Les Paul....noob question - removing the neck pickup to see underneath....

siraxeman

tonight I took out another couple of screws to have a look at something...the truss rod cover to see the truss channel to see if its really as deep as the pics I've seen on the net...and so it is! Tragic flaw in an otherwise great guitar design...really really gets on my tits seeing this. Why on earth Gibson do SFA about it is beyond me.

p90fool

The finish sanding is done by humans, so they all turn out slightly differently, which I actually like. It's not a QC issue, it's a "pick the one you like best" issue.

They're not i-Phones, they're musical instruments.

ICBM

siraxeman said:

tonight I took out another couple of screws to have a look at something...the truss rod cover to see the truss channel to see if its really as deep as the pics I've seen on the net...and so it is! Tragic flaw in an otherwise great guitar design...really really gets on my tits seeing this. Why on earth Gibson do SFA about it is beyond me.

To be fair, it only makes a marginal difference - although I agree it doesn't help.

It's the steeply angled headstock made from one piece of mahogany that's the real problem.

siraxeman

p90fool said:

The finish sanding is done by humans, so they all turn out slightly differently, which I actually like. It's not a QC issue, it's a "pick the one you like best" issue.

They're not i-Phones, they're musical instruments.

I hear that point....but are they sanding the necks or planing then? I mean if it makes a substantial difference to the feel of the guitar they're taking lots off wood off, rather than just skimming it!

ICBM, I wonder how much (slightly I guess) stronger  the chunkier 50's would be to a skinny 60's neck? Bit more meat where it counts I guess?  

ICBM

siraxeman said:

ICBM, I wonder how much (slightly I guess) stronger  the chunkier 50's would be to a skinny 60's neck? Bit more meat where it counts I guess?  

My experience would be - significantly stronger. The '57 Les Paul Junior I owned had been knocked about quite badly, given by the damage on the edges of the headstock, but the neck was a deep almost V-shape with a heavy flare behind the nut and it had never been broken.

It does depend drastically on the direction of the wood grain at the weak point too - some are so well-chosen that the grain almost follows the carve of the head angle, and it's rare to see these broken. Most, the grain goes fairly straight, and in a few cases it even curves the other way - these ones will break off in a stiff breeze... or at the least if the case gets dropped on its front. These last ones are also the hardest to repair too, because the gluing area of the break is always small.

I may also be wrong about this but I think the ones with the good, strong grain direction also tend to sound the best, but I would admit it's only one factor anyway.

Van_Hayden

siraxeman;152979" said:

tonight I took out another couple of screws to have a look at something...the truss rod cover to see the truss channel to see if its really as deep as the pics I've seen on the net...and so it is! Tragic flaw in an otherwise great guitar design...really really gets on my tits seeing this. Why on earth Gibson do SFA about it is beyond me.

Well they did try, it was called a volute. Although they put it slightly in the wrong place and generally made a bad guitar around it.

ChrisMusic

So what was the volute story, if it strengthened a known weak point then why was it dropped from production?

Does anyone know the volute lifespan, i.e. from introduction to demise?

I have had a bundle of Gibsons in my 'past life' and never had any issues, and they had a tough life sometimes.  I always thought that it was just bad luck, bad accidents, or bad ownership that caused these breaks.  Maybe I was lucky.

ESchap

Volute introduced late 1969 along with 3 piece neck.   Back to no volute in 1981, I believe ... due to customer demand ... or perhaps it's inclusion had not significantly reduced warranty claims for broken headstocks through the 1970's! 

lustycourtier

Bogwhoppit said:

Twas me that mentioned it.  Under the bridge pickup it will say LP5+ or LP5 or LP6+ or LP6  the 5 or 6 stands for 50s or 60s neck. The + (according to Bob Burns at Gibson, stands for a plus top. i.e AAA). Just remove the 4 screws on the pickup mount and carefully lift it out.

 

I will post up a pic of mine in a minute.

 

DEM STRINGS

jaygtr

ChrisMusic;155201" said:

So what was the volute story, if it strengthened a known weak point then why was it dropped from production?

Does anyone know the volute lifespan, i.e. from introduction to demise?

I have had a bundle of Gibsons in my 'past life' and never had any issues, and they had a tough life sometimes.  I always thought that it was just bad luck, bad accidents, or bad ownership that caused these breaks.  Maybe I was lucky.

As ICBM said earlier it depends to a certain extent on the direction of the grain as to how strong it is.

It's worth remembering that there are an awful lot of les Paul's out there that have never had a break. So most People don't break them.

I've dropped mine and smashed it into a wall as I turned around, hard enough to take a chunk out of the headstock and it was fine.
I am much more careful know though.

