NGD: There's a Gibson back in the house.....

Lewy

My National Style O sold, so it was off to Guitar Village today and this J-45 True Vintage followed me home! I'd had a standard series J-45 before and never really got on with it. Seemed like it was good for strummy stuff but unremarkable for anything else. But recently I've seen flatpickers like Scott Nygard and Bryan Sutton playing slope-shouldered dreads and thought I'd give on of these a go. The Adirondack top and braces and overall light build make this a VERY different guitar to the one I had before. Adi and mahogany are just the perfect combination for versatility i.m.o. and this sounds great for old time and bluegrass flatpicking as well as fingerpicking stuff. I really like the not-too-shiny finish too.

Of course, it's a Gibson so there are a few stupid niggles...in this case the tops of a couple of the (cheap as shit plastic) bridge pins had sharp seams that needed filing down, the pickguard doesn't match the radius of the soundhole unless you install it actually over the white lines of the rosette (which looks a lot worse than it being slightly mismatched) and whilst they've aged the binding to a really nice vintage cream, the tuner buttons are still brilliant white, which seems odd. I'll fix these things over time (some bone pins and probably a set of Waverleys at some point) but for now the sound renders all these things very minor.

Now the lengthy quest to find the optimum pick and string combo for this guitar. So far a combination of Wegen Bluegrass pick and Martin Retro Lights seems to be working well (it came with 80/20 Bronze Lights which came off straight away). It feels a little weird playing .012s instead of the .013s I've got on my other two dreads but it feels about right for the bracing and general lightness of build.

xmrchi

This thread needs pics :-)

Lewy

Hmmm...there was one but now the link seems to be broken. Let's try this.....