod and the rod is secured with a glued-in maple spline. Truss rods are covered with a vinyl tube for easy adjustment. By now the neck has gone through as many as 13 machining and drilling processes. It still has no fingerboard, no inlays, no tuners, but at least its recognizable now as a guitar neck. At this point, Gibson has located and procured wood, then graded, cut, cured, and shaped it. And we've only just created the basic elements of a guitar and a body and a neck. Several process are still to take place before we can put them together. First, the rough-carved Nighthawk body must be prepared for its decorative binding. The groove around the top where the binding is to be fitted is called the rabbet. At Gibson, no router table or workbench clamp is used in the rabbeting process. All rabbeting is done freehand. This requires a high degree of woodworking skill. After the rabbeting is done on the Nighthawk, Gibson's skilled craftsman proceed to round its back edges with a shaping tool. Again, this process uses no router table or workbench clamp. Gibson's binding arrives at the factory in flat sheets which are cut into strips on a table saw. The binding on instruments manufactured by Gibson today is different than the celluloid binding used on older Gibson guitars. The Nighthawk uses a high quality plastic binding because celluloid is flammable. The Nighthawk Custom uses an elegant three ply binding while the Nighthawk Standard is enhanced with a beautiful two ply binding and the Nighthawk Special uses the traditional Gibson single ply binding. All the binding is applied by hand. Workers apply glue, then insert the binding into the rabbet. When the binding is applied to the Nighthawk's pointed cutaway joint, it is hand-mitered with a chisel in a freehand situation. Then, as Gibson's binders work their way around the body, they hold the binding in place by wrapping a continuous cotton strap around and around the body. It takes at least 50 feet of cotton strapping to secure the binding on one body.. Once the binding is in place and secured, the bodies are hung on racks to dry for 24 hours. This is one of the most physically strenuous jobs in the entire production process. It is extremely hard on the hands, arms and shoulders. Due to the demands that this job puts on Gibson's craftsman, binders must be moved to another job after three to four years and new binders must be trained this highly skilled craft. After the glue is dry on the binding, the Nighthawk's body is sent to the rim sander, another job that is both highly skilled and labor intensive. Rim sanders hand-scrape any glue off the sides and then hand-sand the bodies against a pneumatic sander that looks much like a rolling pin. Now we're getting closer to having a finished body. Once the sides are sanded, the bodies go to a slack-belt sander. These machines have a long circular belt of sandpaper that is open in the center. The guitar body is placed under the paper and then as the belt is moving, the operator pushes the belt downward by hand to sand various parts of the body. The first areas the slack-belt sander works are the outer edges, where any excess binding is sanded down flush with the top. The slack-belt sanders tools are wooden paddles of various sizes with a felt covering. At this point, the slack-belt operator becomes an artisan. In the hands of an unskilled slack-belt sander, the Nighthawk's beautiful maple top can be sanded unevenly, causing dips in the Nighthawk's top. This will result in an uneven finish and could even cause problems when installing the Nighthawk's string through bridge system. After the slack-belt process, a jack hole and a few other holes are drilled so that the Nighthawk body is finally ready for a neck. So what has been going on with the neck for the Nighthawk body while all of this work has been going on? Let's talk with Jeff Allen, Gibson's neck line supervisor about the manufacturing of the Nighthawk's neck.

 

The neck is one of the most critical elements of a Gibson guitar, and it requires special equipment as well as special woodworking skills to build. Fingerboards arrive at Gibson in boards 1/2" thick and 22" long. Some are so rough that they look like theyve been cut with a chain saw. These are run through a machine called a molderthe same molder the furniture industry uses to shape ceiling, floor and crown molding. At Gibson the molder cuts the board to size and puts the 'radius' or curvature on the fingerboard. At this point, location holes are drilled into the back of the fingerboard so that the board can be accurately clamped for all the remaining processes.

 

Next, the slots for the frets are sawn. All fret slots are sawn at the same time by a special machine with 24 saw blades. This ensures that neither the board nor the saw slips out of alignment during the fret-slotting process. This machine has a carousel to handle four different boards, corresponding to the four different scale lengths of Gibson guitars: 24 3/4", 25 1/2", 26" and the 34" bass scale. Before the frets are installed, the Nighthawk's elegant pearloid inlays are applied. A numerically controlled router cuts out the holes for the various inlay patterns: dots for the Nighthawk Special, parallelograms for the Nighthawk Standard and "cloud" inlays for the Nighthawk Custom. Each of the use inlay patterns have been inherited from history-making Gibson guitars. Of note is the fact that the parallelogram inlays can be found on Gibson's famous ES-175 guitar and the Nighthawk Custom's inlays were inherited from Gibson 's highly regarded J-200 Acoustic guitar.

