"Early J-45" designation

[zombywoof]

11 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I need a protractor for my bracing angle. Guitars are getting to be serious feats of civil engineering. You guys obsess to much. Does anyone actually play or look up specs all day. 

You miss the point.  With 1930s Gibson slope shoulder jumbos everything was made possible through Gibson's inconsistency when it came to the specs which went into the builds of the different models.    It was inconsistency by design rather than how that description is used today which is most often used in terms of build quality or slight variations resulting from hand work still being done.  I cannot help but feel that something has been lost when it comes to how homogenized guitars have become.

[rustystrings]

12 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I need a protractor for my bracing angle. Guitars are getting to be serious feats of civil engineering. You guys obsess to much. Does anyone actually play or look up specs all day. I know a few things like the scale of my guitar,  and what wood it’s made of, but how it’s braced, and what type is totally irrelevant, at least to me. How  about how does it sound? Let’s use that as a measuring stick. ... 

True enough.  Much of my interest is academic, but I am always curious about WHY a particular guitar sounds the way it does, particularly if I fall in love with the sound.

So I went looking for a video I remembered from a decade back and found this - 

- and it confirms what zombywoof said earlier about angles vs. location of bracing.   Now I'll have to figure out how to do a light inside my J-45 with the room darkened so I can see the bracing pattern - I'm curious about how closely it matches the modern pattern on the left.

As far as my fellow South Carolinian Sgt. Pepper's recommendation that the sound be the yardstick, absolutely.  In theory I should be pursuing something with all hot-hide glue and Adirondack Red Spruce and visible sawmarks - or going to some modern boutiquey thing with the perfectly optimized string spacing and a long scale and some other more exotic wood choices, say, or even something built in Nazareth ... but my humble J-45 off the GC wall with the scratches from over-enthusiastic strummers checking it out and the visible glue squeeze-out inside the guitar just makes me happy every single time I play it, and in 44 years of playing NO other guitar has ever come close to matching that.

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 hour ago, rustystrings said:

True enough.  Much of my interest is academic, but I am always curious about WHY a particular guitar sounds the way it does, particularly if I fall in love with the sound.

So I went looking for a video I remembered from a decade back and found this - 

- and it confirms what zombywoof said earlier about angles vs. location of bracing.   Now I'll have to figure out how to do a light inside my J-45 with the room darkened so I can see the bracing pattern - I'm curious about how closely it matches the modern pattern on the left.

As far as my fellow South Carolinian Sgt. Pepper's recommendation that the sound be the yardstick, absolutely.  In theory I should be pursuing something with all hot-hide glue and Adirondack Red Spruce and visible sawmarks - or going to some modern boutiquey thing with the perfectly optimized string spacing and a long scale and some other more exotic wood choices, say, or even something built in Nazareth ... but my humble J-45 off the GC wall with the scratches from over-enthusiastic strummers checking it out and the visible glue squeeze-out inside the guitar just makes me happy every single time I play it, and in 44 years of playing NO other guitar has ever come close to matching that.

I am not a SOUTH CAROLINIAN, do not lump me in with those nut bags. Seriously people in Myrtle and N Myrtle have a weird obsession with the Orange Messiah that I don't understand. The only reason I live here is my father in law passed away several years back, and me and my wife inherited his house which was paid off. So l weighed the options, and a free house won.

[Sgt. Pepper]

2 hours ago, zombywoof said:

You miss the point.  With 1930s Gibson slope shoulder jumbos everything was made possible through Gibson's inconsistency when it came to the specs which went into the builds of the different models.    It was inconsistency by design rather than how that description is used today which is most often used in terms of build quality or slight variations resulting from hand work still being done.  I cannot help but feel that something has been lost when it comes to how homogenized guitars have become.

No I do get it, but I just don't research every guitar I own to the N'th degree. I play a guitar, I like the sound it makes, and I can afford it, I buy it. I have one and only one rule. My guitars are made in the USA. Other that that alls fair. 

They said aw-reety
An' they was aw-righty
An' I was a Zomby for you, little lady . . .

Edited December 14, 2022 by Sgt. Pepper

[zombywoof]

3 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

No I do get it, but I just don't research every guitar I own to the N'th degree. I play a guitar, I like the sound it makes, and I can afford it, I buy it. I have one and only one rule. My guitars are made in the USA. Other that that alls fair. 

They said aw-reety
An' they was aw-righty
An' I was a Zomby for you, little lady . . .

I do get it that after a while it becomes something like a scene from an alien autopsy.  A good example of where doing your homework and getting a good handle on specs can pay off would be how many times do you see folks describe a neck as "fat", "chunky" or whatever   More often as not that assessment is based on their frame of reference which chances are is not the same as mine.  But if somebody chimes in saying the depth of the neck at the 1st fret is .93" and that lower down toward the heel is 1.25" it becomes something which I can translate into feel.  And I know that because I slap a caliper on my guitars.