Help With A '77 Gibson LP

[rsinger]

On 6/1/2022 at 1:50 PM, Grem said:

I come to this forum because I know a lot of people here are very knowledgeable about many things associated with music.

I need help.

I have a '77 Gibson LP that DOES NOT have a glued in neck. The neck is connected with a dovetail joint. How I got it was total luck. No kidding. ( I will tell the story if anyone wants the details)

 

Anyway, many years ago I knew how to take the neck off. It's a process of holding the neck with the left hand a certain way and hitting the top of the bout (by the pickup selector switch) above the neck. It has to be done a very certain way, and I have forgotten how to do it.

When I bought this guitar, I had no idea there was such a thing as a glued on neck, a bolt on neck, or a dovetail joint neck. Knowing what I know now I wish I had taken pictures of it when it was appart, but I didn't. Now when I tell someone about this guitar, they look at me like I was an idiot.

 

I have an LP Signature (semi-hollow body) and dovetail joints are traditional on acoustic guitars so I wouldn't be surprised if mine has a dovetail joint, but the neck is glued in place. Dovetail joints are normally glued. Are you sure someone didn't forget to glue it? If the joint is solid, which it obviously is, there isn't a problem with that. A dovetail, unglued, I would expect some sort of release mechanism.

[Grem]

15 hours ago, Paul Young said:

As in playing or collecting?

I really can't say what his intentions were, I can only speculate.

However, I played the hell out that guitar!! Still do!! : )

[Grem]

15 hours ago, rsinger said:

Dovetail joints are normally glued.

I did some more research and you are correct. And now I understand why.

Wow!! I am so glad I came here to talk about this and ask questions. It seems that I have been somewhat unknowingly misleading everyone. 

The neck joint is not the traditional dove tail that I have seen on youtube videos. Now I understand why everyone reacts the way they do when I tell them it's an unglued dovetail joint!! Best I can describe it, is a "locking dovetail" joint. It does have the traditional triangle shape of  a dovetail  joint, but it does not have straight angles on it. They are curve/rounded. If you seen it removed and put back, you would understand why it was made that way. 

When I take the strings off, the neck is still solid. Does not move! It won't fall off. And unless you know that special way to take it off, it ain't coming off!! It's that solid! When whammy bars first hit the scene, I wasn't going to mod/rout my LP  to put no tremolo on it!! I would instead grab the head (where the tuners are) and bend the neck to get a de-tuning effect!! No, that guitar has been played baby!! Make no mistake. That neck is solid!!

[Grem]

 

19 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

At which point they also said to heck with even gluing it, the string tension will hold it in, and we can spray the finish on the bodies and necks separately. They were probably trying everything to automate the process as much as possible.

 

@Starship Krupa I think you are hitting on something here. This LP may have been a prototype, with efficiency the ultimate goal!! Think about it; a joint made by machines that can just be snapped into place!!  It would be perfectly in line already. No need to glue it in (a cost/time saving method). When it needs to be removed for repairs no need to  do all the bs now required. Just take the strings off and snap it off!!

[Grem]

19 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What I see in your photo suggests that the way to get it apart is to take the strings off and hold the body under one arm (your left if you're a righty) and tug the neck straight away from the body with your other hand. There's a telltale line at the heel where there's a gap in the finish.

You are almost correct in the removal method. With the strings off, hold the guitar in the regular sitting playing position. With your right hand hold the bout by the pickup selector switch and lay your right forearm across the rest of the body to get a firm grip on the guitar. Now place your left hand palm (the heel part, bottom part of you left palm) under the heel of the neck joint, with your fingers around the fretboard. Now with you right arm lift your hand up (with right elbow still holding the body) in preparation to smack the top of the bout in a downward fashion with some force. When you do that motion, at the same time as you smack it, you have to push up (with some force) on the heel joint and at the same time let the headstock and neck move towards the left side of your body. And the neck just comes off!!

This sounds much more complicated than it really is. It really is simple when you know how to work that left hand. That's the part that I have forgotten about. Exactly how to "push and tilt" the neck when I hit it. Believe me, I have tried!! I also know that if you ain't got it right, there maybe a chance of breaking the joint in which case the guitar is ruined.

 

It still goes through my head, how in the world did that guitar tech know the neck came off like that? Because otherwise, it looks like any other LP I have ever seen!!

[Grem]

20 hours ago, kennywtelejazz said:

The 2 places I can think of where you may be able to get the most direct answer online would be these 2 Forums ...

Kenny, I was wrong. I am not a member of The Les Paul Forum. It's another LP forum I belong to. I will try to go there and see what I can find out. Thanks a lot for the advise. Appreciate it.

