Conference napalm::guitar

    
    1980 was a good `year' for LP's (Desrochers, Abatelli lets not start!).
    
    ;^)
    
    I mean, it was before that dreadful sale to whatever company Gibson
    went to after Norlin, so whatever quality Gibson had probably was
    still there.
    
    The Les Paul's in general have the same make up...ie maple neck
    (some have mahogany, these are nice!) maple top, mahogany back.
    The difference in make can be how many pieces your LP is. I had
    one...3 piece top, one piece back, there are three piece tops, two
    piece backs...then 3 and 3, or 5 piece tops and all the other combos.
    The necks are the same way...one piece, three, piece, 5 piece...
    
    As far as models go: 
    
    The Custom has binding on the top and back of the body, as well as the
    neck and headstock. 2 or three humbuckers, ebony fingerboard (or rare
    maple), block inlays. 
    
    The Standard has Binding on the top of the body and neck only. 2
    humbuckers, rosewood fingerboard. Trapeziod inlays.
    
    The Deluxe has the same specs as the Standard except for the pickups,
    which were the soapbar-type pickups.
    
    The Pro-deluxe also has the same specs as the Standard, but is equipped
    with mini-humbuckers.
    
    am I off on any of this??
    
    wjb

    Re: .1   Right on the money Buck!
    
    Re: .0  
    The Les Paul Gold Top's are real nice guitars. It's hard to say
    how many pieces Gibson used for the body, but all the ones I've
    seen had a single piece neck. Nothing wrong with that either! 
    Necks and backs were mostly mahogany. The tops? Good question!
    More than likely mahogany also, but who knows. I was told by
    "Les Paul's Grandson" that all the painted "Pauls" were mostly
    ones that had a fault in the actual wood grain, or in the wood,
    so they couldn't have a clear, or sunburst coat on them. I always 
    took that statement with a little grain of salt, but you never know!
    Like any Gibson, it should be noted that they are breakable. I owned
    and old Gibson EB-3L back in college that fell and broke it's neck.
    Ok..Ok... stop laughing! :^)  I'm not saying that they're fragile, 
    but care should be taken so that your investment (Paul's aren't cheap!)
    stays around for awhile.
    
    In short...the "Gold Tops" are good guitars! 
    
    Have fun with it! 
    Just put it back into the case when you're done!     :^)
      
    Fred-who-loves-HIS-Les-Paul-but-still-has-room-for-a-Strat-or-two.

    Yeah, in the mid 80's (83 or 84) Gibson under Norlin was sold to
    some company...I wish I could remember...I think it was a japanese
    co [Aria, maybe?].  Anyway, the quality went --+
                                                   | 
                                                   |
                                                   V 
    
                                                   X - splat!
    
    I remember a friend buying a LP custom, and having to send it back 5
    times before he got a guitar that was sutible. Actually, he still had 3
    pauls (hadn't sent them back yet) buy the time he got the 5th, so he
    took the good parts off of each and put them on the last guitar. I
    guess the workmanship on all the models was real shabby. Inlay,
    binding, and routing work suffering the most.
    
    wjb 
    

    
    Re: Customs
    
    I was under the impression that Customs were all mahogany (no maple
    cap on top).  
    
    

    
    	The Gold les paul sounds like the one I use to own..It is maple...
    Were did ya buy it???? Boy did I beat that thing!!!!( only kidding)
    
    
    
    		Brian

    Around '71 or '72 Gibson tried to sneak mahogany tops under the
    black finish on the LP Customs, but people complained and they stopped.
    You can tell what kind of top yours may have by removing the plate
    on the back and looking through the routed hole, although you may
    have to scrape some finish from inside the hole to check. Some LP's
    have a copper shield held in by the pots which would make this a
    pain. I remember reading this in GP mag a long time ago. I'll try
    to dig out the issue.
    
    Neal     

    
    Thanks for your replies.  I bought the guitar at Trader's Cove in
    Newport, RI (where I was living last year).  $550.  A friend of
    mine who knew the owner found the guitar for me.  The owner of the
    store had installed a thinliner type acoustic pickup into it as
    an experiment, and as I had played acoustic exclusively before with
    a lot of finger picking styles, my friend thought it would be a
    good guitar for me.  The acoustic pickup is used by pulling up the
    front bottom knob, and the guitar becomes a Les Paul again by pushing
    the knob back down.  The acoustic sound is kinda thin and doesn't
    sound really great through my Rockman, but its OK.  The electric
    sounds great, I didn't realize how much I loved the Les Paul sound
    until I bought the guitar.  I think it maple though, and maybe some
    mahogany, its hard to tell.  All I know is, its a -<HEAVY>- guitar.
    I don't know how I feel about the acoustic pickup though.  It could
    be useful some day, who knows?  I don't think it would be a plus
    if I ever tried to sell it, though (and I hope I never need to).
    Any thoughts?
    
