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Hi all,

Any ideas where I can get gibson j45 plans, 50s if possible

Thanks

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http://collinsguitar.com/shop/1957-gibson-j45/

Drawings also reflect spec changes throughout the 40’s and 50’s. Includes complete bracing profiles, fret scale chart, neck joint dimensions, neck profile dimensions and material specifications.

cheers

I got mine from Georgia Luthierie

Georgia Lutherie is a great place

It is interesting that the Collings company sells the J45 "plans". These may indeed be J45 plans, but I know for certain that Collings builds a J45 shape with Martin bracing inside. I've owned about 6 or so Collings guitars and I've been through their old factory and the new factory. I had a custom Collings made at the new factory and they told me that they don't like the Gibson sound, so they put the Martin dread bracing in their sloped shoulder Gibson shape. That does not mean the plans are wrong. I don't know if the plans are correct or not.

Ed, I understand that you might be thinking of « Collings » as in Bob Collings, but the seller of these plans is Collins guitars...

You are partially correct. I saw SteveG's post and thought he was talking about Collings Guitars, as in Bill Collings (RIP) Austin, TX - to which I was referring. But he linked to a different guitar maker with a similar name. So my mistake.

If you want to see some side-by-side pictures of an old 1953 Gibson compared to Collings and Taylor's bracing, go to this toot showing all 3.

viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=33657

I don’t know if you have ever contemplated buying the excellent set of books by Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet - Contemporary Acoustic Guitar, Design and Build. Great books in their own right; they include a number of good plans, including one for a J45. It is not the cheapest way to get a J45 plan, but you would get the bonus of the best books on our craft yet written.
https://goreguitars.com.au/main/page_th ... _book.html

georgia luthiers doesn't have a good customer service record and the plan is not accurate.

I have a J45 tracing off a 1950's J50
bracing is based off the Martin X braces location but shaped different
the shape of the braces are different from Martin and the inside is a mess with glue all over
they didn't do the clean up like Martin
The braces are more triangular the scalloping is much different. If you email me I can send you a pick of my bracing template
the braces seem to be about 5/16 at the bottom and angle up so at the top there is a about 5/32 flat spot.
the ends are rounded off instead of the martin style scallop the finger braces are higher and the scallop is starter about 3 inch from the edge with a that leaves a small section from the scallop to the end .

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Checking this post out I found that you can find detailed plans on older guitars. Violin and cello makers have poster from The Strad magazine that even have CT scans of old instruments now. They are great for studying the nuances of the different designs I have many of them, and just gave a half dozen to the MVA for their library. So finding that there are plans is cool; but looking at the photos of bracing that Ed pointed out; the first three look IDENTICAL to me. The Taylor is different; but McIntosh apple to Gala apple different; not apples to oranges. Then John Hall talks about what seems to be the EXECUTION of the bracing pattern, and general workmanship, not so much that the pattern is that much different.

Any instrument can have the same basic shape, and in guitars have the same bracing pattern. Isn't what John's talking about the work that the maker put into it to make it work the way that he wants it to work?

Is a good bracing pattern just a starting point, or do you think that the meticulous copying of the patterns execution will always create a superior result?

I really have no idea. I know that violins can have quite different sounds, and EVERYTHING that you do in the shape and thicknessing, and the setup can influence the way that it sounds and plays. I know the archtop I built has many notes that sound AMAZING, but some spots just don't have that greatness, and need to be pushed more, it isn't perfectly even. It's my first one, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, just something to learn to play on. I'm having enough trouble keeping my fingers out of the way of other strings!

What do you guys think? Bracing pattern, or what you do with it?

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Why be normal?

As stated, I have the Georgia Lutherie plans for a J-45which is a five page very detailed construction plan with building notes for a new builder. Years ago I took a "wall-hanger" 1952 J-50 apart and repaired/rebuilt it. While I had the back off I made an overlay, pin pricked the bracing pattern and took notes on the braces that were still there. There is a good deal of difference between the overlay that I made and the commercial plans including the position of the sound hole in relation to the "X" intersection, the angle of the finger braces, and the placement and angle of the tone bars, etc. It's also probable that Gibson has changed the overall plan for this model more than once. A good plan is definitely a big "plus" , whether you make it yourself from an existing J-50 or buy one as from Collins or somebody.

The J45 changed a lot over the years, so there can be plenty of discussion about what a "real" J45 is. The one we modeled our version on was from 1960. If you're actually looking for what, in our opinion, is the real J45 sound (rather than just a J45 look-a-like) the important thing to get right is the diagonal dipole mode of vibration. This is forced by having close coupled parallel lower face braces that are unscalloped. The main braces are all tapered rather than scalloped. If you do scallop them, the guitar basically turns into a dread.

The book uses the J45 as an example of how to build an X-braced guitar, so there is a lot of detail about how to put it all together and target the particular frequency response chart that a "proper" J45 should have. Yes, it's an expensive way to buy J45 plans, but you get 3 other plans as well as all the other good stuff!

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I have a 53 that I made my tracings off of

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

We had a number of 'Holy Grail' J-45 guitars (Banner plus a few months after that era; there are supposed to be pre-Banner J-45 and J-50 instruments, but we've never had one in that I can find in the work logs) in at Greenridge during the years I was there. All were scalloped and taper-braced, but using the Gibson bracing plan as distinct from the Martin practices of the time. The most accurate statement re: pre-1955 J-45/50 bracing is to note that both companies used scalloped and tapered bracing to achieve distinctly different outcomes.

Gibson used the rectangular bridge on the J-45 until 1950 (then the belly-up, and later, belly down designs), and did not transition to tapered (and later, straight) bracing until 1955, so the sound of those later variants of the J-45 are not at all like the Banners. Also worth noting that through 1944, Gibson appears to have used red spruce tops - sometimes four piece - with sitka tops and the reintroduction of metallic adjustable truss rods later that year. We have had customers that prefer the very different sound of a 1950's or early 1960's J-45/50 over the Banner, but from what we saw, the Banners are perhaps slightly less powerful than later variants, but ever so much sweeter sounding, with a wonderful mid-range that differs from the later 1950's and 1960's instruments.

There are major differences between Banner J-45's as to materials use, top and back thickness, etc., but once the factory work force began to be dominated by the women of Kalamazoo, the workmanship (no - that word is not gendered) seems a little better than early war years or the later years of the 1940's, and the guitars sounded to those working in the shop as more similar in character than they have any right to, given the hodgepodge of wartime materials used.

As to plans, we built several J-45/J-50 clones using tracings and specs from several instruments (a 1943, two 1944's, and a just-past Banner 1946)...the only production guitar that we have seen which represents a reasonable effort at a Banner J-45 is not in fact the Gibson True Vintage, but instead the Fairbanks. If you can find a Fairbanks or an original Banner, it is worth the time to closely examine the materials use, etc., and to pull tracings and measurements.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan