Official Luthiers Forum!

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Approved prototype template for Gibson 335 (Alex Lifeson model):


Production (68 of 300):


Officially, Gibson has not responded.

?

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Is it because you don't see the problem?

Maybe Alex Lifeson doesn't use the first fret much - that's why they put a side dot marker there in case he gets lost and forgets

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

That's 'cause he plays way up high on the tiny strings going: meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley meedley MEEEEEEEEEEE!

Strongbad reference, sorry. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail36.html

Well, I don't know about Alex, but I prefer my volute a bit closer to the headstock end of the neck..

Cal

_________________
Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

I think typical of the NORLIN era Gibson guitars, the volute was located in the wrong location. The weakness of the neck is a bit higher up the neck than that area. One thing to mentions is that your hand does tilt slightly when playing at the first fret. That volute is probably not as much in the way as it may look in the picture...though it does look way low on the neck/headstock.

I'll pull a few pics of NORLIN era gibsons just to peek at the location of the volute.

Joe

_________________
Joe

Anyway, this is coming out of the Gibson Custom Shop who claim to have 'created a painstaking recreation of Alex's iconic instrument'. Unfortunately, the quality issues I'm reading on the Gibson forum from people who have actually bought them, leave much to be desired. Not to mention that the neck isn't the same as his original '76.

Fmaj5 anyone?

Here is a pic of a 1969/70 small volute from Gibson. Notice how low this one goes too. It past the nut....

_________________
Joe

Here is a 73 Goldtop...the volute was softly reshaped by me moving it upward just a touch. It still was just past the nut

_________________
Joe

Warren,

Just to educate myself on this topic, what is different about the neck of the custom shop verses the real 76 he played? Is it just the volute or are there other things too? I have not looked into this model yet, but feel pretty educated on Gibson guitars in general, so any detail you can provide would be cool.

Thanks!
Joe

_________________
Joe

Did they actually paint over the side of the nut?

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

The only thing I'm aware of is the volute. One gentleman actually saw Alex's '76 and his personal prototype side by side and said they were different. Here's a volute from a '73 335:

Yes the tape off the binding and the lower edge of the nut gets a finish over it. That has been standard at Gibson for a long time.

_________________
Joe

Whoa! That one is much higher than I have seen. There must be an inch difference in placement between the C/S white one above and the original 73. Now that is huge! I did not think the volute varied that much in placement on Gibson from the 70's, but that one in your picture looks higher than others I have seen. So maybe they were all over the place? The gold top I showed is somewhere between the white C/S and the brown one you just posted. I think its right close to the nut.

Good info..Thanks!

_________________
Joe

I used to have my volutes a little further past the nut than I do now, but nowhere near that far in. Shifted them back because, well, it wasn't that comfortable to play/it felt better moving it further back, with the peak roughly at the front or even back edge of the nut, depending on headstock shape, angle, etc