ChrisMusic

@ESchap said: Volute introduced late 1969 along with 3 piece neck.   Back to no volute in 1981, I believe ... due to customer demand ... or perhaps it's inclusion had not significantly reduced warranty claims for broken headstocks through the 1970's! 

Thanks for that, info very much appreciated, also fills in a couple of holes in my recollections of what I owned, cheers  

ICBM

ESchap said:

Volute introduced late 1969 along with 3 piece neck.   Back to no volute in 1981, I believe ... due to customer demand ... or perhaps it's inclusion had not significantly reduced warranty claims for broken headstocks through the 1970's! 

Or not until they changed the necks to maple. That was what really fixed it, but again due to demand, they switched back to mahogany.

When I hadn't been in this game very long and wasn't wise enough to check the case latches before picking one up, I dropped a customer's Les Paul Custom from a height of about two feet onto a concrete/lino floor. It landed smack on the back of the headstock and the tail end of the body, with the full weight of a Les Paul behind it...

And bounced. I actually saw the neck flex - in between heart failure and my life flashing in front of me - and the guitar spring back into the air. Then it landed again and came to rest. I couldn't quite believe what I'd seen, so I very nervously picked up the guitar and turned it over, expecting to see a huge crack in the neck.

But thank God for Norlin - it was a '77 and they'd taken the precaution of making the neck out of maple . No damage to the guitar apart from a tiny chip in the paint on one corner of the headstock - which might even have been there before, I don't know. I touched it up, anyway.

If that had been a mahogany neck - even three-piece with the lower 70s angle and the volute - I guarantee I'd have been buying the owner a new guitar out of my shop wages.

Misterg

siraxeman said:

...are they sanding the necks or planing then?

Big belt sander....

...about 16 minutes in:

siraxeman

cool vid that seen it before...but some months ago! But yeah that belt sander does go someway to explaining the neck profiles varying.

ThePrettyDamned

It always surprises me, seeing the production line.  

It's easy to see how finishing flaws come about, a lot of the folks look like they really don't care.  I can never shake that VOS 335 out of my head, which had no finish bar a few drips of cherry lacquer on the f holes...

It also shows basically why they won't fix the neck break issue - it would take retooling, which costs money.  Why bother, when you can just churn out another guitar?

Edit: neck heel is chiseled by hand.  That explains why some of them don't fit properly.

boogieman

siraxeman said:

cheers dude! One other question to anyone that may know (the answer I guess is no!) can you semi permanently attach the pickguard ie without having to use the screws and leave permanent holes in the guitar. I like the look of the LP both ways with n without...now I'd have it on occasionally but don't want to do any permanent holes in the guitar so short of some smart idea I'd guess not ?

The easiest way I've seen of sorting this one out is to use the screws provided to fix the plate. Then when you want the plate off, use a wax crayon in the nearest colour to fill the screw hole up. Rub the crayon over the hole till its full of wax, then polish it lightly with a soft cloth and it barely shows.

WezV

siraxeman said:

p90fool said:

The finish sanding is done by humans, so they all turn out slightly differently, which I actually like. It's not a QC issue, it's a "pick the one you like best" issue.

They're not i-Phones, they're musical instruments.

I hear that point....but are they sanding the necks or planing then? I mean if it makes a substantial difference to the feel of the guitar they're taking lots off wood off, rather than just skimming it!

 

The problem is you don't have to remove lots of wood to substanitally change the feel of a neck.   a mm here or there makes a massive difference

The same tools used by different people will often produce different results,  and the old factory technique of hand rolling necks on giant sanders is particulalry prone to creating variation in final shape,  half a second difference in any position will change everything ... "whoops, taken a bit too much off the bass side of this 50's neck, i will just even it up a bit" suddenly you have a completely different shape

siraxeman

funny thing is Fender seem to be consistent....I've never noticed a USA Series Strat neck feeling any different to another...I've had loads of those and always 100% consistent in feel and fit/finish as well...do they not use belt sanders? Hmmm.

Neil

siraxeman said:

funny thing is Fender seem to be consistent....I've never noticed a USA Series Strat neck feeling any different to another...I've had loads of those and always 100% consistent in feel and fit/finish as well...do they not use belt sanders? Hmmm.

US series that ran from 2000-08 approx? 

I'm sure they have changed the profile of the US Standard over the years though.

My '89 version is very slim almost wizard- like which was the fashion at the time. 

ICBM

siraxeman said:

funny thing is Fender seem to be consistent....I've never noticed a USA Series Strat neck feeling any different to another...I've had loads of those and always 100% consistent in feel and fit/finish as well...do they not use belt sanders?

Maple is a much harder wood and so more resistant to a mistake. If you accidentally sand for a fraction of a second too long it will make much less difference to the profile than on a mahogany neck.

That said I think Fender just has higher tooling standards anyway. It's obvious across the whole fit and finish of the instrument, to me.