 

The Nighthawk's fingerboard inlays arrive at the factory in pre-cut form. They are glued in by hand. Inlayers mix their own epoxy glue with black and brown dyes. This guarantees that the glue will match the fingerboard around the edges of the inlay on the Nighthawk. The entire inlay hole is brushed with glue and then the inlay piece is pressed in. Back in the early days of the company, Gibson catalogs warned against buying instruments with large or fancy inlays because there was no glue that adhered well to both wood and pearl. Even the most expensive catalog models had dot inlays until 1929. Today, there is still cause for concern when it comes to inlays and glue. Epoxy does adhere well to wood and pearl, but there are different types of epoxies. Gibson uses a type that requires 24 hours to dry rather than a quick-set formula because the 24-hour type is softer. It keeps the inlays from popping loose or cracking while the wood in the fingerboard is stabilizing during the first few months of the guitars life. It adds an extra day to the manufacturing time of a guitar, but it's an area where we can't cut corners and still maintain the Gibson quality.

 

When the inlay glue is dry, the fingerboard is wet-ground on a precision grinder of the type you'd find in any machine shop, except that the diamond wheel on Gibson's grinder is radiused to match the radius of the fingerboard. At this point, the boards are inspected for cracks, flaws from moisture, inlay problems, etc. Then its on to the fret station. By the way, for your information, cracks are known as checks in the guitar trade. Frets are placed in the slots and started by hand with a hammer. The ends are clipped so that they hang over the edge of the fingerboard. Then the board is put under a press. The pressure is adjusted, depending on whether the fingerboard is rosewood or ebony, and then the frets are pressed into place.

 

The Nighthawk's fingerboard is now cut to its final width. All of the different models of the Nighthawk are bound so the next step is to route the binding slot. The Nighthawks binding is then applied and the holes for the side dots the position markers on the side of the fingerboard & are drilled. Up until a year ago, these holes were drilled by hand. Gibson designed a machine that drills the side-dot holes, and it can handle two fingerboards at a time.

 

When the side dots are installed, the fingerboard is ready to be attached to the neck. But even though the neck has been shaped and has had the truss rod installed, it is not quite ready yet. The surface of the neck must first be shaped flat on a machine that utilizes a 4" shaper head. Before that, the truss rod is tightened so that the neck gets an overbow or curve of .020". Now, with the truss rod tightened, the neck is planed flat. The neck tenon or tongue the part that extends into the body is shaped by a pin router. The Nighthawk's neck is finally ready for the fingerboard. Remember the positioning holes that were drilled into the fingerboard after the molding process? Well, they are about to be used one last time. The Nighthawk's neck has been drilled with matching holes, into which 1/4" pins have been inserted. The pins in the neck match up with the holes in the back of the fingerboard for perfect placement. The fingerboard is glued to the neck with common yellow wood glue. After the Nighthawk's neck has been glued to the neck it is put in an air press for 20 minutes. Gibson takes an extra step to ensure that the glue joint is perfect by adding a dye to make the glue show up under ultraviolet light. If a purple line is visible under the black light, then there is a gap between the neck and fingerboard and the glue joint is unacceptable. This inspection is not made until the neck is sanded and finished, so the cost of this extra degree of quality control measure can be high in terms of lost labor. The Nighthawk's neck now not ready for its body. We now have to apply the head veneer. The Nighthawk's headstock veneers arrive at the factory already inlaid with the Gibson logo and appropriate ornamental figures. As with the fingerboard, the Nighthawk Special, Standard and Custom receive different head veneers. The Nighthawk Custom receives an elegantly bound head veneer as opposed to the simpler unbound head veneers found on the Nighthawk Standard and Nighthawk Special. The Nighthawk's veneer is glued to the headstock with the same process as the fingerboard, including the 20 minutes in an air press.

