ksdaddy

I won’t wholesale bash Norlin era Gibsons because some were outstanding. However. As it pertains to 70s acoustics, I’ve seen many with twisted necks and seemingly non functioning truss rods. There is no quick easy fix. There is NO “good” fix for a twisted neck at all. I would run like the wind.

I’m sitting on the couch with a cup of Twinings Irish Breakfast tea with a Jack Russell curled up sleeping beside me. My wife is in the kitchen making something to take to work for lunch. I’m looking around this living room, into the kitchen, into one of the bedrooms. Lots of wooden items. Some wooden items are what I call “compressed beaver sh*t”. That includes a Fender amp off in the corner. Lots of pine trim. I know it’s pine by looking at it. I don’t know where the pine grew up. There’s a couple “built in” book cases with doors made from fir plywood. I don’t know what the inner layers are. I know it’s fir by looking at it. Distinctive grain on 60s plywood. All of my interior doors are 1963 hollow style, faced with some kind of mahogany. Over the years I’ve heard this style of door being referred to as Philippine Mahogany, sometimes Luan (sp?) Mahogany. Maybe neither is correct. There’s a Canadian rocker I bought at an auction for a dollar. It’s made of oak. It is sitting on top of the hardwood floor we had installed in 2018. It is also oak. I have no idea what kind of oak. But I know it’s oak by looking at it. Once in a while I will see ash and think it’s oak. Sometimes I get mahogany and walnut mixed up on an older piece of furniture, especially if there are multiple coats of old varnish. There’s a hall table made of some variety of maple, topped by a circa 2005 Chinese radio CD cassette phonograph made to look like it was from 1940. It looks like oak from here. I don’t have my glasses on. It occurred to me that I don’t own anything that ever came with any type of spec sheet. For some strange reason, I really don’t feel cheated by any of the manufacturers, nor do I feel like my life is lacking anything. I guess it just shows that some things are important to some, and not important to others.

It's legit, they just bought years ago when the market was right for them to do so. Now they are selling them back to us at many times what they paid. Capitalism at it's best, not begrudging that, but their prices are horrific.

This may save you some time: https://www.amazon.com/Humbucker-Mini-Humbucker-Adapter-Pickup-cream/dp/B00XRNIJ00/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?crid=3ETDFMGGFO2TJ&keywords=mini+humbucker+adapter+ring&qid=1672781190&sprefix=mini+humbucker+adspt%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-7

Look closer. I bet there’s a ‘7’ at the beginning.

No alcohol since Dec 2003, no cigarettes since July 2014. We had $150 of Chinese take out on the kitchen table. We divided the leftovers up between my family and I was in bed by 10:30. Got up to pee at 11:58, back in bed at 12:02. Didn't notice any difference, other than I slept better.

8-decade 135-135th day of the year 1-last digit of the year (1981) 022-the 22nd guitar stamped that day in Kalamazoo. The serial number indicates the guitar was stamped on it around May 15, 1981. It would have been completed within 2-3 week of that date. It was made in Kalamazoo, MI. Many guitars with insignificant cosmetic flaws were stamped “second” and possibly sold cheaper at the wholesale level. There was a time when a “second” carried a “less than perfect” stigma but now that it’s 40+ years old, that stamping is more of an annoyance. It may have a small effect on the resale value but not horrific. If you find the pickup is truly dead and not just a wiring problem, have it rewound rather than replacing it.

In '87 I built a Frankencaster from a maple Strat body, Bill Lawrence mini humbucker, Tele bridge and pickup, a 1967 Coronado neck and a Tele Bigsby. Painted it a 1985 Cadillac dark brown metallic. I don't recall the name.

"Colonial Barbarian" ... I literally laughed out loud. I love it. In tracing my family tree, seems like I mostly go back to England.... some as late as the 1850s, some in the early 1700s. Interesting to note that at some point in the late 1700s some of my ancestors (whose parents/grandparents came over from England earlier) suddenly found themselves in New Brunswick, Canada. I've read that some members of the British Army from the Revolutionary War era were given land grants in New Brunswick. Which raises the question of which side they were on?

Archie Bunker = turlet.

Absolutely. When I had my guitar shop in the mid 80s, the teenagers chatted more about GW than GP. They chatted a lot about headstock shape and installing $300 Floyd Roses on $89 Strat copies. I found myself reading GW more, just so I could converse.

A friend worked at McDonald’s in the 70s and called it may-nazz. I occasionally use that. I often mispronounce words just to see if people are paying attention.

