ES archtop 'sag'

[BillyB]

How common is it? How bad can it get?

I'm thinking about '40's + '50's archtops like the ES 350 and ES 5 - I would imagine that ply tops are more susceptible??


thanks

BB

 

[Troels]

How common is it? How bad can it get?

I'm thinking about '40's + '50's archtops like the ES 350 and ES 5 - I would imagine that ply tops are more susceptible??


thanks

BB

erhhh sorry what is 'sag' ??? and ...erhh...more susceptible to what...???

 

[tuberide]

Top depression at the bridge....seen it on a 175 and a 330.

 

[Leña_Costoso]

You get: Sag at the bridge, and you get the neck shifting as well (ie, rising tongue syndrome - so called but really rising neck...), and to top it all off, you get braces coming loose as well.

Friend of mine, makes his (rather good) living by playing to his midi arrangements (jazz and standards). His early 60's L5ces lost two braces, and needed a neck reset - to the tune of $800. The braces fixed most of the top problem. Ya know... these are wood, and under 175-190lbs of string pressure (yes he plays roundwound 13's). Given time, its not a matter "if" but "when"

 

[BillyB]

Troels - sorry, my terminology may not be 100% here. Anyhow, as has been said, I define 'Sag' as where the top of a hollowbody guitar starts to dip right at the bridge point due to string pressure over a long period of time. I 've heard it's not uncommon - although I (up until today) believed that ply constructed archtops suffered from it the most.

Capiche?



So spruce tops eventually give way too?



Bang goes my idea of getting an old archtop.......

 

[Wilko]

It's not common at all and not a real concern except in the rare case of a guitar that is in a bad climate area and not properly cared for in regards to humidity and temperature shifts.

They will almost never "sag" just around the bridge because the tops are pretty ridgid. The braces hold them very well and if the guitar is left in too much heat a brace can get pulled loose by the top pressure.

 

[j45]

Yes spruce tops give way,too. I've seen it in a few Byrdlands, I had a Tal Farlow (plywood) with the top sinking at the bridge, as well as many other archtop models. Seems like ES-5's especially seem to be prone. Like Leña above I had a friend that had a 1959 L-5 that had to have a neck set from the top caving in at the bridge. A good place to see sagging tops is at guitar shows. Walk around and look at some of the more neglected looking guitars dealers are trying to move and you'll see a few for sure. There are more out there sagging than you think. Even in some that appear to be well kept and clean. Sometimes it's hard to notice because they will adjust to play just fine but when you view from the side compared to a similar gibson that hasn't sagged you'll notice the "arch" has begun to flatten out a little. I once saw a beautiful Byrdland N ad the top had buckled so bad at the bridge the neck twisted about 20 degrees from the plane of the body when sighting down the headstock. Pretty sad. Set a guitar under the bed for 30 or 40 years with a set of heavy guage strings tuned to pitch and you've got a good recipe for guitar that will begin to buckle at the bridge.

 

[Troels]

Troels - sorry, my terminology may not be 100% here. Anyhow, as has been said, I define 'Sag' as where the top of a hollowbody guitar starts to dip right at the bridge point due to string pressure over a long period of time. I 've heard it's not uncommon - although I (up until today) believed that ply constructed archtops suffered from it the most.

Capiche?



So spruce tops eventually give way too?



Bang goes my idea of getting an old archtop.......

Yes... I understand now... my very own 330 has dropped about 3,5 mm in 47 years... but still I believe that different levels of sag also has to do with choice of string gauges over the years... anyway, 330 has a much bigger end neck block than say a 175 - so I've never heard of neck problems with this type of neck attatchment as opposed to ES 175 (and other boig bodies) which is more flattoplike when it comes to the neck block. The inside surface of the 330 top has the same spruce reinforment as a 335 (but no center block of course) and the top is actually very stiff. It stays nicely in tune from say day to day (but not like a Tele which you buy tuned... and there it stays ) The ES 175 and others have two long pieces of spruce as reinforcement - to make better acoustically properties (and softer tops...).
I don't like the idea of putting sound posts in a 330 - but I finally did to my own - not because of sound improvements but to stop further top sinking. It did calm the guitar accousticly - but only a bit - but when played electrically there's no hearable difference (which means that at least I can't hear any difference). My posts are a bit bigger and squared of compared to real sound posts - and now qualify the guitar to be something right between a 330 and 335... The posts DO NOT put the top/back under pressure - they are set in almost neutral... if you understand. It wasn't prone to feed back before this operation - but now it's almost nonexistant...

BTW top sinking is completely unknown in the violin world - because of the sound posts in these instruments...

 

[Walter Broes]

I've seen a P90 ES350 (pre-T) with a badly sagging top, and a friend of mine has a 50's ES295 with a sunken top.

 

[Elliot Easton]

I wonder why it's more common with ply tops than spruce? Wouldn't ply be stiffer?

 

[plaintop60]

I wonder why it's more common with ply tops than spruce? Wouldn't ply be stiffer?

It's more common with ply than with carved tops because the structural integirty of a carved block of spruce is better than the plywood ones. The guitars where top sag is most prevalent are pressed or bent single ply tops. Also on some Gibson ES models such as ES 175 which were made in Memphis, rather than cut and sand the tone bars to match the underside of the top contour before gluing, Gibson chose to cut kerfs into the glue side of the brace and use the clamping pressure to make the brace conform to the top. The remaining thin strip of wood left in the brace where the kerfs are then breaks under pressure, especially if the guitar gets knocked or dropped during use. This results in the top sagging and eventually collapsing.