zombywoof Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Just popped into my head but the earliest covered Kluson tuners I know of had the full-length cover which was screwed down to the headstock. My late 1930s Regal-made Recording King has them. National also used them up till at least the late 1940s. I have seen a 1949 National/Gibson 1155 with them. You also find them on lap steels. They seem to have gone the way of the Dodo when the newer style covered tuners come about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpbiii Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I was just passing along information. I don't know why you can't find the google examples. Here is one. https://reverb.com/item/235024-vintage-1946-gibson-lg-2-acoustic-guitar-script-logo-incredible-tone I am a guitar nerd for sure -- but this is not a topic where I claim any expertise -- or even interest for that matter. I generally do not try to generalize from my experience - i just report the experience directly, as I did here. I do know this -- Gibson before 1946 was incredibly inconsistent on what they did. I have not studied 1946 and later to any degree, but I am guessing they did not suddenly become realty consistent. Best, -Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Whoa, the owner of that LG-2 must have a very high opinion of it based on the price tag. I do not claim to be an expert. I have just been playing Gibsons for 50+ years and mainly go by what I have seen. I am willing to bet though you have had your hands on more Gibsons than I could ever dream of latching onto. The problem with Gibson, as you know, is the specs do not change at the stroke of midnight on any given year. So you will run into early '47 LG-2s with different logos and nut widths. I have played a few 1955 Gibsons which were a hodgepodge of old and new features. On the Reverb guitar there is really no way to tell if the tuners are original or replacements. Speaking for myself, through the 1960s into the 1970s I just saw the old guitars I was playing as used instruments and had no qualms about swapping out tuners and bridges or even messing with finishes. Apparently I ended up devaluing a 1950s Tele by 1/2 by what I did to it over the decades. You do not want to know what I did to a 1930s Martin archtop. One of the issues with the tuners is that Kluson used the same tooling for the plates so the footprint lines up making it difficult to eyeball replacements. I slapped a set of pre-1951 Kluson covered tuners on an old Kay which originally had open bent gear tuners and there was nothing that I could see that was an immediate sign they were replacements by looking at the back of the headstock. In the end maybe this will remain one of the Gibson unsolved mysteries. I kind of like those though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onewilyfool Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Strings and action look high at the 12th fret. There is not a LOT of saddle left. If you have to lower the action 1/32" to get to 3/32" at the 12th fret…you need to lower the saddle by 1/16" and that would leave you with a nub of a saddle and very low break angle over the top of the saddle. In other words, you are in neck reset land…..costly…..so be very aware of this factor. Also, I've seen on a lot of these older LG's that the neck is sometimes twisted. Sighting down the neck can verify this. The reason I'm saying this is that the bridge is sloped high to the base side AND the saddle appears to be higher or as high as the treble side. May be nothing but could indicate a slight twist in the neck. Also check the truss rod to see if it works….a lot of times at this age, they have run out of threads or are broken….again costly fix. Main thing is the sound!!! You might have a good one or a dud….let your ears do the talking!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedzep Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 This is all interesting. But I am starting to feel like a guitar nerd here. I did google both 1946 and 1947 LG-2 and also looked at the pics in the Banner Registry "Transitional" Guitars section. I could not find any guitars with anything other than the open gear tuners. The question I guess is would Kluson have put the tuners into production and sent them out three years before filing the patent. Kluson applied for the patent for the tuners with the worm gear attached with rivets in 1943 which is the year they became standard on Gibsons. I do not have any photos of the open gear tuners on my script logo 1946 LG-2 handy but here are those on the 1947. Here is the Patent. Again, this was issued only for the gear case cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedzep Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 This is all interesting. But I am starting to feel like a guitar nerd here. I did google both 1946 and 1947 LG-2 and also looked at the pics in the Banner Registry "Transitional" Guitars section. I could not find any guitars with anything other than the open gear tuners. The question I guess is would Kluson have put the tuners into production and sent them out three years before filing the patent. Kluson applied for the patent for the tuners with the worm gear attached with rivets in 1943 which is the year they became standard on Gibsons. I do not have any photos of the open gear tuners on my script logo 1946 LG-2 handy but here are those on the 1947. Here is the Patent. Again, this was issued only for the gear case cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedzep Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Zomby...your tuners are also a dead on match for the ones on my '30's L's, one black, one white buttoned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I appreciate the compliment but I figure you know more about this stuff that I could ever hope to. While I have seen folks date these tuners as early as 1947, I have never seen the single line Kluson Deluxe tuners on a Gibson that early. As far as I know they do not appear until late 1949 which jibes with the date the patent was applied for which was June 1949. My 1946 LG-2 has the open gear tuners with the worm attached by a rivet with the little washer while my 1947 LG-2 had the open gear tuners with waffle peen rivets. I did google LG-2 pictures and could not find any made before 1950 with the enclosed tuners. I want to say Kluson supplied Gibson with open gear tuners until sometime in 1951 when their stock ran out. I know that the lower end lap steels came with open gear tuners until that year. My '47-'48 SJ(in my icon) has those single-line Klusons as original....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 My '47-'48 SJ(in my icon) has those single-line Klusons as original....... As does my '47 L-7. They are the individual tuners rather than the three on a plate, but since the patent application covers the tuner covers, not the tuner configuration, it's pretty clear they were in use at least by 1947. No ambiguity in my case over the originality of the tuners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zkendal Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 Thanks for all of the feedback everyone! If I were to purchase it, it would be shipped from St. Louis to myself in Nashville. I'm generally pretty wary of buying acoustics before trying them out for obvious reasons. The only reason I consider GC is because of that 3-day return policy. I purchased an ES-325 a while back from a GC in Cali and immediately took it in to Gruhn's to have a luthier verify that it had no major issues (which it didn't, thankfully). So that's sort of my plan of action here as I'm considering it. I'd love to find one around here in Nashville, but when they do manage to pop up in a shop, they're either ridiculously overpriced or gone within a matter of a couple of days. They're definitely few and far between. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedzep Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Best of luck. I hope it's as lively and fun to play as mine was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Zomby...your tuners are also a dead on match for the ones on my '30's L's, one black, one white buttoned. Interesting, I have seen them pop up on 1943 guitars but nothing earlier and nothing after 1947. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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