Official Luthiers Forum!

David, you and I are very much on the same wavelength here.

Here's a Gibbie vintage not to reproduce...

At some point in the late 1970s or so, they broke down the fret slotting gang saw to sharpen the blades.   Someone re-assembled it with two of the spacers reversed.   There are hundreds if not thousands of Gibsons out there with totally wacko fret spacing up above the 12 fret there... And the sad thing is that some of the vintage nut-cases would want to keep them preserved that way, kind of like restoring the binding nubs at the ends of the frets. Hey, it always was a bad idea, so why perpetuate it? It's like saying that the generation of Martins with the incredible shrinking pickguards that cause the infamous pickguard cracks should be replaced with authentic shrinking pickguards that make more future cracks in the tops or not shielding Strats, Teles, and the dark years Les Pauls because "hum is a part of the authentic sound."   I've actually heard that crap on the electric side.   I'm sorry, but that's just plain idiotic.

I was actually going to raise the binding issue you mentioned as another
example. I can do it, but for the most part I won't.

I think it's fair to say it's an ego thing for me. I have no problem saying I
won't do something - I just had to having to say I won't because I can't.


And it was only about 10-12 years ago that Joe Glaser that first opened my
eyes to the Great Gibson Fret Fumble. It came as quite a surprise to me then,
but at this point it's more of a "oh great, another one of those", kind of
reaction. Of course then again, there's a good number of other makers who
had their not-so-golden moments with fret spacing either.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

[QUOTE=David Collins] I think it's fair to say it's an ego thing for me. I
have no problem saying I won't do something - I just had to having
to say I won't because I can't. [/QUOTE]


"hate having to say"

hate, hate. Speaking of which, where's that edit button.









You know I'm just messin with you Lance, Brock.    

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

If one is trying to do a factory-perfect restoration, then reproducing mistakes is probably the right thing to do. But look at the violin world...I've been told that there are maybe 3 out of 1,100 or so Strads that have not been seriously altered, rebuilt, renecked, regraduated, re-re'd! And yet, because of the total history and the high regard for the musical utility of these 300 year-old objects, they go now for upwards of 2.5 million bucks. Vintage automobiles are another great example.   Fabulous restorations are the norm. There's no original paint, rubber, batteries, oil, sparkplugs, gasoline, tires, or any of that. The cars are restored with modern materials to the original design intent...which design intent should always be open for improvement.

So the factory vintage guitar preservation thing is just kind of wacky.   I fully understand the personal goal of trying to be able to restore all the f...ed up aspects of the instruments on the museum level...it just happens to make those instruments less than they could be as musical instruments. I say draw the line at some arbitrary number of perfectly preserved specimens, and then turn the rest of them into useful instruments.

A perfect example...the first couple of hundred of Les Pauls.   They got the neck angle wrong, and so what did they do? They came up with this totally wrong and stupid upside down tailpiece/bridge where the strings came off under the bridge instead of over it. Many of these have had neck resets to make them play right.   The other ones actually have less vintage resale value because everyone knows they're screwed up. Hence, '54 and on up into the '60s Les Pauls are worth more than the earliest ones that are known for being hideous mistakes pushed out the factory doors to cover costs.   

"Yeah, that's the way to do it, money for nothing and chicks for free..."

Sometimes vintage bad ideas are just bad ideas. The concept of junk is not modern...