Not sure I get it. . .

[E-minor7]

"Every acoustic guitar made by Gibson features hand-scalloped, radiused top bracing inside the body, a feature normally found only in limited run, hand-made guitars. By scalloping each brace by hand, the natural sound of the acoustic is focused more toward the center of the body, enhancing the instrument's sound projection."

Tells the Gibson site – f.x. under the J-45, the Hummingbird TV and the SJ-200 Standard and Studio.

 

Okay, how are we supposed to understand this. When reading Hogeye's posts in the 'Why is the bracing on my SWD' thread, one gets the impression a pre-scalloped board is machine-sliced to individual braces like bread, then sanded and attached. Well isn't the discrepancy between the 2 statements fairly conspicuous.

Ergo : Could someone please explain what is meant by 'hand-scalloped' and 'scalloping each brace by hand' or how things should be perceived.

 

Just wondering out loud, as Ian Anderson would say. . . .

[DanvillRob]

"Every acoustic guitar made by Gibson features hand-scalloped, radiused top bracing inside the body, a feature normally found only in limited run, hand-made guitars. By scalloping each brace by hand, the natural sound of the acoustic is focused more toward the center of the body, enhancing the instrument's sound projection."

Tells the Gibson site – f.x. under the J-45, the Hummingbird TV and the SJ-200 Standard and Studio.

 

Okay, how are we supposed to understand this. When reading Hogeye's posts in the 'Why is the bracing on my SWD' thread, one gets the impression a pre-scalloped board is machine-sliced to individual braces like bread, then sanded and attached. Well isn't the discrepancy between the 2 statements fairly conspicuous.

Ergo : Could someone please explain what is meant by 'hand-scalloped' and 'scalloping each brace by hand' or how things should be perceived.

 

Just wondering out loud, as Ian Anderson would say. . . .

 

They probably mean the hand that pushes the "go" button on the CNC machine!

[Hogeye]

"Every acoustic guitar made by Gibson features hand-scalloped, radiused top bracing inside the body, a feature normally found only in limited run, hand-made guitars. By scalloping each brace by hand, the natural sound of the acoustic is focused more toward the center of the body, enhancing the instrument's sound projection."

Tells the Gibson site – f.x. under the J-45, the Hummingbird TV and the SJ-200 Standard and Studio.

 

Okay, how are we supposed to understand this. When reading Hogeye's posts in the 'Why is the bracing on my SWD' thread, one gets the impression a pre-scalloped board is machine-sliced to individual braces like bread, then sanded and attached. Well isn't the discrepancy between the 2 statements fairly conspicuous.

Ergo : Could someone please explain what is meant by 'hand-scalloped' and 'scalloping each brace by hand' or how things should be perceived.

 

Just wondering out loud, as Ian Anderson would say. . . .

Maybe we should have a better look at the whole idea of bracing. When the plant in Montana was first started each and every prototype guitar was hand built by Ren Ferguson. This included hand shaping and hand scalloping each and every brace for each and every guitar. I believe he found the optimum sound for each body shape and wood combination.

 

Then the challenge to make a lot of guitars. I believe they follow Ren's work accurately. I believe the guitars reflect just that. I also believe that the Marketing folks are trying to reflect that history. There may be some disconnect between folks and I by no means meant to belittle the system in place I just wanted to report what I saw. I thought the Gibson answer was ingenious. Such a system would have never occurred to me. This method works. It works so well I actually went out and bought Gibson guitars.

 

The end, in this case, justifies the means... At least for me.

[Jerry K]

Hogeye has revealed Gibson's dirty little secret: Gibsons are consistent!

[rar]

The Gibson Marketing Department has traditions to maintain too. Including a century-long tradition of providing ... ummm, let's say, less than completely accurate information to the public. :)

 

... There may be some disconnect between folks ...

 

Seriously, that's all that's going on here, I'm sure. The stuff on the website is being written by folks who have never been to Bozeman. Somebody simply misinterpreted something he/she read or heard, and so the message got a bit garbled.

 

The good news is that a fix is in the works. The Gibson Acoustics GM told us at the Homecoming that there will be major improvements to the website -- including more and better product information -- quite soon.

 

-- Bob R

[BigKahune]

.... The good news is that a fix is in the works. The Gibson Acoustics GM told us at the Homecoming that there will be major improvements to the website -- including more and better product information -- quite soon. ...

 

Hey Bob -

 

That is good news. The hit and miss of specs for some models and not others has irked me at times.

 

Thanks for the info.

[zombywoof]

While the guys who have taken factory tours can probably answer this I am guessing that the braces like tops, neck carves and other reptetitive tasks are at least roughed out and formed on a CNC machine. The parts would then be finished and put together by hand. I always figured one of the things that differentiates a Custom Shop instrument from an off-the-shelf guitar is the amount of work done by hand.

 

The way I see it is guitar building is a precision process and the CNC is a precision machine.

[JuanCarlosVejar]

While the guys who have taken factory tours can probably answer this I am guessing that the braces like tops, neck carves and other reptetitive tasks are at least roughed out and formed on a CNC machine. The parts would then be finished and put together by hand. I always figured one of the things that differentiates a Custom Shop instrument from an off-the-shelf guitar is the amount of work done by hand.

 

The way I see it is guitar building is a precision process and the CNC is a precision machine.

 

I agree , and I've read and seen interviews were Ren says that the CNC augments the quality of the production.

[devellis]

While the guys who have taken factory tours can probably answer this I am guessing that the braces like tops, neck carves and other reptetitive tasks are at least roughed out and formed on a CNC machine. The parts would then be finished and put together by hand. I always figured one of the things that differentiates a Custom Shop instrument from an off-the-shelf guitar is the amount of work done by hand.

