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Post by t-bob on Nov 17, 2020 12:27:31 GMT -5
When did it happen
Where was the 60s
I had a little beat up 1956 Gibson LG ‘hog’. I shaped the neck with a coarse rasp. I bought it in a pawn shop. Yellow Springs OH $5. It was painted flat black. I changed it in a 7 string - G high. And I scraped all the black.
I can’t remember “ I swapped the guitar for some opium or hash” 😉
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Post by howard lee on Nov 17, 2020 13:10:51 GMT -5
Bob, you and Marshall should get together and open a repair shop. 😃
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Post by Marty on Nov 17, 2020 14:46:05 GMT -5
Bob, you and Marshall should get together and open a repair shop. 😃
Yes do, that will keep me and a few others in business for quite a while. |
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Post by Marty on Nov 17, 2020 21:23:27 GMT -5
I have 2 LG-0 (hog) guitars in for work right now, both 1967.
One is a regular Gibson LG-0 for that period with the plastic/nylon bolt-on bridge that I am replacing with a rosewood one.
The other is a Gibson made Epiphone FT-30 that did have the nylon bridge but that was replace at some time with a rosewood Guild bridge that cracked in half, so I am making a new rosewood one. This is the same as a LG-0. The odd thing about this guitar is that it has a New York Epiphone neck not a Gibson made Epiphone neck.
When Gibson bought out Epiphone in the late 50s they took all the wood and parts that Epiphone had in stock. This included any unassembled guitars. They finished up putting together the guitars they had parts for to fill as many Epiphone orders they could and then stored the rest of those parts. Well someone at the factory must have run across a bunch of left over necks so they used them on their low end guitar, the FT-30, it was a few dollars cheaper than a LG-0.
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Post by Marshall on Nov 18, 2020 0:41:14 GMT -5
Sacrilege ! Taking a coarse rasp to the best neck ever made by mankind.  Never saw an LG0. But I owned an LG1 for a brief couple of weeks. Ladder braced. Sounded like garbage. I bought on a lark off ebay. Turned it around quickly for a minor loss. But LG2s are nice guitars. And LG3s. Both are X-braced. Love those 50s Gibson necks.
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Post by Marty on Nov 18, 2020 9:53:46 GMT -5
Sacrilege ! Taking a coarse rasp to the best neck ever made by mankind. Never saw an LG0. But I owned an LG1 for a brief couple of weeks. Ladder braced. Sounded like garbage. I bought on a lark off ebay. Turned it around quickly for a minor loss. But LG2s are nice guitars. And LG3s. Both are X-braced. Love those 50s Gibson necks. BUT YOU SOLD ERNIE!  |
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Post by Marty on Nov 18, 2020 10:01:02 GMT -5
Tyler came by yesterday and started tidying up my shop, lord knows it needs it. One of the first things he did was go through the archive closet. I forgot I have a 1960s sunburst Epiphone Texan in there and a acoustic bass and a bunch of other nice pieces that should be repaired and sold or just sold as is. I think my fix/sell collection is up to about 30+ guitars. That does NOT include my Kennedy so don't ask.