[kennywtelejazz]

Hi Grem ,

The Les Paul forum has been considered the top dog as far as everything that pertains to all aspects of The Gibson Les Paul .

I have heard they run a tight ship as far as the forum goes .ex , Membership qualifications and posting rules ,  A few places I used to go to had people trying to figure out what they did wrong to end up with a forum time out .

Since I happen to have a certain type of  personality and sense of humor I  know if I went over there as a registered member   I would have to stick my foot in the door to hold it open , throw my guitar case in and let them start shooting ....only when they are done shooting and run out of ammo would I consider it safe to walk in there ?

Yep ! it's true what they say .  A man has got to know his limitations ? how I even survived here on this forum for so long  I will never know

I don't know if you have been to The Gear Page ...https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php

The Gear Page is a forum I would also consider as a good place to ask about your Les Paul if your not getting  answers any place else ....there's people that know their guitars over there too.

Who knows your guitar seems so unique it may educate a small niche  of the guitar community once you have your answers  .

good luck

Kenny

Edited June 3, 2022 by kennywtelejazz

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Grem said:

 

@Starship Krupa I think you are hitting on something here. This LP may have been a prototype, with efficiency the ultimate goal!! Think about it; a joint made by machines that can just be snapped into place!!  It would be perfectly in line already. No need to glue it in (a cost/time saving method). When it needs to be removed for repairs no need to  do all the bs now required. Just take the strings off and snap it off!!

You got it.

Long story:

I'm a geek for corporate history. I've read every book written by former Fender employees (and there are a LOT of them!), books on Vox, Slingerland, Intel, Apple. I don't mention it around here, but I started a musical equipment company myself about 20 years ago. I was in the second wave of boutique stompbox builders and worked as a consultant to other boutique effects and amplifier companies. I've made many a trip to the NAMM show, and even seen my product ideas influence the companies who now own the brands that originally made the products I had reissued in boutique form. An interesting conceptual loop. It's a tangled web we weave even when we're not trying to deceive.

Prior to starting my own company, I worked at Orban Associates, Nady Systems, and a variety of software companies including Macromedia (bought by Adobe). Macromedia was notorious for buying up promising products....and killing them. Deck was a sad example. Some here may remember that debacle. The SONAR story without the happy ending. They eventually hit it HUGE when they acquired a company whose main product was called Future Splash and renamed it Flash....which ruled the web for about 20 years.

I don't know who might remember this, but back on the old forum, I was the biggest rah-rah about how the BandLab acquisition and freeware model might just result in the product becoming better than it ever had been. I was obnoxious about it at times. But I understood what was going on. Someone who cared had picked up the product, and he had done it before with Heritage Guitars.

When I was 11, I acquired a stepfather who had already owned a company in Los Angeles that made fiberglass boats. Before music, boating was my main hobby and interest in life. I soaked up all of his stories of how companies go astray, observed in the next decade as he rescued multiple companies from the brink of ruin. This was getting toward the end of the era that saw CBS and Norlin going around snapping up peripherally-related companies that nobody at the home company either knew how to run or even wanted to run, and believe me, there were just as many sporting goods companies that suffered from this. Ron's biggest success was at a company called American Fiberglass, who had been bought by Ithaca Gun. Because who knows better what to do with a sailboat company than a gun company?

One part of the Norlin story that's not mentioned often is that it was formed when a South American beer and cement company bought CMI. Because who better knows what to do with....you know the rest.

The problem with the strategy in this era was that the acquiring companies overestimated the synergy, including how their corporate cultures would work together. I'm not as up on the Norlin years at Gibson, but I know a lot about the rise, fall, and resurrection of Fender.

A fundamental flaw with the late 60's and early 70's acquisition culture was that these companies were founded and run by people who had a passion and great understanding for the products they were making. Leo Fender was a tech geek and music fan who was still inventing things up until about a week before he passed on. Gibson of course also had a great history of building great guitars and innovation. The pleasure boat business is similar. They're all founded by boating nuts who turn to design and construction.

No ding whatsoever on a beer and construction materials company successful enough to buy an established American musical instrument company, or CBS/Columbia, who were and are legendary. However, the executives at these companies who were sent in to manage the new acquisitions joined the parent companies because they wanted to work in the industry these companies specialized in. People who worked at CBS wanted to work in the entertainment industry in New York City, not in manufacturing in California. It was probably similar with Norlin. You can be a brilliant in the beverage industry and/or construction, and passionate about it as well. And there is probably synergy between beer and cement. Construction workers buy lots of both things ?. No, actually, they're both made by mixing up bulk ingredients.

