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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: Its a damn close to official as possible

5/18/2006 6:46 PM
Dave Stephens	Re: Its a damn close to official as possible Actually there WERE neck spaced pickups and there's a picture of on on the link Spence, which I've read many times. Wolfe is right about the covers and Seth Lover himself in an article I read in Vintage Guitar I believe said they used nickel silver covers and that they had problems with gold plating on those pickups which would dull the tone too much....

5/18/2006 6:46 PM

Dave Stephens

Re: Its a damn close to official as possible

Actually there WERE neck spaced pickups and there's a picture of on on the link Spence, which I've read many times. Wolfe is right about the covers and Seth Lover himself in an article I read in Vintage Guitar I believe said they used nickel silver covers and that they had problems with gold plating on those pickups which would dull the tone too much....

5/19/2006 7:40 AM
Spence	Don't be shootin' me yet.... That guy is wrong about loads of things but I should have mentioned that I was specifically pointing towards the pictures of the neck spaced bobbins/covers. That was one of the issues raised that I was addressing. Right, lock'n'load.........

5/19/2006 8:10 AM
Jon Gundry	I took a tour of the Heritage guitar factory a few months ago. Heritage is in the old Gibson plant and is run by old Gibson guys. JP Moats did the tour. He finished guitars in the white in the 50's Gibson. He laughed when asked about "Golden era Gibsons" he said that you would not believe the kind of mistakes that would make it out the door then. He said the only magic in those guitars is that they are now collectible. Heritage is I believe run as the old Gibson plant would have been. Every guitar through there is really a custom guitar in that and most everything done to the guitar is hand work. I have no problem believing that a wide variety of magnets would have ended up in PAF's. Magnet type would not be an important issue for a factory worker there. If it worked then it was good. The numbers were most important. If they needed 5000 magnets and could not get all A2 why would they stop production if A5 was available? The answer is they wouldn't.

5/19/2006 8:10 AM

Jon Gundry

I took a tour of the Heritage guitar factory a few months ago. Heritage is in the old Gibson plant and is run by old Gibson guys. JP Moats did the tour. He finished guitars in the white in the 50's Gibson. He laughed when asked about "Golden era Gibsons" he said that you would not believe the kind of mistakes that would make it out the door then. He said the only magic in those guitars is that they are now collectible. Heritage is I believe run as the old Gibson plant would have been. Every guitar through there is really a custom guitar in that and most everything done to the guitar is hand work. I have no problem believing that a wide variety of magnets would have ended up in PAF's. Magnet type would not be an important issue for a factory worker there. If it worked then it was good. The numbers were most important. If they needed 5000 magnets and could not get all A2 why would they stop production if A5 was available? The answer is they wouldn't.

5/19/2006 9:05 AM

Dr. Strangelove

Jon Gundry wrote:

quote:
"If it worked then it was good. The numbers were most important. If they needed 5000 magnets and could not get all A2 why would they stop production if A5 was available? The answer is they wouldn't."

Ssshh.

Some people still want to believe in magic.

They get angry when you try to disabuse them of their beliefs.

-drh
--

5/19/2006 10:19 AM
BD	It worked the same way for Fender amps. He would order transformers from different companies. They would have similar specs but would be very different. I had a long talk with Paul at Mercury Magnetics about it. That's why they are making so many different types of transformers for the same amp. Companies used what they could get. Look at the choices for a 50 watt marshall... If you call your supplier and he is out of something you use the next best thing. It's all about "money"!!! period. You have bills to pay so you have to get your product out to the stores, you have orders to fill. Anybody that has a growing business or works for one knows exactly what I am talking about. Even the U.S. Army does it. I had the worst M-16 when I was in basic training. It wasn't made by Colt. It was made by Harrington, Richardson. The top and bottom receivers did not fit well and the rifle shot poorly. I would have hated to have to use that in combat. They had Colts at my regular unit in Germany. Colt is run a lot like Fender when Leo had it. If you know about Colt you know what I am talking about. They have bins of parts and when they make another order they just use parts out of whatever they have in the bins. There are people who do the same thing with Colt rifles like the M-16/AR-15 they we do with guitars/amps/pickups and such. It drives them crazy trying to figure out what was made when and how. So when they(Gibson) ran out of A5 or A2 I'm sure the plant manager said just get some magnets so we can ship these guitars out. That was his job, not saying hey this is a PAF pickup and we only use A2 magnets and it's wound to 7.75K otherwise we don't use it. It goes into a bin and they get thrown out in the trash, I don't think so. I would think it was more like, it works, GREAT, ship it.

5/19/2006 10:19 AM

It worked the same way for Fender amps.

He would order transformers from different companies.

They would have similar specs but would be very different.

I had a long talk with Paul at Mercury Magnetics about it. That's why they are making so many different types of transformers for the same amp. Companies used what they could get. Look at the choices for a 50 watt marshall...

If you call your supplier and he is out of something you use the next best thing.

It's all about "money"!!! period.

