j45nick

Mamie is good.

If a little bit of heat will loosen the hide glue holding in the saddle, I would be concerned that same heat might loosen the hide glue holding on my bridges. (all my Gibsons are hide glue guitars.)

Sorry. I was going to answer, and decided not to. If the saddle fits well in the slot, I see no particular reason it needs to be glued in. If you want to change or modify a glued-in saddle, it can be tricky to get it out. If it is not a good fit, what JT says is absolutely correct. The break angle over the saddle will determine how much leverage is being put on the saddle, trying to split the bridge. Very high saddles pose more risk than lower saddles. I have one extremely tall saddle, which happens to be in a tapered bridge. I keep an eye on that one, but the saddle is also a very tight fit.

I have four Gibson flat-tops with slot-through saddles. This was standard on most up until around 1953 or so. None of these saddles is glued in. These really are not hard to keep in position when you change strings. You just keep them lined up with the wings of the bridge, then gradually tune. If the saddle slides you back off on string tension a bit to be able to move the saddle into position. Yes, if you sand off the bottom of the saddle, the taper at the ends of of the saddle won't line up perfectly with the taper in the wings of the bridge, but the proper position of the saddle is still easy to judge. If the top of the saddle is properly radiused and intonated, is a lot easier to lower action by sanding the bottom, with the caveat of keep the bottom of the saddle square to the sides. When you look at a vintage Gibson, you can sometimes tell how much a saddle has been taken down over time by looking at how the taper of the ends saddle lines up with the taper of the "wings" of the bridge, unless the saddle has been replaced. This is generally a non-issue. You want to have bridge/saddle alignment challenges, try an archtop with a floating bridge. That can be challenging until you figure out that you either change one string at a time, or mark the top of the guitar with low-tack tape to indicate the proper position.

That's exactly what I use.

You know I've always liked that song, Buc. It's good to hear from you again.

You may need to get a professional setup on the guitar. Depending on the store you bought it from, they may have someone who can do this, or may be able to recommend someone. It is possible the string action is too high, requiring excess force to fret it. If you are used to playing electrics, the transition to acoustics is not always easy, since electrics generally use much lighter strings. It may also take several weeks of playing, say, at least a half hour per day, to begin to develop the type of fingertip calluses you often need to fret some acoustics. The J-200 strings from Gibson used to be the same strings as the Gibson Masterbuilt Premium strings, except for a silk winding near the ball end.. They may be different today, and someone here may respond in more detail. The setup is a good place to start in any case. It can make all the difference in the world to playability. And welcome to the Gibson acoustic forum.

Agree. I would probably use an X-Acto knife with a fresh blade for this, so you can scribe a "break line" if it is actually excess finish. I also have a headband magnifier for this type of work. Probably start with inspection with a high-power lens to try to confirm what is happening. As Em7 says, don't try to pop it off without closer inspection and scribing where you want it to break when it pops off.

Welcome to the Gibson acoustic forum, a place where people discuss some of the world's best acoustic guitars. We hope you enjoy your time here, as well as the lively discussions. Many of us here own both Gibsons and Martins, as well as other guitar brands. Sorry you seem to have had such a poor experience with people who work on acoustic guitars. If you let us know where you live, we may be able to point you to a shop, repair person, or luthier with the appropriate skill set and level of experience.

If it's made of wood, it will be impacted by changes in humidity unless it is completely encased in an impermeable membrane , such as epoxy resin. This goes for conventional acoustics and acoustic/electrics, semi-hollowbody electrics, and even solid-body electrics. Obviously, the more pieces of thin wood are involved, the greater the risk of damage is from changes in humidity. A solid-body electric like a Strat will be less affected than an ES-335, which will in turn be less impacted than a J-45. I treat all my wood guitars the same. They live in their cases in an environmentally-controlled space, which is my office at home. My only true electric is a '59 Historic ES-335 from the old Custom, Art, and Historic shop in Nashville. The only guitar I own that doesn't care about the climate or humidity--and is treated accordingly-- is my Composite Acoustics carbon fiber guitar, which lives on my boat in the summer and often in the overhead bin of airplanes when I travel for work. Wood shrinks and expands the greatest across the grain, and typically very little along the grain. As a frame of reference, a freshly-cut white oak plank a foot wide (300mm) and two inches thick (50mm) will shrink about an inch (25mm) across the grain when it is kiln dried, and slightly less with air drying. ( That info comes from my years in boatbuilding.)

Well done, Really nice changes, thoughtfully executed.

The price of that on is absolute top dollar. It's your call. It is nice, very nice, but it is no bargain. The fact that it is an early SJ Natural probably adds little to collector value at this time. Ironically, it would probably be more valuable if it were a conventional 1953 SJ sunburst in the same condition. Natural-top Gibson slope-Js typically sell for less than their sunburst twins. I looked for a really good sunburst SJ from 1946-1952 for about a year. (I own two 1950 J-45s, one of which I have owned since 1966. ) I never found one that was what I wanted, and ended up buying a pristine 1943 SJ re-issue that is a really good guitar, even if lacks vintage vibe. If I ever find a vintage one I prefer over the re-issue, the re-issue will go.

15741 is a serial number from early/mid 1961.

The real steal is the 1947 J-50 he has at $5.5k.

Some interesting folks sitting around that table, in addition to the Reverend: Pete Seeger, Donovan, and Shawn Philips (sitar player)

Well, I'd call it an LG-3, but that's just me. It looks like a really good guitar. Because lefty versions are pretty rare, you could be waiting for a long time to find another in sunburst.

Play it in biker bars for about a decade. If it survives in one piece, it will probably be well-relic'd.

That could be very early in 1961, before they made the transition from ink-stamping inside to embossing on the back of the neck. If numbers started at 0100 in early '61, 0103 could be among the first few guitars. We really need to see a picture of the guitar to understand what he has, which might make it easier to understand the FON, since that seems to be formatted as an FON.

It could be 1961, but we need to see a picture of the guitar to tell you anything more than that. Welcome to the forum.

Take it with you, but recognize that it may only be in perfect cosmetic condition the day it leaves the plant in Bozeman. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of it, but it is a reflection of reality with regard to virtually any guitar that gets played.

You can use a credit card with him, but you have to call him up and give him the number.

Well, you are confirming what many of us have known for a long time: The Gibson J45/J50/SJ is the perfect guitar for the singer-songwriter. The original discussion here related to the J45 vs the SJ 200 in a rock-n-roll setting, which typically includes amplified or pure electric instruments such as an electric bass and maybe electric guitars, drums, and even keyboards. This has a whole different set of considerations from the solo performer situation.

Now that was a bit weird! Sort of a captive audience, in a manner of speaking.

Clapton also played an early 1960's ('63 or '64--can't remember which) red ES-335. It's know as the Crossroads guitar, since it was apparently used on the Cream album with the "Live from the Fillmore" version of Crossroad. You can catch glimpses of it in this video. Crossroad Of course, Clapton could play on anything and it would sound great.