Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

vintage L-7 tailpiece


Wetdog

Recommended Posts

I recently acquired the L-7 A 729, dating it to late 1947 (one year older than me). It is in pretty good shape for what I paid and I will be converting it to left handed as that is how I play. These non-cutaway archtops lend themselves nicely to the conversion without disturbing the integrity of the guitar. If I build a new lefty bridge saddle and nut, and remove the pickguard, it's a done deal. The old pick guard is close to disintigration so it was coming off anyway. The tailpiece may need slight modification on the string slots but it's repro so I'm not too worried about that. It can be all easily be put back to "righty".

 

So here go the questions. I'm a player, not a collector so some of the period perfect details that are not quite right on this guitar I may or may not change, but would like to know how it originally was. This guitar currently has a reproduction pointy end tailpiece. According to Gruhn's Guide for this year there was a "standard trapeze" as of 1944 but also a tailpiece with a wooden cross bar. Doesn't "standard" mean flat not pointy ends? Also, I cannot find a picture of the wooden crossbar type tailpiece, so if someone has one I'd love to see a top and bottom view of that.

 

Gruhn also mentions "three on a plate" tuners, but all examples I've seen in photos have the closed back individual Grovers with tulip ends. This guitar currently has open single Waverley's with scalloped metal ends, which are fine tuners and kind of pricey, but this style was used on much earlier L-7s not the 1947s. And the new tuners' holes don't match the old holes, so that is kind of funky as the integrity has been compromised. The original tuner dents look like closed back single Grovers. There are closed back Grovers still available at a very reasonable price on e-bay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/301286623309?lpid=82) but are these some cheesy reproductions or are they the real deal? The ad says they are "genuine". If there is any insight from the forum on this topic or pictures of the three on a plate tuners mentioned in Gruhn's Guide I like to see those.

 

Thanks,

Wetdog

post-67798-041051300 1412093189_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wetdog, check the photo of my 1947 L-7 (A-235) I just posted on another thread ("Hi there") here. By the serial number, my guitar is two months older than yours, probably dating from May or June of 1947.

 

It was a one-owner guitar (grandfather, passed down to his grandson , who didn't play and was selling it to help with college expenses) when I got it. It was, as far as I can tell, completely original except for an added DeArmond "monkey stick" pickup, and one replaced tuner. Unfortunately, the kid had no idea what happened to the missing tuner.

 

The tuners were Kluson Deluxe individual single-lines, closed-back, "pat appld" marking, single-ring keystone buttons. They have no lube hole, and the worm gear shaft does not extend through both sides of the casing. This is consistent with pre-1950 Klusons of this type I have seen.

 

The buttons on the five original tuners are in perfect condition, unlike many that have shrunk and cracked. I actually put modern repro Klusons of the same configuration on the guitar for now, pending locating a vintage bass-side replacement for the missing original tuner.

 

The original string-post ferrules/bushings are the typical thin-wall pressed-nickel versions commonly seen in this period. After cleaning and lubing the original tuners, they looked and worked as good as new.

 

I've only looked at a couple of 1947 L-7's, and both had the same tuners I have. I'm pretty sure I've seen photos of a couple of earlier 17" L-7's with open-back Grovers and/or Klusons with a similar octagon footprint.

 

edit: those closed-back Grovers on ebay are the same general configuration as my original Klusons, but the Grover bushings are total different. The hex-head Grover stringpost bushings are larger outside diameter than the original thin-wall Kluson bushings, and depending on the stringpost holes in your peghead, may require drilling out the existing holes. You can easily get thin-wall repro original style bushings to avoid drilling out the peghead holes, but you need to check the stringpost diameter to make sure they are compatible. I just re-used my original ones to avoid drilling-out the peghead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The tailpiece as pictured is correct for this guitar.

 

There was no "standard tuners" for this guitar of the immediate post-war era. 1947 was the first year Gibson ramped up to full production after the war, as all manufacturers were re-tooling back to civilian products. So, at this time, Gibson was still assembling guitars with parts-on-hand.

 

My '47 L-7 (A-10XX) has open gear single-ring Kluson style tuners. There are at least a couple of other '47 L-7's here on the boards, and I know at least one of them has different tuners than mine. A '47 L-5 I recently worked on had the same buttons on "waffle-back" tuners. I have never seen, nor heard of, an L-7 (or L-5) having three-on-a-plate tuners. This style tuner was generally only used on low-end guitars, not the higher-end models. It should be no problem to find the correct tuners to fit the original mounting holes (I would look first at the Kluson line), and hope the peg holes weren't reamed out for the existing tuners and bushings.

 

Here's a pic of my '47 (Benedetto pickup added of course).

5443652520_b8b91b7b5e_o.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You guys are the bomb and I know I've come to the right place to get the skinny on authentic Gibson archtops. My "go to" guitar up to this point has been my factory lefty jumbo Martin with a K&K pickup, which is the best sounding acoustic guitar I've ever played. However, This L-7 may become my new "go to" as it has a very good tone and easy fingerboard. You both mentioned I believe, you are not comfortable yet playing the F-hole jazz boxes so here is a tip. I play with a strap sitting down, so the technique is very different than the stand-up one. It's a 17" box and deep so not all that comforable for me to play standing as I'm not a large guy. But once I went to the sit-down with strap I found there is much more flexability of guitar placement say between rhythm and solo, finger style chord melody playing etc. i.e. on the knee, off the knee to the side, in tight, laying the guitar more flat a la Wes Montgomery etc.

 

These guitars were designed to cut through the Big Band horns with the "chunka chunka" rhythm and not used so much for lead until Charie Christian electrified them. Those bolt-on pickups cut into the top of the guitar would have totally ruined the acoustic characteristics, but no doubt reduced the feed-back factor. My theory is that's just what they had at the time so used them. Guys still install them for that particular sound but to my mind that pretty much screws up a good acoustic guitar. For now I'll just mic up with my SM57 if I need more volume until I hear of the ideal acoustic pick-up or get a high end clip on mic like the Gypsy players use on stage.

 

Thanks for the valuable info.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...