duluthdan

Love those J-45s, welcome aboard!

Make sure and post a picture of the New Guitar Day when it arrives! People here love to drool. Welcome to the Gibson Board !

Oh, BTW, I perused the rack of parts, all the bridgeplates are solid Maple. no doubt. Again, truly impressed by how much hand work goes into these builds. No robots, saw two CNC machines, I think, (I took the tour twice in a row). All the folks I saw seemed to exude a good deal of pride and know-how in what they were doing - it truly is a vey impressive process, and folks. I can honestly see where the Gibson guitars get their personalities - no two can be exactly alike. They're just all good. Very enlightening tour, highly recommended if you ever get to Bozeman - but you can't just drop in, I suspect a good deal of prior arrangements and agreement would be required, the shop floor is a crowded busy busy place.

Well the P-Bucket thing is beyond me, so here are some more pics related.

If I've ever had one of those head-slapping moments,finding out about this little hole is one of them. It is only a coincidental appearance on the bridge plate, and its purpose is essential to cutting the dovetail neck joint on the carriage apparatus that's used in that manufacturing step. If my technological skills don't fail me, there should be a picture of that jig. The variety of positions we see in the relation of this hole to the bridge pin holes are all about the proper placement of the bridge on the top to dial in the exact intonation on each individual guitar. The bridge might necessarily move forward or back a smidge, to get the intonation spot-on. Following the install and gluing/drying of the bridge, the pin holes are drilled. That is why we see some closer to this hole than others. Has everything to do with intonation, and perhaps this little hole oddity contributes to the individual personality we all seem to experience in different Gibsons. It is apparent that even though this hole may be close to pin holes, it would probably be very rare to see a pin hole that wasn't completely surrounded by at lest some Maple. And the glue that is used to affix the spruce plug to the top fills that hole with a material, that to my observation anyway, is at least as hard and resilient as the Maple bridgeplate itself. As i understand from observing all of these steps, the location holes are drilled in the guitar tops (there's one up under your fingerboard too) After numerous steps, these tops are affixed to bodies, destined to be mounted and clamped to the jig which essentially creates the recess for the dovetail neck joint. Further down the assembly both of the locater holes are plugged with spruce (and glue). Necks are fitted, binding is installed etc etc, and then the guitar goes to be measured for scale, and intonation, and the bridge is installed. The hole is essential to the precise dovetail neck joint. In later steps, the hole is filled with spruce, and later covered up by the bridge. And it is the placement of this bridge fundamental to intonation, which positions those pinholes closer to, or further back from that locater plug. I believe it is important to me to have a precise neck joint, and good fundamental intonation, and an invisible locater hole from the drivers side of the guitar. Probably way more important than poking my head under the hood and fretting about that hole. In my estimation, it is a very inconsequential thing. The ball ends of strings will probably weardown the Maple faster than they would that epoxy. I an't worried no more ! If you select this picture, it should lead you to my Photobucket place, where you should be able to see the other jig, and a couple more shots of the life of this hole.

Terrific sounding J-35 !

The original picture at the top of this thread shows 3 interior shots. At the top is my SJ bridge-plate after the tech at MV installed the small wooden plug in the mounting hole. I was mildly surprised that he had a whole baggie of these little plugs, sending the message that this is not all that surprising or unusual? As you can see from the top image in that pic, the ball ends nearest that hole still seem to dive into that bit of off-set seating position. Big deal? I don't know. Perhaps after 10 years or so? I'm not certain that replacing a bridge plate is the best fix, or at all recommended, it would seem to me to probably invite other damage prying out a thin piece of glued wood from the top. The best fix is probably these little wooden plugs, or perhaps the "Plate-Mate" which seems to be small and not that intrusive? I will try and get a description / pictures of this step in the build process. Here's the Stew-Mac Plate-Mate.

Curious as to whether or not the factory has gotten better at matching tops and bridge-plates as evidenced by the bridge-plate mounting hole? If you have a Gibson, built in the last 12 months, I'd be curious as to the location of the location hole (used in assembly) on the bridge plate. ors it look like the one in the bottom of the picture, or does it get close to infringing on the pin-holes, as does the top of the picture? I'm traveling to Bozeman, gonna tour the factory again, just curious about this step in the process. The guitar on top is mine, fixed with a little insert piece of wood by the way, sounds great, so far no issues.

Beautifully done gentlemen - nice remembrance for Doc.

You've got that voice down!

Welcome to the Gibson Acoustic (sub) Forum M and P ! Nothing like pounding out a new song on a J-45, and everyone here welcomes your involvement and participation - we especially like the pictures M - great looking 45 ya got there !

Terrific. What guitar? Very interesting up that high.

Nice. Got lyrics and a melody in mind? What guitar did you use?

+1 on the version with the Cello - provides a darkness.

5,000 ! That's terrific. Pretty cool to think about.

That SJ sounds nice. Very nice. This a TV?

"Jesus Christ may save your soul, but sometimes you need a little Rock-N-Roll" ! Love it dude.

Here's how to post photos - doing it with the little snips will drive you nuts because there is so little file room supported. http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/11005-sticky-how-to-post-photos/ So I see you are parting with one of the JBs - the one with the Trance Audio Amulet - that's a super nice guitar, but I suppose it makes sense to pare down from 2 to 1. Good luck with your sale. And welcome to the Gibson Acoustic board. How about a picture of that Hummingbird?

This is classic good! Re-posting this in the J-200 thread. Terrific sounding 200, and voice man, you got it going on! [thumbup]

Nice strummer - good balance in that guitar.

I think the sound of that 12-fret SJ-200 is interesting as all get-out. Is that also short-scale ? This is one of those guitars that I'd love to spend an afternoon with, thanks for posting 'er up.

Classic beauty !

Welcome - those 200s can be magnificent beasts! Show us a picture! Here's how: http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/11005-sticky-how-to-post-photos/

Nice to have you here Hawk - good luck on your search for that perfect little Gibby.