Leonard McCoy

Clapton and a guitar with that kind of back? Count me in.

Naturally the steel string is physically coming into contact with the top of the fret when depressing. Depending on how hard you slam the string down, or how high the action is, this can very well result in an undesirable sound. What is the action like at the 12th fret? How old are the strings?

Someone's taking this bait; there's always someone. Who's it gonna be this time around?

Very nice! I got the same model and equally impressed.

Neither the headstock nor the bridge design was revealed, the de-facto hallmarks of any guitar builder and a major selling point. As boutique guitar builders, I think Ferguson & Son will do fine regardless. Ren still championing the J-185 design is more than charming.

It is hard to tell from looking at the snapshot whether the nib is completely or partly broken off, or still hanging onto there to some degree. If you still have the missing piece, it can be super-glued back on; if it's gone, it's probably best to get rid of the nib remnants, and round off the fret with a file, so the string no longer gets stuck on the sharp fret edge.

That is Musicman's way of doing single-ply-only binding on the body. They use a special epoxy as binding material. I doubt anyone would adopt that technique. Probably also not easy to repair.

A higher resolution snapshot and one up-close the seamline would help the analysis.

I have ordered through the M2M program. You can read all about it here: And this was the result:

Public perception is a fickle mistress. But I guess it is hard to deny that the rebranding of their guitar lineups and the new, modern marketing efforts worked. However, they were making great guitars before the change in leadership and will continue to do so after this era.

Rather than return, it is more like Ren never left guitar-making.

One word: luthier.

Spend a dime and some time, and get your guitar a professional setup by a trusted luthier or whatever work needs to be done to this. Now, after the guitar is professionaly set up, here is the thing about intonation: intonation is nothing to be concerned about. A guitar is always slightly out of tune. It is a tempered instrument after all, so you are always making compromises up and down the neck for what you are doing.

If you put it back into its case, it'll smell longer. It's really the innards of the case that transfer the smell (use your nose).

This is the start of some beautiful finish checking.

Check out these two videos below whether that's what you're experiencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-mbpU8AxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2PoPZ9OcMA

It's a combination of a shielding issue as well as the then-new plastic backplates they used back then as far as I remember. Do a quick Youtube search to be the wiser and how to go about it.

A bridge rebuild or higher saddle is probably the way to go.

Thanks for sharing. I always associated that typcial Play-Doh smell with a new Gibson guitar finished in nitrocellulose lacquer. Now I know that's not it.

I'm glad everything worked out. I find mine (after doing the setup) incredibly easy to play and laughably easy to do all kinds of bends on up and down the cane.

Cutting an accurate and even rosette channel is an extremely specialized task. On newly made instruments, this is mostly done entirely by machine with something like a circle cutting fixture and a laminate trimmer. In guitar repair work, a certain jig in the form of a circle fixture would probalby have to be made first to fill and arrest the soundhole and to provide an even re-cut. Since you will be fighting grain coming from all kinds of directions here as well as dreaded end grain, every cut into the channel needs to be well considered and well measured. Shellac can help to stiffen the wood for a cleaner cut. If you consider this guitar scrap, go ahead—I would probably use black filler to sort this out. If not, let a trusted professional do the job.

The figuring in the wood of the maple cap of your guitar looks beautiful. Far from a defect.

On Intonating a Wraparound Tailpiece You attempt to dial the intonation in as best as you can, even with a wraparound tailpiece, taking the outer E strings as basis for the adjustment of the tiny screws at the tail end of the tailpiece. In this case, the intonation of the strings was still a few cents off, which was easy enough to correct. The other strings will fall into place automatically, and no further adjustments can of course be made here (unless you file the tailpiece in places), but that is nothing to worry about (more on that in a bit). In general, for guitar setup work, don't be afraid to make adjustments to your liking, whether it concerns intonation, string action, or what not, if the adjustment is reversible. A wraparound tailpiece is, in terms of intonation, not unlike the saddle of an acoustic guitar. The tailpiece is already angled correctly, just as an acoustic saddle would be, and the strings' takeoff points off the bridge fall naturally and correctly in place due to the different diameters of the strings, and even if the tailpiece is not slotted or ridged as this one is. This is also the reason why a wraparound tailpiece does intonate well—or well enough, I should say, for the equal temperament we attune our instruments to—and why such a guitar plays spot on, relatively speaking, up and down the neck, and not noticable better or worse than a Les Paul with an adjustable tune-o-matic bridge.

Second Impressions on this 2020 Gibson Les Paul Special TV Yellow Lefthand Sound & Feel: The powerful P-90 pickups sound amazing—not harsh as modern humbuckers tend to do—and the 50's baseball neck is easy to play, firm and stable, and very resonant. I was surprised at the quality of the tuners, as these types of tuners tend not tune, or hold the tuning, very well in my experience—quite the opposite here. All in all, it is very hard to put this guitar down. Build Quality: "Guitars leave the factory in playable condition, but are not completely set up." This is even more true with the USA line than with Custom Shop guitars where the builders are able to spend a lot more time (and your money) not only on the setup itself but also on the finer details of the guitar build (application of finish in certain problematic areas, binding and fretwork, etc). These are the problems I encountered with my Les Paul Special of the USA line: The neck pocket exhibits a fine green line at the heel, which is a usual finish issue with semi-transparent finishes such as TV yellow, and owed to the fact that Gibson sprays the whole guitar over once assembled making areas where the body meets the neck especially problematic for even finish coverage. The guitar pickups have been soldered to the wrong pots, as if this was a righty guitar. A major faux pas. I had to order a new soldering iron in order for me to do a proper job correcting that. Some kind of unidentifiable finish or glue crust on one of the control knobs which I could clean up with Acetone and sharp nails. A loose pickup selector ring which I could fasten with the right tool which I had to order first. Sky-high action at the nut which I could bring down with my StewMac nut files, and other general setup issues as mentioned in the introduction and which were to be expected.

While holding down the string at the last fret, you measure the pickup height on the E strings for both the treble and bass side from the respective top of the polepiece to the underside of the string. When setting up a Gibson I bring up the individual polepieces in height so as to match the 12" radius of the fretboard and set the pickups to 3/32 (neck) and 2/32 (bridge), respectively, to start with. Once you have a baseline established go by ear to fine-tune the sound even further to your liking.