 

Next the headstock sides and top edges go through a final shaping process. Up until two years ago, the moustache or spring shape at the top of Gibson's headstocks were shaped by hand. As a result, there were variations from one guitar to the next. Today, the Nighthawk's "moustache" is shaped by a tool. This ensures a consistancy in the Nighthawks headstock. Now we are ready to install the Nighthawk's "nut". The white plastic piece over which the Nighthawk's strings cross at the top of the neck is called the "nut". Gibson has chosen to manufacture this item out of corian, a very durable material which can be found in modern day bathroom and kitchen sink manufacturing. At this point in time, a slot for the nut is routed and the nut installed. The neck is then ready for final shaping, a sanding process which takes a little of the meat off the back of the neck. Final neck-shaping is one of the highest-skilled jobs in the production of a Gibson instrument. It takes five or six months to train a craftsman and get him up to production speed for neck-shaping. Gibson never has more than one or two people who can do this job. As most guitar buyers know, the shape of a neck is one of the most critical points in the character of an instrument. At Gibson the final shaping is done by hand. Although our tolerances for neck dimensions are strict, each Gibson guitar neck is minutely different from any other. All of this activity and we still haven't glued the Nighthawk's neck to its body! So far Gibson has shaped the neck, shaped the fingerboard and inlaid and glued it to the neck. At the same time, the craftsman working on the bodyline have shaped the Nighthawk's body, applied its binding and sanded it to ready it for its neck. Dozens of workers and procedures have already been involved and we still have only pieces of a guitar. The next step is to attach the neck to the body. This is one of the most important processes in building a Gibson guitar. All Gibson guitars feature glued in necks as opposed to bolt-on necks and because of this, each instrument has a unique feel when compared to other manufacturer's necks.

 

Throughout Gibson's history, guitar players have desired Gibson guitars because of the feel of the Gibson neck. This is not only because of the neck shape itself but because all Gibson guitars are designed with "set" necks as opposed to bolt-on necks. The Nighthawk's set neck exhibits different tonal characterisitics because its neck is actually glued into the body. As a result the Nighthawk's unique timbre characteristics ring all the way from the top of the neck, through its body and down to its string through bridge system. Let's examine the process of gluing in the Nighthawk's neck. About halfway through the production of a Gibson guitar, the neck and the body come together at the neck fit station. Just before they arrive, inspectors check aspects of the Nighthawk's neck and body construction. This includes items such as fret seating, width and depth of the neck, the neck joint, fit of the pearl inlay and color defects in the wood. The first step in the neckfit process is to stamp the serial number on the back of the headstock. Then any glue that may have squeezed out of the binding or inlays is cleaned off the fingerboard. The neck is then inserted into the body for a dry fit with no glue. This is to test the angle. The proper neckset angle is checked by placing a straight-edge on the frets in the center of the fingerboard. One end of the straight-edge is butted up to the nut; the other end will be exactly at the center of the bridge. At the bridge end of the straight-edge is a dial pointer which shows the distance between the straight-edge and the top of the guitar. On a model such as the Nighthawk, the distance between the top of the guitar and the straight-edge must be between 5/8" and 3/4".

 

Although the neck and body have been inspected with a gauge on their respective production lines for proper fit, sometimes they still need a bit of sanding or shaping to achieve the right neckset angle. When the neckfit is right, wood glue is applied. The neck joint is then clamped and allowed to dry for an hour. Immediately following the neckset the cutaway is blended into the neck with an oscillating spindle, a shaping tool that looks like a rolling pin.

 

Now the bridge, pickup and endpin holes are drilled. This process is done on a Computer Controlled router. After the neck is set and all the routing and drilling is done, a guitar is ready to begin the finishing process, which consists of hand sanding and staining.

 

The very first step of this process is called edgefill. This is where any seams around the binding are filled in. The binders have tried to keep the glue at just the perfect amount, so that there is no excessive amount squeezed out, nor are there any gaps. Either case could cause cosmetic problems in staining. If there are any gaps, they are filled at this point.

 

The Nighthawk is then sanded all over until it is smooth and all jams or nicks are gone. All of this sanding is done by hand. A stain is then applied. Stain acts as a coloring agent as well as a filler material. The Nighthawk is then hung on a conveyor line to dry for a day and a half. After the Nighthawk is dry, workers from the color line pull them off and tape over the neck with masking tape to protect it from the paint and lacquer spray. Now the guitar is ready for finishing.

 

When a guitar is ready to be finished, the first step is an inspection. A Gibson guitar goes through dozens of inspections over the course of its production, but once the finishing process begins, there is an inspection after every single step. The raw wood has been filled on the handsand and fill line. Now it is sealed with two coats of thin lacquer. The sealer keeps the paint from sinking down into the wood, which would give the finish an undesirable grainy look. The sealer raises the wood grain when it hits a maple top, so the wood is scuffed down with fine-grain sandpaper. The painters take the guitars next and apply the finish colors. A solid color gets two or three coats. A sealer coat is applied after each paint coat. A sunburst requires a separate pass for each color, and the painter can make no mistakes. The fireburst finish on a Nighthawk starts with a yellow stain, then black, then wine red. Painting guitars requires a great deal of skill and experience.

