A detailed look at a Chibson

zenzeypher

Rocker said:

If the frets were levelled, a new nut fitted and the guitar well setup, would you end up with a half decent instrument? Pickups and pots could be upgraded later if the guitar was worth upgrading. Anyone any thoughts on this course of action? It would still be a fake but if it could be made playable....

It very muchly could. I bought one for £40 out of curiosity, maple flame veneer, 3 piece back with veneer, I bought it to practice bits n' bobs on.

After seeing it was decent wood and not parcel crates I had it fret leveled by a very respectable guitar tech had a replacement nut sorted. After that i ditched all the plastics (which are flimsy and crap, even the pup surrounds) and replaced them with some spare Epi ones I had sitting about and it played wonderfully.

After that I fitted a Gibson bridge and saddles which I purchased from here (funnily enough the mounting posts went in snug with no alteration) and replaced the pickups with Gibson 500t setup from my old classic, replaced the pots with short shaft CTS pots, orange drops and a switchcraft input jack.

I was a fucking monster of a guitar, It sounded and played just as good as my 1996 Gibson Classic Gold top, even had the same short tenon.

A friend of mine bought it off me for the cost of the bits id put in (around £210 I think) and now its been on tour twice and used for studio album recordings now it has I believe some Zebra coil pups in.

however can't speak for all of em'

Wolfetone

I think this guy has forgotten that this guitar only cost £150! Solid mahogany, thick cap etc etc. It's a lot of guitar for the money and there was nothing there that would frighten me off if I was inclined to own one. I was expecting a ply body and tuners that self destructed on the first turn.

thermionic

I don't believe him when he says it's a) solid, and b) mahogany.

Even £450 Epiphones are veneered 4+ piece Lauan backs.

ICBM

I think most people think 4-piece counts as "solid" in the sense that it's not ply. The one I worked on was like that too.

People accept three-piece or four-piece Fender bodies as solid, so is it splitting hairs to say that four piece and a veneer isn't? I honestly don't know.

Or is a two-piece layered body with a thin veneer in the middle any less "solid"? That's how Gibson made them in the 70s! Most people don't seem to think of them as 'solid', but there are fewer pieces and joins than there are in a four-piece body with vertical seams.

All a bit of a grey area really…

But it certainly isn't a one-piece solid back, and the one I saw was certainly not mahogany either.

Antique_Guitars

nice tools!

thermionic

ICBM said:

I think most people think 4-piece counts as "solid" in the sense that it's not ply. The one I worked on was like that too.

People accept three-piece or four-piece Fender bodies as solid, so is it splitting hairs to say that four piece and a veneer isn't? I honestly don't know.

I would agree with you when you put it that way, yes. But they then misleadingly put a veneer on the back.

 

I have a photo somewhere when I figured out the seams of my Epi body, and another of the pickup cavity where you can see the joins looking very rough. I'll post it when I have time.

Danny1969

A friend of mine brought one of the kit Les Pauls from China. The pickups and electrics were dreadful but actual body and neck were fine. It's now got some nice pickups and pots in it and is a very nice guitar. Total outlay £250 

I'm less bothered by fake guitars than I am about all the fake electrical goods, a fake Gibson won't burn your house down. 

ICBM

thermionic said:

I would agree with you when you put it that way, yes. But they then misleadingly put a veneer on the back.

Interestingly there was a 90s Fender Strat Plus (US-made) in the shop today, which was - normal for these at the time - an unknown number of blocks with veneers front and back - easily identifiable on this one because the sunburst follows the inner edge of the belly cut rather than the edge of the body. It clearly is an attempt to mislead, because the veneers are always a much nicer wood than the blocks, and make the body appear to be a two-piece.

And whatever the 'block' wood is, it wasn't any good - it was so soft that the bridge posts had started to collapse forwards. This is not all that uncommon with these…

I'm not sure whether these bodies are thought of as 'solid' or not - in my opinion they aren't, they're little better than blockboard.

On the other hand Brian May's Red Special is made from *actual* blockboard and it sounds OK and hasn't fallen apart yet!

hobbio

That's Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars, for those that don't know. He's got tons of vids on youtube about luthiery, well worth a watch in my opinion. I'd love to have one of his guitars.