j45nick

I love it, BK. But of course, I love that guitar.

The bridge plate is not the same thing as the bridge.

Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville gets a lot of really nice Vintage Gibsons and Martins, plus some great recent models as well. Prices sometimes tend to be a little high, but in the ballpark. You can get on their email list and they will send you new listings several times a week. Two vintage slope-J's caught my attention today, especially in light of recent discussions here about Gibsons is the early post-war period. One guitar is called a 1950 J-45, the other a 1951 SJ. The J-45 is probably from a couple of years later, unless the bridge has been changed. Why? Well, the bridge has a drop-in saddle, for starters, which is a detail that is probably from 1953 or later, I believe. Second, the bridge pins are very close to the back of the bridge, which also seems to suggest a slightly later date. The SJ is called a 1951, and that makes sense. That one has a belly-up (standard) bridge with slot-through saddle, where earlier belly bridges might have been either up or down. It also has the pins further forward from the back of the bridge, which is consistent with the original bridges on both of my 1950 (or slightly earlier) J-45's. The sunbursts on those two guitars are very similar to each other, and look similar to the one in the b&w photo of my "old" J-45 shortly after I got it in 1966. The sunburst on my "new" 1950 J-45 (purchased by me from the original owner, so I know the "no later than" birthday of the guitar) is darker all over, which I really like. Of course, that could either be the photography, or differences in aging. I have seen enough difference in the 'bursts on similar guitars in this period to think that Gibson may have had more than one person in the spray booth back then. Detective work is fun. early 50's J-45 '51 SJ

I actually prefer the Ventures recording of this, although the version by Chet Atkins is probably what is referenced here: Walk Don't Run, by Johnny Smith

Tom, is that your FON 910 rosewood SJ he's playing?

Those really are important historical documents. Gibson is a big chunk of "modern" American music history. Until those are digitized, they are vulnerable to loss. Gibson may not appreciate what a valuable selling tool they could be for new guitars, not just as an historical resource for vintage guitar geeks like some of us. People don't just buy a new Ferrari or Corvette because they are great new cars. They know they are buying into a piece of well-documented history. To have an idea of where you're going, you need to know where you came from.

JT, how complete are they? Do they run up at least through the point (1979?) when Gibson started using a coherent and understandable system that was year-based? I would contribute towards the digitization of those if Gibson would make them available to the public. They really are a priceless archive. There seem to be about 60 volumes there. Blowing the photo up, you can read some of the dates on the spines, but not all. Some don't have obvious dates on them.

Here is a discussion on cedar vs spruce for guitar soundboards. It is talking about classical guitars, but the same thoughts would seem to apply to steel-string guitars. cedar vs spruce

Richard Thompson is pretty decent with a thumbpick and fingers, too: Black Lightning

The same thing that helps us play--muscle memory--sometimes gets in the way of learning new things. It doesn't get any easier the older you get.

A deity on a diety?

piezo quack.

Those are the pins in my J-45 now, but in black. The bone and horn ones that I just got from Bob Colosi are to that same spec. Colosi sometimes makes pins very slightly oversize from the spec to accommodate pinhole and bridgeplate wear in vintage guitars.

I noticed that, too, but couldn't quite figure out what brace we are looking at there.

Below is a link to Bob Colosi's website. He has good discussions there on bridge pin sizing and fitting. Just click on the "products" tab, and follow it to the bridge pin section. Lots of us here get pins and saddles of various material from Bob. He will custom make virtually anything you want or need, and it isn't expensive. http://www.guitarsaddles.com/

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy" -Helmuth von Moltke

I'm assuming that when they determine a Janka number, they test a number of samples and come up with a distribution of hardness numbers. Then if the distribution looks normal, they take a mean value. You're right. Individual pieces of wood will certainly vary from whatever the Janka number is. The Janka number is just a general point of comparison

I resemble that remark, at least the second part of it. A few people have accused me of being wise about a few things over the years. Usually it goes some something like this: "you're a bleeping wise-***", followed by a punch in the face. That probably came from my father, who became a boxer in the Marine Corps because his big mouth was getting him punched so much. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit his fighting skills, and my "fight or flight" gene is totally missing. It's a miracle I've survived as long as I have.

Sometimes pins make a difference, sometimes they apparently don't. About nine months ago, I bought a one-owner 1950 J-45, from the original owner. The original black plastic pins came with it (note: sometimes pins were white in that period, sometimes black), but were shrunken and unusable. To make a long story short, the guitar went to Ross Teigen for a neck re-set, brace re-glue, and bridgeplate conservation (filling and re-drilling worn pin holes). Ross suggested going with unslotted pins to improve string ball end contact, as long as we were doing bridgeplate work. I put in a set of unslotted Antique Acoustic pins. These are fitted so that they sit very slightly proud of the bridge, more so on the wound strings than the plain strings. With unslotted pins, both the bridge and bridgeplate need to be saw-slotted to accommodate the strings. This has the side effect of increasing the break angle. Because the neck was being re-set at the same time, we could fine-tune the saddle height to further adjust the break angle to what I was looking for. Although I don't have a frame of reference for this particular guitar, it sounds really fine with the Antique Acoustics pins and my standard DR Sunbeam light (12-54) PB's. I like a warmer tone. However, I also like to experiment with pins and their impact on tone. All of my other conventional flat tops have bone pins, mostly from Bob Colosi. It's hard to get really black bone pins, so Bob made me two sets of pins. One is buffalo horn, almost coal black. Bob says these are softer than bone, but generally harder than plastic. He says there is unlikely to be a definable tonal change from the Antique Acoustics pins. He also made a very dark brown set of bone pins, but those are definitely dark brown rather than coal black. This guitar is due for a string change, and I intend to put in the set of bone pins. Since those are unslotted, it will almost certainly require some fitting for a good fit in the bridge. I do this by sanding/scraping the pins, not by reaming the pinholes. The pinholes were re-drilled and reamed for 5 degree taper pins, so I want to fit the pins to the bridge, rather than the other way around. For better or worse, that's the way I do it. The way your white plastic pins tilt forward in the bridge may mean that the pins are either too small, or have the wrong taper for the pinholes. The black Antique acoustics pins are clearly too large for the holes, one way or the other. From my perspective, fitting the pins to the holes is a better solution than the other way around, even though the result may or may not be a fit that is absolutely perfect. Patience is called for when fitting pins.

The modern one on the right is totally different from the one I have. Mine is much more like the vintage one on the left, with the Gibson logo at a fairly steep angle, and the banner fallowing that angle. My L-OO Legend, unlike most, has the gold script logo (no banner), at an angle like the angle of the "Gibson" on your real banner.

The relative hardness of spruce versus cedar depends on the species of each. Caveat: I have no idea what species to cedar is typically used for guitar soundboards. Here are a few Janka numbers (a measure of surface hardness) for several cedars and spruces. A larger number means a harder surface. Spanish cedar (not a true cedar, apparently) 600 Western red cedar 350 Alaskan yellow cedar 580 red spruce 490 sitka spruce 510 Engelman spruce 390 Another number that would be of even greater use would be either elastic modulus or tensile modulus (measures of stiffness), but I haven't found those yet.

I only have one modern Gibson with the banner logo (Fuller's 1943 SJ), but on that one, the angle of the banner logo is exactly the same as the angle of the Gibson logo.

Tuners are tricky because they are so easily changed. Tom Barnwell's '46 LG-2 with single-line Klusons may be the earliest guitar I have seen with those.

I may have answered my own question. I found a vintage Roy Smeck signature Harmony uke, and then found this link: Harmony Smeck

Dave, can you identify that uke he's playing?