 

We want you to note that in the finishing process, Gibson chooses to paint over the binding on the body and headstock. Although the fingerboards have been masked off for the painting process, the binding has not. So after the painting has been completed and the last sealer coat applied and dried, the paint is scraped off the binding. The scrapers use metal blades that they sharpen themselves. It is a tedious job that requires great concentration to keep the lines straight and even. Gibson employs anywhere from nine to twelve full-time scrapers. One slip and the whole guitar could be scrapped. What an art!

 

Now, after the Nighthawk has been scraped it goes to the final spray area where the finish lacquer is applied. The lacquer is similar to the sealer, except it is much thicker. Each guitar gets four coats, and each coat requires a drying time of two to three hours. Then the guitar is sanded again and one last coat of lacquer is applied. As always, each coat is followed by an inspection to make sure the instrument is clean of trash or lint. After finishing, a guitar moves on to the buffing line. It is first put on the red wheel, so called because the buffing compound is red, and it turns the cloth buffing wheel red. The buffing compound on the red wheel contains a lot of clay and abrasives. Buffers go first against the grain of the wood to take out the roughness, then with the grain to add a shine. From there, the guitar goes to the yellow wheel, where it is polished with glande wax, a very fine jewelers polish. Then it's on to the white wheel, where plain cotton with no compounds or waxes gives the guitar a lustrous shine.

 

The buffers say that they let the wheels, which turn at 1000 rpms, do all the work, but it requires a great degree of skill to put just the right amount of pressure on the guitar. Too much pressure, especially in places like the tips of the headstock or the point of a cutaway, results in burns or places where the finish heats up and comes off. Nighthawks that are equipped with a Floyd Rose vibrato have an additional problem for the buffer; if he's not careful, the wheel could get caught in the back cavity for the vibrato unit and destroy the entire instrument. The average buffing time for an instrument is 30 minutes.

 

After a Nighthawk is buffed, it goes to the neck prep area where the frets are leveled and the fingerboard cleaned. First the masking tape that was put over the fingerboard in the finish prep area is removed. The frets are leveled with a file. The fingerboard is cleaned with scrapers and razor blades. Then the frets are sanded and buffed. Finally the fingerboard is oiled.

 

We are finally heading into the homestretch in the building of our Nighthawk. All the Nighthawk needs is its hardware. It gets that in the final assembly line. The final assembler starts by installing the tuning keys. Then he installs the pickups, the electronics and bridge. He then cuts the Nighthawk's "nut" before stringing the Nighthawk up. Throughout the final assembly process Gibson's craftsmen continually examine the Nighthawk for jams, scratchs or other structural problems. As a result Gibson's Final Assembly department is really one big Quality Control center. Gibson's final assembly department must also be skilled at performing other functions such as buffing and touch up in order to ensure superior cosmetic quality for Gibson's guitars.

 

After the hardware has been installed and the Nighthawk has been strung, the assembled guitar then goes to an adjuster, who adjusts the bridge and height of pickups and then tests the guitar to make sure that all of its electronic components work properly.

 

The Nighthawk then goes to final inspection where it is cleaned and examined thoroughly before it is placed in a protective bag and sent to Gibson's Distribution center. When a Nighthawk is ordered by a customer from the distribution center, it then goes through one more final inspection and adjustment process before it is finally worthy to be sold as a Gibson.

 

Well, we have certainly taken a long journey through the manufacturing of the Nighthawk. From raw pieces of wood to a finished product, the Nighthawk has gone through over 90 separate processes before it is finally ready to be shipped to a customer. Each step of the way there is a danger that the Nighthawk might not make it into a skilled players hands. Gibson's skilled craftsmen are to be commended for their care in producing the Nighthawk. Because of their attention to detail and love for the instruments they make, the loss in production of Nighthawk guitars is minimal. It is their skilled dedication that has made the Nighthawk the most innovative guitar available today.

 

I hope that you have enjoyed your journey through the manufacturing of a Nighthawk. Visit your local Gibson Authorized Dealer and check out one of these unique instruments. As a result of your investing time in reading this file, I am sure you will appreciate this instrument for what it truly is - a real work of art!

 

and while I'm at it, the ads of the time...

 

[HEADKNOCKER]

I remember reading that years ago..

Congrats on the 94 Nighthawk with Floyd Rose xrr.

It really looks like a keeper.

 

2013 Nighthawk ST & 2006 Blueshawk

The Nighthawk is my Youngest Sons & The Blueshawk is now my Oldest Sons

Gotta keep them boys in good guitars