 

The way I see it is guitar building is a precision process and the CNC is a precision machine.

 

I think of brace shaping not as a "repetitive task" but one that benefits from hands-on execution. In a sense, every step of the process is repetitive, from sawing boards, to gluing parts together, to putting on strings, since every step is repeated for every guitar. But some tasks require only dimensional consistency, like neck shaping, bridge carving, or fingerboard slotting. For others, the "consistency" that matters is not dimensional consistency but functional consistency. Wood is organic and to get two pieces to do the same thing, you may have to shape them to different dimensions. If there's anything that needs dimensional adaptation to yield tonal consistency, I would think that it's the bracing on a guitar. Obviously, Gibsons aren't made by one old guy at a bench who does everything by hand but if braces aren't done by hand, what is? Doing tasks by hand such as installing binding, gluing the top to the ribs, attaching the bridge, and sanding the finish is all fine, but it isn't going to influence tone as much as the bracing is. Now, there's no arguing with results; and Gibson makes some mighty fine sounding guitars, so I'm not complaining about what is or isn't done by hand. But I guess this suggests to me that the notion of Gibsons as built mostly by hand may warrant some revision. Again, getting the results they get, I'm not complaining about their use of machines. I've never been to the factory, so I don't know. But I'm wondering, what aspects are done by hand and what are done by machine? To what extent to we have machines to thank for consistencies that produce the great tone we hear and to what extent are tone-critical aspects of the build done by hand?

 

Hope this doesn't come across as negative or argumentative. I'm just really curious about this in light of what's been posted.

[j45nick]

 

To what extent to we have machines to thank for consistencies that produce the great tone we hear and to what extent are tone-critical aspects of the build done by hand?

 

Hope this doesn't come across as negative or argumentative. I'm just really curious about this in light of what's been posted.

 

If you had some guy hand-tuning the braces and tops on every guitar, the cost would be a lot more. After all, this has to be done before the guitar is assembled. Once the brace design is optimized for a specific guitar design and wood combination, CNC makes a lot of sense to maximize consistency when it comes to cutting parts. The good thing is that spruce and mahogany, if carefully selected, are very consistent woods compared to others.

 

Just from the videos I have seen, all the bits are still put together by hand.

 

One thing that is really interesting is the art of rolling necks. The guys that did this really are/were artists, as this completely controls the way the guitar feels in your hands. I assume that in general these are now all CNC-cut rather than roughed-out on a bandsaw, but maybe there is a bit of hand fine-tuning still done at the custom shop level.

 

At least, I hope so!

[retrorod]

I am still a fan of those WWII ladies in the Kalamazoo factory....THAT.. says Gibson to me

[E-minor7]

I am still a fan of those WWII ladies in the Kalamazoo factory....THAT.. says Gibson to me

Sounds fascinating though nothing concrete comes to my mind.

Is there a story – do you have pictures of these females ??

 

Did they f.x. have a specific touch heard in the WWII G's. . .

 

[Mojorule]

Sounds fascinating though nothing concrete comes to my mind.

Is there a story – do you have pictures of these females ??

 

Did they f.x. have a specific touch heard in the WWII G's. . .

 

 

See John Thomas's forthcoming book with Willi Henkes on the banner years. Also some of his threads archived here somewhere...

[modoc_333]

when i was there in March, they showed me a CNC machine cutting necks. it was taking them from a block shape down to a round shape. they pointed out that this was the only CNC machine in the factory. it's the only one i saw too. FWIW

[Hogeye]

when i was there in March, they showed me a CNC machine cutting necks. it was taking them from a block shape down to a round shape. they pointed out that this was the only CNC machine in the factory. it's the only one i saw too. FWIW

They have 5 CNC machines. Only one is dedicated to the necks.

[j45nick]

They have 5 CNC machines. Only one is dedicated to the necks.

The video showing the re-creation of the Clapton ES 335 shows just how important modern imaging and milling techniques can be to creating a great guitar. But I also note a lot of hand detailing there, which is where art, craft, and engineering intersect.

[devellis]

If you had some guy hand-tuning the braces and tops on every guitar, the cost would be a lot more.

 

Actually, that's not true. I have a Bourgeois slope dread on which the braces were all hand tuned and, brand new, it cost a few hundred dollars less than my SJ-200 TV (sold at a fairly aggressive discount below MAP). It's a different business model with far less overhead in the case of Bourgeois than Gibson. Bourgeois is an interesting comparison because Dana Bourgeois is the person Gibson hired to design the acoustic guitar production line at Bozeman when they started up there. He uses CNC to cut bridges and slot necks (for example) but braces are all hand shaped after they're on the top. The feel of the top is then tested and further shaping is done as needed. The top itself is thicknessed so as to deflect a pre-determined amount under a reference load. So, the tops are standardized not for a predetermined thickness but for a predetermined flexibility. Different individual pieces of wood will all wind up at different thicknesses in order to have the desired flexibility for a particular model of guitar.

 

Gibson builds on more of a production model, where the kind of individual attention that a Bourgeois (or other boutique sourced guitar) gets isn't practical. Gibson isn't Martin or Taylor. Their output is smaller and there's a lot of hands-on work, I'm sure. But some of what they do by CNC others do by hand.

 

I don't mean any of this as criticism. Yes, I love my Bourgeois but I also love my Gibson. They're different guitars built in accordance with different philosophies but they both do what they're designed to do very well. Frankly, I don't know how Dana Bourgeois can sell his guitars as reasonably as he does, given the time each one gets. It's just a very different, far leaner model -- very little marketing cost, a small work force, and, I suspect, a modest profit margin. But again, whatever Gibson's approach, it succeeds in bringing wonderful guitars to market.