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Post by Marshall on Nov 18, 2020 10:39:50 GMT -5
Sacrilege ! Taking a coarse rasp to the best neck ever made by mankind. Never saw an LG0. But I owned an LG1 for a brief couple of weeks. Ladder braced. Sounded like garbage. I bought on a lark off ebay. Turned it around quickly for a minor loss. But LG2s are nice guitars. And LG3s. Both are X-braced. Love those 50s Gibson necks. BUT YOU SOLD ERNIE! Ernie has a new happy home. No coarse rasp has ever come near him. Yeah, Ernie (1959 Country Western) is the saddest of the ones that got away. I also had a 1957 Southern Jumbo, as you will remember, because you redid the bridge on it for me. But the SJ never lived up to it's sonic potential. Ernie, though, was great. But when I decided to buy Bruce Roper's Nick Lucas guitar, I needed some guitar cash and Ernie was the only thing I had that had enough value to sell. The 1957 J50 (Which I still have) was not original enough to have anybody interested in buying it. I tried. So, Ernie moved on. - I saw a couple years later that the guy who bought Ernie was trying to sell it again on ebay. I could have bought it back, but it would have cost too much by his escalated price. But this Eastman E1 really measures up wonderfully with anything I've seen in 1950s Gibsons. And it's got the neck now to boot. |
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Post by Marty on Nov 18, 2020 16:10:54 GMT -5
Tyler came by yesterday and started tidying up my shop, lord knows it needs it. One of the first things he did was go through the archive closet. I forgot I have a 1960s sunburst Epiphone Texan in there and a acoustic bass and a bunch of other nice pieces that should be repaired and sold or just sold as is. I think my fix/sell collection is up to about 30+ guitars. That does NOT include my Kennedy so don't ask. He just pulled a Guild F-30 from the closet that I had forgotten about too. Don't know if I'll fix them or sell them as is for someone else to fix at this time. |
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Post by millring on Nov 18, 2020 16:54:57 GMT -5
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Post by Marty on Nov 18, 2020 18:47:18 GMT -5
Boy the old guitars just keep coming. Tyler pulled out a 64 Grestch Folksinger and a Levin made Goya dread. I know there is a 70s Aria and two Yamaha FG-180 or FG-160. I did see a Drifter, complete bottom feeder.
I'll get him to catalog it all so I know what I have. A lot of the cheaper stuff is easy repairs that I can teach him to do, which is why I've kept all these guitars. He already has regular refretting down pretty well but when that job gets complicated he has no idea of what to do, he'll learn.
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Post by John B on Nov 18, 2020 21:00:24 GMT -5
BUT YOU SOLD ERNIE! Ernie has a new happy home. No coarse rasp has ever come near him. Yeah, Ernie (1959 Country Western) is the saddest of the ones that got away. I also had a 1957 Southern Jumbo, as you will remember, because you redid the bridge on it for me. But the SJ never lived up to it's sonic potential. Ernie, though, was great. But when I decided to buy Bruce Roper's Nick Lucas guitar, I needed some guitar cash and Ernie was the only thing I had that had enough value to sell. The 1957 J50 (Which I still have) was not original enough to have anybody interested in buying it. I tried. So, Ernie moved on. - I saw a couple years later that the guy who bought Ernie was trying to sell it again on ebay. I could have bought it back, but it would have cost too much by his escalated price. But this Eastman E1 really measures up wonderfully with anything I've seen in 1950s Gibsons. And it's got the neck now to boot. Which one had the obscenity on the top? |
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Post by John B on Nov 18, 2020 21:02:07 GMT -5
Boy the old guitars just keep coming. Tyler pulled out a 64 Grestch Folksinger and a Levin made Goya dread. I know there is a 70s Aria and two Yamaha FG-180 or FG-160. I did see a Drifter, complete bottom feeder. I'll get him to catalog it all so I know what I have. A lot of the cheaper stuff is easy repairs that I can teach him to do, which is why I've kept all these guitars. He already has regular refretting down pretty well but when that job gets complicated he has no idea of what to do, he'll learn. Marty, I'll be interested in the list. |
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Post by Marshall on Nov 18, 2020 21:19:55 GMT -5
