capmaster

Being curious about the origin of the Gibson metallic colour denomination, beside others I found this thread here: http://forums.guitarnoise.com/viewtopic.php?t=55998 Funny that it was started by a Guitarnoise member from Moscow with the forum name Kopfschmerzen meaning headache in German... Our Bob aka Notes_Norton brought the Cadillac finish into play, but the car makers also must have had any idea or reference I guess. But whatever would that have been? Most pelhams - the horse bits - don't have a hue like this. Any ideas or references?

I think they will analyse the molecular structure of these plastics and make true replicas before releasing an L-5 reissue. Pickguards were made from celluloid like baby dolls were then. I never wanted to play with those of my younger sister but I liked their smell of camphor. The danger of being harmful to health is negligible compared to that of self-ignition over 38°C or circa 100°F. Beware of storing items like the one pictured below in the attic!

Your guitar obviously embodies heavy gearings. ;)

Are suitable digital backs available? I ask since it looks that it allows for advanced techniques like lens tilt and lens shift. These are things I never did but always found interesting. I guess you perform optical rectification through digital editing, but I thought more of manipulating the plane of focus here... OK, I admit the latter can be done digitally through appropriate stitching.

Respect! Admirable and absolutely professional gear. What studio cameras were they made for?

@ Pippy: My younger brother enjoyed playing with model planes, and my son did that, too. For good reasons they don't sell toys with nazi symbols here. They all were fantasy designs so to say and had that pure balsa wood look. Their wingspan, however, has always been larger than their lifespan. Sadly, the Synchro Compur leaf shutter turned out to be the most unreliable part from a camera age of some fifteen years on. The Schneider Kreuznach Xenon f:2.0/50mm, however, was fantastic. It took a Kodachrome II - the later Kodachrome 25 - or a Kodak Panatomic-X to prove its abilities. This lens was definitely beyond any doubt. @ Emma: Nice to hear you still enjoy Lego. Since my son left Lego alone, I don't play with it anymore, too. As time goes by...

Other than Emma, I really have to be sorry, Rabs. I overlooked you already mentioned Lego and just found out by re-reading. I beg your pardon.

No reason for being sorry. Since many years I'm not in a hurry when it's about toys...

[lol]

Of course it can be seen this way. However, I don't want to put any guitar or bass to the test.

There are three Fender gig bags in the closet here. I bought a hardcase for any instrument coming without one. I also prefer instruments without any cover at all stock over paying a gig bag I neither like nor use.

LEGO! Now you said something, Emma :) I loved Lego and learned reading and even writing capital letters when playing with alphabetic Lego characters at the age of four and five. My goal were correct names on the shops, plants and gas stations I built, so it was crucial.

Well, I think I can't complain. I spent all of my childhood with very cool stuff. From my earliest years to the age of eight I loved model railway like my father did: Then I gradually converted to photography which my father liked, too - he started it around the time I was born - , and my first camera was a Kodak Retina IIIc: At the age of seventeen I started to use SLRs and up to six different lenses.

Severe temperature and humidity changes may cause corrosion of gold and nickel parts when just very little traces of sweat are left on these parts. The nickel-plated Grover machine heads on my 1978 S-G are covered by a whiteish powder. The chrome platings of all the other hardware look like new although the pickup mounting and adjustment screws are rusted and the bridges look greyish on their tops. Pickguards made of nitrocellulose are a different story. Sweat is no problem for them, but high temperatures might cause disintegration and even self-ignition - that's no lie. They don't even need oxygen since it's a chemical decomposition of the material itself. Sadly such bad things may happen. Take a look at this Ibanez guitar: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/binding-rot-on-83-ibanez-artist.697735/

