A great investment

ICBM

Interesting theory! Although I'm not sure that doesn't still make it a factory dog . The neck angle is miles too steep no matter what bridge and tailpiece were fitted originally.

When I was looking closely at the pics again I also noticed that it appears to have been drilled for a Roland GK-2 at some point as well. Not exactly a big deal considering the other filled holes, but still...

ESchap

Here's what one of the "Sustain SIster" brass inserts under the ABR looks like, not small!!   This is my 347.

ThePrettyDamned

ESchap said:

Here's what one of the "Sustain SIster" brass inserts under the ABR looks like, not small!!   This is my 347.

That's really interesting! What did you think of them?  It seems to follow my logic of high mass bridge area = bigger sounding guitar.  Bassists have been swearing by it for years, and the Wudtone steel block is heavy, too... 

ESchap

It's hard to tell as I've not tried the guitar with and without.  But compared to the other ES's I have, this one is definitely a bit more ballsy, in a good way, bit more "fundamental" in the note,  also sustains really well.  But that may be due to the maple neck more than the ABR studs?

Skipped

If a steep neck angle is an indication of a Factory Dog then Gibson are in trouble!      (Have a look at the Billy Gibbons GT in the Classifieds). This seems to be common on recent Historics.

The high bridge would  not put me off buying a 2014 Historic (other things might). That may be because I have never encountered a collapsed bridge and I honestly have no idea how common that is.

Gagaryn

That picture is really interesting - hadn't seen the sustain sisters before and didn't realise quite how big they are.

ThePrettyDamned

ESchap said:

It's hard to tell as I've not tried the guitar with and without.  But compared to the other ES's I have, this one is definitely a bit more ballsy, in a good way, bit more "fundamental" in the note,  also sustains really well.  But that may be due to the maple neck more than the ABR studs?

Yeah, could be.  Still, I think it's a really interesting detail, the kind of thing is a shame Gibson have abandoned... All in favour of vintageness.   Then again, the old ones didn't need them...

ICBM

Skipped said:

If a steep neck angle is an indication of a Factory Dog then Gibson are in trouble!

In my opinion, yes Gibson are (or should be) in trouble - there's no excuse for that sort of variability in neck angle in this day and age of CNC tooling. Why they still insist on making such a critical structural part of the guitar so crudely is beyond me. Why people continue to accept it is also beyond me…

Skipped said:

The high bridge would  not put me off buying a 2014 Historic (other things might). That may be because I have never encountered a collapsed bridge and I honestly have no idea how common that is.

A high bridge would always put me off buying any Gibson now. It's not just the potential for bridge collapse, it's that they don't feel right or sound right with the bridge that high and the tailpiece way off the body, in my opinion. Top-wrapping isn't a solution I like either - to me it's a compromise to get around not being able to get the tailpiece tight down on a guitar that was just built wrong in the first place. It also implies that the neck joint doesn't fit properly, which may explain why they don't sound good - rather than the height of the bridge and/or tailpiece directly affecting the tone.

Notice how in this famous cross-section picture showing just how appalling the fit of the tenons often is, even the Historic (at the bottom) is *slightly* too steep, and the tenon is not tight to the floor of the pocket at the body end. If there are air gaps here, what does that do to the tone?

http://www.piller.at/music/lp68/tenon2.jpg

Alnico

I will never buy another Gibson ever again.

Not just for this shown here but for all their quality jokes and their consistently high prices. I've said it before, while there are people like 'Feline' making these guitars properly (Amazingly), why would I waste 80% of that price on a Gibson.

There is (And has been for a while now) a 2013 Les Paul Standard in Translucent amber hanging on the wall at PMT in Northampton. The Stripes in the maple cap, which the translucent finish is supposed to show off are so blurred it actually looks like it's a drawing in a comic book. It's a mess. Honestly it's one of the worst tops I've seen so far on a les paul and it's boldly got a price tag of £1,999.99.

The name used to mean something but the more this kind of shoddy crap goes on, the more that name will be eroded.

It took Harley Davidson decades to undo the damage that AMF did to it for this exact reason and Gibson can proliferate all they like, they are right on the edge of getting a really bad name which will in turn take decades to rectify, if ever at all.

Those pictures are shocking.

Alnico

I have re-read this and I would like to apologise.

Firstly for hijacking the thread which was not originally talking about modern gibsons - my previous post had nothing to do with the 79 that is in the OP.

Secondly for my machine gun hatred of Gibson, which I have given some thought to. It's not that I hate the designs or the guitars - I have always loved them and always wanted one, until I have seen recently some of the shoddiness that they are turning out but I do now concede that not ALL gibsons are this bad. What I "Hate" is the fact that they don't seem to care !

I always try to be an open minded person and after reading this back I can clearly see that it does not reflect that.

My apologies to the OP and anyone else who read this.

ICBM

I don't think you need to apologise - I fully understand your hatred of Gibson (the company). I also think this thread is interesting because it shows that some of the quality problems have gone back a long, long way - in fact, even more shockingly for many people, there are 60s Gibsons with the sort of alignment and/or neck angle issues you can see on the 70s Standard - richardhomer has one, and I've seen others. Possibly even 50s ones, it wouldn't surprise me.

I don't think it's unreasonable for buyers to expect that in the 21st Century, a large manufacturer with a trusted name like Gibson should use the best construction methods available, rather than trading on the fact that buyers will apparently put up with almost any junk as long as it has the right name on it - and charging prices for it that should reflect near-perfect quality, because other makers can do it for the same or less. Yes, a good Gibson sounds and feels like nothing else, but that's still not an excuse.

The funny thing is that Fender were slated for decades for the poor construction of their 70s guitars, but really the only difference with Gibson was that the neck joints were hidden by being on the inside, rather than exposed to view like a Fender. If anything the Fender tolerances were tighter!

It's certainly true that not all Gibsons have these sorts of issues, but the worrying thing is that you just can't tell from the outside… and if you think the variable neck angles and the gaps under the tenons are the end of it, they're not. There are sometimes shims in the *sides* of the joints to get them to fit tightly as well. Or sort-of tightly. Just not acceptable in my opinion, and the only reason they can get away with it is because people keep buying the guitars.

So personally, I would take the steep neck angle and probably moved bridge position (even allowing for ESchap's guess as to how it was made originally, I still think the bridge has been moved sideways a bit) as a big red flag and walk smartly away from this one at almost any price.

Iamnobody

Alnico;244229" said:

I have re-read this...My apologies to the OP and anyone else who read this.

No need to apologise to me or anyone else. It turned into an interesting thread as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers

ESBlonde

So here is a guitar that is from the alleged worst period of production (now vintage though ;-)   ) with changed electrics, changed pickups, changed bridge/tailpiece.

Still the machine heads are probably original, the headstock hasn't broken off (but it is maple) and the body is original even if it has been stripped and drilled/filled.

Bargain!

Moe_Zambeek

My recent experience with off the shelf Gibsons has been unusually positive. The 2013 /14 guitars I've experienced have all been very well made - in fact it changed my opinion about them quite considerably.