Extended fretboards

[Blaster]

I've noticed some of the Gibson AJs and SJs, have the fretboard extend into the rosette of the sound hole, while others don't. Is there a reason for this? The pictures I've seen in the Gibson Flat-top book shows original '30s examples with the fretboard somewhat shorter and the complete rosette and sound hole left intact. If anyone has the answer I'd like to hear it.

[rustystrings]

According to what I've read, sometime around 1955 Gibson went from 19 frets to 20 on their acoustics, around the time they went to wider, shorter, non-scalloped bracing and the big batwing pattern pickguards.

 

Even then, the end of the fretboard didn't go into the inner ring of the rosette. Current production guitars do, though, and I suspect it is because the soundhole is moved a little further up towards the neck to accomodate bracing that is in the 98-99 degree angle range, rather than 103 like the old ones were - but I haven't had any guitars apart to check them with protractors, so it's just my theory ... file it with the unwillingness to place the pickguard correctly so that it doesn't cover the treble side of the inner rosette ring on J-45s, etc.!

[Blaster]

Appreciate the reply rustystrings, what you theorize makes a lot of sense and could very well be the reason. I'm somewhat perplexed as I've been examining the "Gibson Fabulous Flat Top Guitars" book, and the authors go into great detail how Gibson replicated the '30s Advanced Jumbos that Gary Burnette owns in exacting detail. When you look at Mr. Burnette's original AJs on pages 48 and 49 and compare it to the new model made by Gibson in the early '90s, on pages 172 and 173, you'll notice the extended fretboard. Maybe they explain the reason why they changed it in the book, but I haven't come across it yet.

[rustystrings]

I suspect that time and research may poke holes in much that is in that book. Over on the unofficial M* guitar forum there are some guys involved in writing a VERY detailed and well-researched book on the banner-era wartime Gibsons, and what they're doing calls much of the Fabulous Flattops book into question.

 

Anyway, what I think has happened is this - Ren & his guys have, in my eyes, taken the best of modern luthiery and married it to a vintage aesthetic. I suspect that the bracing isn't quite so wide open as the earlier patterns were, but comes really close. I think they're balancing achieving in a new guitar as close an approximation as they can to what the old guitars sound like, but with relatively minor changes to address warranty concerns and what are probably more exacting standards expected from modern guitarists than one would have expected 70 years ago. It's kinda like why the True Vintage guitars are neither, which also applies to my beloved J-45 "Historic Collection" - they look really similar to older Gibsons, and they approximate the sound, but they're not slavish copies.

 

I, personally, have no problem with it. I regard my '05 J-45 as a worthy descendant of the '50 J-45 I used to own. To my ears and my mind, it is the careful evolutionary improvement of it, balancing wonderful sound and playability with relative durability and stability, complete with a pickup. It's almost like a parallel universe guitar - what if, in '55, Gibson had decided to modify the angles of their bracing a smidgen, while keeping the older pattern pickguard shape but adding a longer fretboard - well, dang, you'd have a J-45 HC, sans pickup, which I would have promptly added decades later ...