They are not. An additional polarity aka incorrectly "phase" switch is required for that. In many cases this switch also flips from one coil to the other when split mode is engaged. This makes reverse wound/reverse polarity operation possible. As an example, when splitting the Classic'57 pickups of a Frank Zappa "Roxy" SG, the slug coil of the neck pickup and the screw coil of the bridge pickup are active. Additional change of polarity or "phase" will activate the neck pickup's screw coil with reversed coil wires. Thus both the split "up phase" and "down phase" combinations are humbucking. A really sophisticated design by Frank. Reverse polarity pickups like a set of Gibson Burstbucker Pros allow for using both the screw coils when "up phase" and one screw and slug coil each in "down phase" operation. Using a pair of "phase switches" further enables selecting both the slug coils respectively the reverse slug and screw coil combination. And, of course, one can select between the coils when using one pickup alone. I'm considering a retrofit of my double tri-sound equipped Ibanez Artist, or modding and retrofitting of my LP Standard Quilt. The latter has a non-humbucking split using both the screw coils of the same wound/same polarity BurstBuckers 1 & 2. No matter what people say, there is no such thing as a real "phase reverse" of any signal. "Out of phase signals" or OOPS just means changing the polarity of one of them. The resulting interferences will range from -180° to +180° in both polarity positions, not -180° only as the term might suggest. Only identical signals with identical levels will cancel out completely through this. There is no technical device allowing for reversing phase of a real existing signal anyhow close to real time. I also don't know of any digital program doing this. Reversing phase takes a crazy effort and is absolutely useless, at least in audio applications.

There came several 4-conductor Gibson humbuckers stock with my guitars: - Burstbuckers 1 & 2 splittable (Les Paul Standard Quilt K 2011), - Burstbuckers Pro N & B (reverse wound/reverse polarity) capacitor splittable and with polarity (falsely aka phase) option (Les Paul Standard 2012), - 490R & 498T capacitor splittable (L6S 2011), - 496R & 498T with parallel options (Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess), - a pair of '57 Classics with split and polarity (falsely aka phase) options (Frank Zappa "Roxy" SG), - '57 Classic AND '57 Classic Plus (!) with parallel options (Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus). I wouldn't want to miss the split sounds. My Gibsons and my Epiphone with split options get much more playing time than than those without. No problems with output levels. All those pickups do their jobs very nicely, in series, parallel, pure split and capacitor split modes. When split, their sound is similar to that of a Fender-style pickup but somewhat cleaner and smoother due to the bar magnets. Hope this helps.

Very good read, and illustrated with this telling argument: Perhaps the lady singer wants to suggest she was breached and bruised to a similar degree, and possibly with the same persistence?

Damn... Sadly I have to admit you are correct, this is indeed the look of the polish used by Gibson. I have no idea how to overcome this on a budget. I think if I loved the guitar otherwise, I would leave it as it is. Perhaps some of my Gibsons look slightly discoloured due to this effect in such a consistent manner that I didn't realize it. Some bindings have a greenish shade, others a salmon pinkish one which might come from the polish. I removed all the polish I couls if they had left something there, mostly around the routings of electric compartment covers. After seeing yours, there perhaps are some surprises yet to come among my guitars...

Hello RRashton, and welcome here. Since you didn't provide pictures, I can't say what it's about exactly, but I guess it is ageing of hues due to light. Keeping guitars in closed cases will prevent that to a very high degree. A guitar on display can, depending on light conditions, age more in a few years or even months than e. g. my 1970's and 1980's guitars did through storing them in cases. However, as long as finish or bindings don't become brittle, there is no reason to worry in my opinion. Hope this helps.

The beauty of the beast Some more pics, please

Well, no dealer on Earth can have them all, and each guitar is an individual piece of materials and craftmanship. However, I experienced several times that here in Germany Thomann, Burgebrach, and Music Store Professional, Cologne, have very fine Gibson Custom guitars in stock. Except for aged or VOS ones which I dislike, they also are shiny and new.

The first Dirty Fingers PUs I saw around 1980 came stock on the then ES-335 Pro with dot inlays. They had two black coil cores, twelve adjustable pole pieces and no writing on them.

Just researched the Fishman website. It says there's an input trim pot.

Could it be there are trim pots which perhaps call for adjustment? Just an idea...