You have bills to pay so you have to get your product out to the stores, you have orders to fill. Anybody that has a growing business or works for one knows exactly what I am talking about.

Even the U.S. Army does it. I had the worst M-16 when I was in basic training. It wasn't made by Colt. It was made by Harrington, Richardson. The top and bottom receivers did not fit well and the rifle shot poorly. I would have hated to have to use that in combat. They had Colts at my regular unit in Germany. Colt is run a lot like Fender when Leo had it.

If you know about Colt you know what I am talking about. They have bins of parts and when they make another order they just use parts out of whatever they have in the bins. There are people who do the same thing with Colt rifles like the M-16/AR-15 they we do with guitars/amps/pickups and such. It drives them crazy trying to figure out what was made when and how.

So when they(Gibson) ran out of A5 or A2 I'm sure the plant manager said just get some magnets so we can ship these guitars out. That was his job, not saying hey this is a PAF pickup and we only use A2 magnets and it's wound to 7.75K otherwise we don't use it. It goes into a bin and they get thrown out in the trash, I don't think so. I would think it was more like, it works, GREAT, ship it.

5/19/2006 10:20 AM
Steve A.	Plenty of horror stories about Heritage, too... Jon: I think that Heritage is making better guitars than Gibson these days, but they have had their share of problems as well. I believe it was in the mid-90's that many customers were reporting problems with the metal coating on the hardware flaking off and the factory was not willing to do anything about it. (Not a really big deal- just get an aftermarket bridge and tailpiece and be done with it.) I may be thinking of a different company, but I think that there might have also been problems with the finish on some of the guitars which was not covered by the warranty... I got one of their H-535's instead of a Gibson ES-335, and was very unimpressed with the Schaller pickups that came with it. (You could get a cool 1968 Ted Nugent tone from the neck pickup, but that got old after about 5 minutes. ) Funny thing is that when I called the local Heritage dealers to see what their customers were replacing those pickups with, I was informed that everybody thought that they were great pickups. Huh??? He laughed when asked about "Golden era Gibsons" he said that you would not believe the kind of mistakes that would make it out the door then. He said the only magic in those guitars is that they are now collectible. I agree that Gibson did make some clunkers, but they also made some really nice guitars. I think that Moats was referring just to particular guitars that should have never made it past QC... Thanks! Steve Ahola

5/19/2006 10:20 AM

Steve A.

Plenty of horror stories about Heritage, too...

Jon:

I think that Heritage is making better guitars than Gibson these days, but they have had their share of problems as well. I believe it was in the mid-90's that many customers were reporting problems with the metal coating on the hardware flaking off and the factory was not willing to do anything about it. (Not a really big deal- just get an aftermarket bridge and tailpiece and be done with it.) I may be thinking of a different company, but I think that there might have also been problems with the finish on some of the guitars which was not covered by the warranty...

I got one of their H-535's instead of a Gibson ES-335, and was very unimpressed with the Schaller pickups that came with it. (You could get a cool 1968 Ted Nugent tone from the neck pickup, but that got old after about 5 minutes.

) Funny thing is that when I called the local Heritage dealers to see what their customers were replacing those pickups with, I was informed that everybody thought that they were great pickups. Huh???

He laughed when asked about "Golden era Gibsons" he said that you would not believe the kind of mistakes that would make it out the door then. He said the only magic in those guitars is that they are now collectible.

I agree that Gibson did make some clunkers, but they also made some really nice guitars. I think that Moats was referring just to particular guitars that should have never made it past QC...

Thanks!

Steve Ahola

5/19/2006 10:45 AM
Jon Gundry	Steve, I think the QC standard at Gibson was not real high. Just from my own experience collecting old J-45's and J-50's I know that the sound hole varies as much as nearly 1/2" as to how close it is to the fret board. The ones with the sound hole too close to the fret board tend to belly up a bit more. Moats said that so many flat tops came back for warranty repair work that they would have been better off shipping every repaired guitar back to the owner with a $50.00 bill in it with a note to keep the $50.00 as long as they didn't send the guitar back again. I don't think pickups would have been immune to deviation from spec. any more than the guitars would have been. All of the current Heritage guitars seem to be top notch as far as quality goes. In the past they have had their share of dogs though. A big number of Heritages are made with Duncans now.

5/19/2006 10:45 AM

Jon Gundry

Steve,

I think the QC standard at Gibson was not real high. Just from my own experience collecting old J-45's and J-50's I know that the sound hole varies as much as nearly 1/2" as to how close it is to the fret board. The ones with the sound hole too close to the fret board tend to belly up a bit more. Moats said that so many flat tops came back for warranty repair work that they would have been better off shipping every repaired guitar back to the owner with a $50.00 bill in it with a note to keep the $50.00 as long as they didn't send the guitar back again. I don't think pickups would have been immune to deviation from spec. any more than the guitars would have been.

All of the current Heritage guitars seem to be top notch as far as quality goes. In the past they have had their share of dogs though. A big number of Heritages are made with Duncans now.

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