Ernie has a new happy home. No coarse rasp has ever come near him. Yeah, Ernie (1959 Country Western) is the saddest of the ones that got away. I also had a 1957 Southern Jumbo, as you will remember, because you redid the bridge on it for me. But the SJ never lived up to it's sonic potential. Ernie, though, was great. But when I decided to buy Bruce Roper's Nick Lucas guitar, I needed some guitar cash and Ernie was the only thing I had that had enough value to sell. The 1957 J50 (Which I still have) was not original enough to have anybody interested in buying it. I tried. So, Ernie moved on. - I saw a couple years later that the guy who bought Ernie was trying to sell it again on ebay. I could have bought it back, but it would have cost too much by his escalated price. But this Eastman E1 really measures up wonderfully with anything I've seen in 1950s Gibsons. And it's got the neck now to boot. Which one had the obscenity on the top? Ernie was the one that had scratched into the top, "THIS MACHINE KILLS AZZHOLES" I did a poor man's drop fill on part of it, but I stopped because the scratched words were becoming more visible instead of less so. From 4 feet away you never noticed it. Closer it looked like scratches. Close up it was obvious. The words were upside down, so only the person playing the guitar could read it. Pretty quickly I forgot they were there. When I got that guitar off ebay, the brick and mortar store in Seattle (I think) feigned ignorance of the words. But they quickly reimbursed me $200 for my troubles. The guitar needed a fret job. I took it to Tim Schroeder in Chicago, who does a lot of vintage work. He did the fret job and setup and turned it into a fabulous player. He wouldn't touch a drop fill. He said he could refinish it, but it would go down in value. I paid a little over $2k for it back in the mid oughts. Paid $350 for the fret job. I put a Schatten SBT pickup in it and finally sold it for $2.8k about 9 years later. A couple years later I saw it again on ebay. The guy wanted $3.3k, I think. It sat for a while. I don't know if it sold. I've seen 2 other 50s Country Westerns at vintage guitar shows over the years that were comparable but not better, and they were asking $4.5k. I took the $2.8k and bought my Nick Lucas from Bruce Roper for $2.5k. Plus I bought the tuners and the pickguard and installed the pickup. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. |
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Post by Marshall on Nov 18, 2020 21:26:48 GMT -5
There was one other guitar that got away that I still pine over. It was a 1956 Southern Jumbo I saw at a guitar show. It was somewhat beat up, but the frets and setup were great. And the sound was as close to PERFECT as I've ever hear. Playability was excellent. They wanted $3k for it. Really a decent price for the times (around 2006). I sweated bullets on the one, but didn't pull the trigger. I probably should have. It was EVERYTHING I love in a guitar. Big and warm, and sunburst, and split parallelogram fret markers. And just plain COOL to the max.
**sigh**
I'm quite happy with what I have. Sometimes it's fun to reminisce.
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Post by drlj on Nov 18, 2020 21:27:33 GMT -5
I would love to see a list, Marty.
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Post by Marty on Nov 19, 2020 10:41:08 GMT -5
I would love to see a list, Marty. There will be very few Harmony's, if any, on there. The really good stuff will need major work and there will be lots of bottom feeders. The mid 60s Epi Texan has a snapped headstock and will need splints and finish work. Here's a Gibson I did a few years back using carbon fiber reinforcements. After filling and sanding back to shape I did a burst over all the work.  |
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Post by howard lee on Nov 19, 2020 11:03:02 GMT -5
Which one had the obscenity on the top? Ernie was the one that had scratched into the top, "THIS MACHINE KILLS AZZHOLES" I did a poor man's drop fill on part of it, but I stopped because the scratched words were becoming more visible instead of less so. From 4 feet away you never noticed it. Closer it looked like scratches. Close up it was obvious. The words were upside down, so only the person playing the guitar could read it. Pretty quickly I forgot they were there. [...]
Many years ago, my late, great guitar teacher, Orrin Star, purchased a vintage Martin D-28, from around 1964 or so. It was incredibly great sounding, and really rang like a bell; had that sweet Brazilian rosewood chime. Its main issue was the swastika a previous owner had carved on the top—upper bass bout.
Orrin took it to local New York wünderluthier Bob Jones, who did a very respectable job of sanding/filling/finishing the offending symbol. Bob dubbed it forever after, "The Himmler Martin," and the thought of that still makes me laugh.
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Post by drlj on Nov 19, 2020 17:03:49 GMT -5
I never cease to be amazed by what people do to perfectly good guitars.
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