At CBS, Fender was where careers went to die. The only hope these people had was to try to make Fender as profitable as possible so they could get sent back to New York. And no mystery what happens when that is the sole motivation for coming to work every day.

In this era, Gibson was playing catch up with Fender for popularity. That Sonex guitar was a Gibson-shaped guitar built like a Fender. Screw-on removable neck (as you point out, for servicing and replacement, Gibsons are notorious for headstock cracks), drop-in pickguard with electronics all in place, etc.

The best hope of salvation for these brands is subsequent acquisition by people who are passionate about the product. Bill Schultz and his crew with Fender are my favorite example. I watched Ron do it with American Fiberglass. Ron was living on a boat when he married my mom.

The companies' original products also have to be popular enough and have enough reputation for something to survive. Fender guitars and amps? Heck yeah. Slingerland and Rogers Drums? Rhodes electric pianos? Sadly, not.

So when Meng picked up Cakewalk, I had informed theories of how it might play out. He wisely rehired the people who were passionate about the product. I know about software development and music companies from the inside. It makes using Cakewalk more fun for me, watching to see what happens as far as product quality. I'm rooting for it.

That's a cool piece of musical instrument history you have. And for maintenance and repair purposes, having the neck able to be removed makes for much easier refretting and other work. You don't have to protect the body while you're doing it.

[Starship Krupa]

19 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

if I went over there as a registered member   I would have to stick my foot in the door to hold it open , throw my guitar case in and let them start shooting ....only when they are done shooting and run out of ammo would I consider it safe to walk in there ?

You'd probably have to change your handle, at least. ?

[Grem]

32 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

how I even survived here on this forum for so long  I will never know

Because your a good person Kenny. We see that!!

How they say that now? Your the real deal!!

 

I will check out that "The Gear Page" you just mentioned. 

Thanks

[kennywtelejazz]

7 hours ago, kennywtelejazz said:

 if I went over there as a registered member   I would have to stick my foot in the door to hold it open , throw my guitar case in and let them start shooting ....only when they are done shooting and run out of ammo would I consider it safe to walk in there ?

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

You'd probably have to change your handle, at least. ?

?

I don't know , I'm kinda used to the KennywTelejazz handle .

Some how I just can't get down with the idea of being called something different like KennyWLesterRock  ...Lester Jazz    or anything else  .

That forum will just  have to come out of the wood work and Kill Kenny like the TV show does if they want to silence me ...

 

Kenny

[craigb]

How about KennyWaCoolDog? ?

(Or, more likely, MiloWsomeOldFart? ?)

Edited June 4, 2022 by craigb

[mettelus]

On 6/2/2022 at 5:04 PM, rsinger said:

Dovetail joints are normally glued.

I saw this post and the same thing popped into my head. I "think" I saw you say you have seen it apart(??), so that must be one heck of a precision joint there!

Sans glue, there is another means for making wooden parts fit so tightly they will/should never come apart. Amish pole barns often used wooden dowels instead of nails. They were gotten in by drying them out so that they had to be driven in... once they absorbed water, they cannot be removed. Some machined fittings are similar, e.g., freeze plugs in an engine... put them in a freezer and you can put them in with your fingers.

*If* that joint was pulled apart by hand, I would glue it back in if it was ever apart (take pics first). Most glues sheer fairly easily, so you might be able to tap it apart with a mallet with something on the finish surface to protect it, BUT if it is sound, I would leave it be. Finish will act as glue as well, and that fret board seems to have no gap under it. Might be best left as a cool story.

Then again you could focus on the luck story... Lita Ford threw it at you in the middle of a road rage incident... it flew through your open back window and landed in the back seat without hitting anything but the cushion, right? ?

Edited June 6, 2022 by mettelus

[Grem]

On 6/5/2022 at 10:15 PM, mettelus said:

I "think" I saw you say you have seen it apart(??), so that must be one heck of a precision joint there!

I have taken it apart! I knew how to do it back in the day. I still remember what to do, but it doesn't seem to work. It maybe that after all these years it's just stuck in there. Living in south Louisiana, we have high humidity almost constantly si that joint may have swollen up like the dowels!!

I sure wish I had pictures of it, mostly to show how simple this joint really is. It is a precision joint, make no mistake. It fits in there tight, once it gets to that special place where is 'snaps in' or locks in.

 

@kennywtelejazz Went to the LP forum and posted there. Got a few hits but nothing much. On this forum here I have gotten more discussion about it than anywhere else.