Some people are wrapped tighter than others. I’m sure if the word toilet didn’t set them off, something else would. My late wife could not spell toilet to save her life. It always showed up as toliet paper on the grocery list. So quite often I purposely pronounce it toliet, which brings a little grin to my face in her memory. My youngest daughter called ketchup “keppitch” when she was a toddler. That has stuck over the years as well. As to the bathroom/toilet usage, I sometimes announce, “well, I guess I’ll go drop the kids off at the pool!”

10-36 is an odd choice. 10-46 is a normal electric gauge. The string spacing at the nut is determined by the nut width of the individual guitar, which can vary quite a bit. A rough rule is to subtract 1/8” from each side, so a 1-11/16” nut would have a 1-7/16” spacing. Other factors could affect that number though. Personal preference, how the frets were tapered when installed, etc.

Interesting! I’ve never given it much thought. I’ve always called it a bathroom but not as a euphemism of any kind. Not consciously anyway.

Supply and demand is a beautiful thing. Not always to my advantage but I will happily play by nature’s rules. I bought 22 boxes of magazines for $9.00 a month or two ago. Mixed in was a box of newspapers. Pearl Harbor, V-E Day, D Day, Space Shuttle disaster, various presidents coming and going. I’ve sold some of them for $25-50 each. Some magazines for up to $50 each. By contrast, I also have National Geographic, Scientific American, assorted model airplane magazines, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Air & Space, and others. Most of them I’ve tried to sell for $10 a year or as much as I can fit into a priority mail flat rate box for $10 (plus shipping). Not much success. I figure I’ve made close to $600 off the stuff people want, and the rest will likely go to the community recycling center. These magazines are taking up a lot of room…..

Sometimes the online decoders are just wrong. Gibson stopped making guitars in Kalamazoo in early 1984.

I have a couple filing cabinets with Guitar Players from the mid 70s to 2010 or so. Years ago, I read (and RE-read) every issue, cover to cover. Now they are neatly hanging in file folders, Their value..... about zero.

Charlie Christian pickup, used on the early ES-150s. The three screws is how it mounts. Remember there was a learning curve and growing pains. CC had nothing to do with the pickup, he was just associated with early ES-150s.

I believe the ES120's electronics are completely contained in that big molded pickguard. Remove it (a few screws), plug it into an amp, and touch both of the leads at the volume control (one at a time). if you get noise through the amp, it's likely the pickup itself. If you are getting a horrific loud hum through the amp while you're touching the volume pot's wires, use that opportunity to roll the volume and tone up and down, to see how the tone reacts. I'me way oversimplifying this cursory assessment and I don't mean to sound condescending, just looking to very simply narrow down the source of 'no signal'. If you're getting the hum and it responds to your knob tweaking, then it's likely the pickup itself. Unsolder the pickup's wires and hook an ohmmeter across them. A single coil could give you anywhere from 4000 ohms to 8000 ohms (typically). If there's a problem with the pickup, you will get a reading of either infinity or zero. I know a person who has rewound many pickups in the past and I can't speak for him as to whether he'd be willing to rewind yours, but if that's the case, I can ask.

I think it's the same as a Melody Maker pickup of that era. Yes, it's a single coil.

I briefly owned a 1970 Deluxe in cherry sb that someone had routed for THREE humbuckers. I owned it in 1986-87 and it was a $300 guitar in my opinion. That's what I sold it for anyway. However, it was one of the best LPs I had ever owned, regardless of the chop. If I hadn't been broke, I might have kept it. Some of my favorite LPs were from the 79-80 era. I can't tell you whether you should keep your 78.... but I don't think it would be very smart to ditch it before trying a new one.

I've only had one guitar that I refretted simply because the frets were low (and no other problems). A late 70s Hofner acoustic. Refretted it with normal wire. Best move I could have made to help that guitar play well.

That's unfortunate that you got a guitar with so many problems. You've had it a couple years? Did you reach out to Gibson or the store where it was bought? Seems like those are things that could have been dealt with under warranty if you had made yourself heard. The way you're describing the buzzing, the first thing I would be looking for is an improperly adjusted truss rod, specifically too tight. If that's the case, and there aren't any actual problems with the neck wood or defective truss rod, it could be adjusted easily, either by yourself or any decent technician. As to the buzzing, you're right, it shouldn't do that. I would be looking for a (lack of) ground. The cracking and popping when you touch the cavity covers sounds like static from the vinyl material. I go through that with my Telecaster all the time and a simple fix is to rub a dryer sheet on the vinyl.

I will say either 1974 or 1975.