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switching to klusons on my j15??


PierreB99

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14 hours ago, sbpark said:

You can easily polish out the indent left by the Rotomatic bushings. In the photo I posted above of the J-45 Standard headstock, that guitar had big, ugly Rotomatics and you wouldnt even know it ever had them on there. 

I know! I saw the post from a few months ago. I personally didn’t want to mess with it. I have a lot to do during the day. Like I said i’m happy with the outcome on my J-50. I simple changed out the buttons on my Dove, for tulips, & i’m Happy with that one too!

that’s me! To each their own! Whatever floats your boat, & all the other cliches!

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I swapped tuners on a few Gibsons... to the Kluson creme buttons. A few came out really well, and SB Park’s thread is great. I think I read a few threads pre SBPark as well.

 

anyways, the last time I was not so lucky.  Stripped screws. Scratches. Raccoon eyes.  I tried polishing it all out but made it worse. This was on my J-45 Studio FYI. I wish I dropped it off at Russos instead.

looks good from a distance... not so good close up,

https://imgur.com/c66fmjx

https://imgur.com/a/9vjzHct

 

 

 

Edited by Salfromchatham
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55 minutes ago, Salfromchatham said:

I swapped tuners on a few Gibsons... to the Kluson creme buttons. A few came out really well, and SB Park’s thread is great. I think I read a few threads pre SBPark as well.

 

anyways, the last time I was not so lucky.  Stripped screws. Scratches. Raccoon eyes.  I tried polishing it all out but made it worse. This was on my J-45 Studio FYI. I wish I dropped it off at Russos instead.

looks good from a distance... not so good close up,

https://imgur.com/c66fmjx

https://imgur.com/a/9vjzHct

 

 

 

I changed the closed back tuners to open back ones on my 000-28. I got the racoon eyes too and just let it be.

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1 hour ago, Salfromchatham said:

I swapped tuners on a few Gibsons... to the Kluson creme buttons. A few came out really well, and SB Park’s thread is great. I think I read a few threads pre SBPark as well.

 

anyways, the last time I was not so lucky.  Stripped screws. Scratches. Raccoon eyes.  I tried polishing it all out but made it worse. This was on my J-45 Studio FYI. I wish I dropped it off at Russos instead.

looks good from a distance... not so good close up,

https://imgur.com/c66fmjx

https://imgur.com/a/9vjzHct

 

 

 

So what went different this time? Hate to be direct, but looks like a pretty ham-fisted attempt. Also looks like you really didn't put much effort into polishing the headstock, or is it a different finish than what's in a J-45 Standard? I could see a matte finish being harder to work with, but then again you can easily go from matte to gloss with the same product I used. I've tuned a few necks and headstocks on Martins to gloss that we're matte from the factory with a gloss body and didnt care for the mismatching finishes. The Meguiars Scratch-X 2.0 was the one thing that really took the tuner swap from looking like yours above to looking like it came off the assembly like. Just 10 minutes of buffing with that compound and scratches and raccoon eyes were all gone. If there were deep scratches there before the tuner swap, well those aren't going to buff out. But the light surface swirls and rings from the Rotomatic bushings were buffed out with just the Meguiars and a cotton cloth. 

Here's a pic of a Martin headstock that used to be matte, and I polished them with the Meguiars Scratch-X 2.0:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/3GcXCuA.jpg[/img]

 

Edited by sbpark
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ham fisted.  yes.

and i stopped trying to polish the headstock for fear of taking off all the finish.  

 

you will get no argument from me that it was horribly done. The tuners are phenomenal though. Anyway I sold the guitar a few weeks back. Took the hit. disclosed condition of course and priced for it. the selling  had everything to do with me losing my home office which housed all my guitars (in favor of a bedroom for a home health aid for my mother in law, who lives with us). Sometimes life happens.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Salfromchatham said:

ham fisted.  yes.

and i stopped trying to polish the headstock for fear of taking off all the finish.  

 

you will get no argument from me that it was horribly done. The tuners are phenomenal though. Anyway I sold the guitar a few weeks back. Took the hit. disclosed condition of course and priced for it. the selling  had everything to do with me losing my home office which housed all my guitars (in favor of a bedroom for a home health aid for my mother in law, who lives with us). Sometimes life happens.

 

 

There's no shame in selling it and turning your office into a space for an elderly loved one. Good on you!

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  • 6 months later...
On 5/19/2020 at 10:50 AM, BeHappy said:

 

I won't say anything about the "budget" point, which is became annoying. J15 is "mass-produced" as much as any Gibson standard guitar. And definitely it doesn't seem overproduced like a J45, which is usually the first guitar that mommies provide.

"budget" isn't the same as mass produced. You can have a low-budget mass produced guitar like the J-15 and you can have a mass produced guitar with excellent workmanship at a respectable price point like the J-45. It's partly just economics. Where they might use cheap wood, laminates, and plywood in low-end affordable guitars like the J-15, the superior woods in the J-45 are cost money. Rather than using "wood on-hand" in the J-15, the J-45 is made of specific woods that are bought for that guitar.

As I understand it, the assembly lines for the above-entry-level guitars like the J-45 have a full time staff of people with experience. Again, it's just simple economics - you're not going to pay skilled people to build a budget guitar like the J-15.

If you're saying that the J-45 is a good "starter" guitar, I would say you should start with something cheap like the J-15: something you don't have to worry about damaging or how you store it since it's not worth much. If you get serious about playing, then upgrade to a serious guitar like the J-45, but only once you're sure you've outgrown the budget guitar.

Thanks.

Edited by Mantastic
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On 2/16/2021 at 5:52 AM, Salfromchatham said:

I swapped tuners on a few Gibsons... to the Kluson creme buttons. A few came out really well, and SB Park’s thread is great. I think I read a few threads pre SBPark as well.

 

anyways, the last time I was not so lucky.  Stripped screws. Scratches. Raccoon eyes.  I tried polishing it all out but made it worse. This was on my J-45 Studio FYI. I wish I dropped it off at Russos instead.

looks good from a distance... not so good close up,

https://imgur.com/c66fmjx

https://imgur.com/a/9vjzHct

 

 

 

Why not just add another, slightly larger, washer?

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On 8/29/2021 at 8:26 PM, Mantastic said:

"budget" isn't the same as mass produced. You can have a low-budget mass produced guitar like the J-15 and you can have a mass produced guitar with excellent workmanship at a respectable price point like the J-45. It's partly just economics. Where they might use cheap wood, laminates, and plywood in low-end affordable guitars like the J-15, the superior woods in the J-45 are cost money. Rather than using "wood on-hand" in the J-15, the J-45 is made of specific woods that are bought for that guitar.

As I understand it, the assembly lines for the above-entry-level guitars like the J-45 have a full time staff of people with experience. Again, it's just simple economics - you're not going to pay skilled people to build a budget guitar like the J-15.

If you're saying that the J-45 is a good "starter" guitar, I would say you should start with something cheap like the J-15: something you don't have to worry about damaging or how you store it since it's not worth much. If you get serious about playing, then upgrade to a serious guitar like the J-45, but only once you're sure you've outgrown the budget guitar.

Thanks.

I have a few “top end” Gibsons (SJ200, Dove, Hummingbird, AJ, the latter two being from the Custom Shop) and have owned and greatly enjoyed a few of the more “budget” models from the line (J15, LG2AE, SJ100 x2). I noticed no discernible build quality or finish variation between any of them. In fact, I downright loved my J15 and SJ100 reissues. The LG2 was no slouch either.

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