    Dave
    

    re: .2  ...about the opaque finished instruments having flawed grain
    
    I thought it was pretty common knowledge that most guitar makers
    use the ones with really nice grain patterns for naturals, the not
    quite so nice for sunbursts, and the really ugly ones for opaque
    finishs.  I remember reading this about Fender a long time ago.
    It doesn't affect the guitars sound, it's just cosmetic.
    
    gh

    
    re: .9
    
    I gotta admit it is a funky thing to do (the acoustic pickup). 
    Bizarre is a good way to put it.  It makes me wonder if the guy
    who did it felt the guitar was a dog, and he'd experiment with it
    by putting this pickup on it.  I can't really compare, as its the
    only electric I've ever owned and haven't played hardly any electric
    guitars besides mine.  However, the thinliner sounds good for finger
    picking styles, but not so good for strumming.  I'll have to wait
    and find out what it sounds like through a nice sound system, my
    Rockman doesn't produce as good a sound as I'd like to get from
    it.
    
    Dave who admits he has an odd guitar but loves it nevertheless
    

    Bridge pickups (actually Piezo transducers mounted in the bridge)
    were optional on many guitars back in the late 50's & early 60's
    and were used usually in conjunction with the other pickups, to
    give improved tonal variation.
     
    I've added these to an occasional guitar & they seem to improve
    sustain a bit, it may be because the decay is less noticeable since
    the bridge vibrations are still there when the regular pickup is
    losing most of it's signal. In general, they really don't make a
    huge difference. National used this configuration on many of thier
    top of the line models (like the one Arlen Roth is holding, in his
    Guitar Player Columns). I happen to have some old National Pickups,
    and they need all the help that they can get (that's why they were
    removed & I have them) - them that look like humbuckers, but ain't.
    
    The Ovation electric acoustics use the same sort of pickup as a
    typical bridge pickup on a solid body electric.
    							Jens

    RE .2 , .10
    
    I also read in my Gibson History book that the practise of using
    'ugly' woods for opaque tops was SOP and saving the nice knarly
    maple for the sunbursts. As for it not having any effect on the
    sound, I don't know. I never really looked close at standards until
    recently, I'm in the market, because I always thought the tops were
    2 or three pieces and no more. It seems to me that a five piece
    top would loose alot of sound/sustain. Any time you glue two pieces
    of wood together you lose something. At least thats what I always
    thought. 
    Of course I also would have thought that the cleaner the grain,
    and the more closely matched grains would produce a better sound.
    Like on acoustics but some of those old gold tops sound mighty nice 
    though. And then again some sound like caca. Maybe those are the five 
    piece nonmatched flawed grain ones. 
    
    Anyone know more about wood resonance and the transfer of vibrations.
    Anyone got a theory. 
    
    Dave.

    > Anyone got a theory. 

    Yeah. My theory is that the appearance of the wood has little or
    nothing to do with the sound quality, especially in an electric.
    In the Luthiers' Mercantile catalog they comment that they charge
    more money for close-grain tops, etc., but that it isn't meant to
    imply that they sound any better. People pay for the looks. However,
    I don't want to get into an argument on grains in acoustic instruments,
    because it appears to be something of a religious issue with some
    people.
    
    As far as glued bodies go, I can tell you as a carpenter that properly
    glued joints are stronger than the wood itself. Since the main thing
    that affects sustain is density, I can't see how having the top glued
    up out of multiple pieces would affect anything. The only possible
    disadvantage I can see is that joined pieces may be more likely to
    separate under highly adverse weather conditions, like leaving your
    guitar out behind the garage during spring thaw, or playing it while
    you're taking a shower and then putting it in the electric dryer. 

    - Ram

    If you look at many of the 3 piece tops on Les Paul model guitars,
    you'll see that the paint often starts seperating where the glue
    joints are. This was not a problem on a lot of the older (1950's
    or 1960's Les Pauls), thou I'm not sure why (maybe dryer wood??
    - After all the guitars used to be made in Michigan & it does get
    dryer there in the winter, versus Nashville Tennessee, where it
    gets more humid). 
    							Jens

    There's a herd of Les Paul notes .. I gues this is as good as any.  I
    got a question ....
    
    I stumbled across a very unique (to me) Les Paul today.  Here's a
    description ...
    
    Gold Top  Custom with ebony fretboard, pearl inlays on neck and
    headstock (typical custom style).  The body is thinner than normal,
    about the thickness of a Studio model.  It's been fitted with black
    EMG's and black hardware.  It's supossedly a 1989 model and it's in
    *mint* condition ....  $800 with a big plastic case (nice lining
    though).
    
    I've never seen a thin body gold top Custom ... what is this thing ?
    
    Scary (in lust ...)

    The guitar you saw is a Les Paul Custom Lite and it is a standard
    catalog item.
    
    Danny W.

    What kind of money are they going for ?
    
    Scary