QUESTION

I am doing a restoration and i see that you sell vintage guitar parts. I am looking to buy a jack plate for my guitar and I see there are many repros out there and I saw a few at a recent guitar show that were aged and look real how can I tell

REPLY

Thank you for e mail and yes that is a real problem these days there are companies making incredible repros and makes all our lives that much harder. I always say this but must repeat it buy from someone who will guarantee and stand behind what they sell you if they say no refunds as is run there is a problem.

Ok the first trick taught to me by the Jedi master uncle lou years ago was hold the jack plate up to the light and if you can see the shadow of your finer through the plastic its fake  real plates are not translucent . I have seen some of the best repros made by a company retrospec and they look to be the best and even they cannot pass this test . The ones from retrospec on a guitar are impossible to tell so be careful!!!!!

Real burst jack plates were stamped out not cut with router. some of the great repros you see today are cut with routers. The reason is because two years ago some original  rolled plastic was found in warehouse that was for making these jack plates out . i assume it was too brittle to stamp out so what they did was cut jack plates out with a router and did an excellent job i will say and so these were flooded onto the market and are really hard to tell because the plastic used was now old stock!!!!

The argument of thin verses thick is a useless one as far as i am concerned. the earlier ones were thinner yes   and the 1958 1959 were a hair thicker and i mean barley thicker. But i have seen mint 1958 goldtops with thinner jack plates let m tell you Gibson never threw anything out and once and  a while i am sure old stock was found and used. First worry about if it is real or not then if you cant sleep at night look for the thicker or thinner one you need.

I will be glad to look at an evalutate any you have for free or can give you a number of someone who swill for you if you are not sure. Just by following the few things i mentioned you shoudl be fairly safe. If you need more help contact me at  the parts drawer and i will answer all e mails within 48 hours

JIM PASCH

ji pasch

Due to the massive inquiries lately on a  black light I re ran this from our other website so all can read this popular post.

QUESTION

What do they mean when they say does it black lite ?? I just bought a vintage guitar and want to check my parts out to see if they are real.

REPLY

Thank you for the e mail. Great question not a simple answer. Vintage guitar plastic should glow a certain color when exposed to a black lite in the dark. This is very obviously if you have new and old parts side by side to see the difference it is like night and day. But if you have only the vintage parts to test basically here is what it will  look like.

Again color is subjective to each person so i think it looks like a fluorescent yellowish color with a bit of green to it. But i have seen parts black lite more whitish and more unique tones than i can describe . basically they should jump out!! at you under a black light and really stand out. The newer parts change color but do not jump out at you. If you are still not sure borrow a knob from your friends new guitar and put the new and vintage parts side by side you will see right away.

Now another note ! all parts do not black lite the same color or at the same intensity. knobs and such black lite strong as do guitar tuner tips. pickguards are not as strong but they will react under black light. Do not panic if you see your knobs black light different from you knobs this is normal!! the same goes for finish but that is a real complicated story we will touch on at a later time.

There are fakes out there and people as we speak are trying to develop new parts that are aged that black lite so this is for now a fairly safe test but it will not be long until some idiot will figure it out and ruin it for everyone.

If you are still unsure you can send us parts and we Will evaluate them for free no charge you just pay shipping both ways.

Thank you again for your question

Jim pasch

The Parts Drawer

QUESTION

I just inherited 3 vintage guitar from my father. I went to have them appraised and my father had custom truss rod covers made with his name on them . What are the correct truss rod covers for these 3 guitars. One is a 1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop , the second is a 1959 Gibson Les Paul jr and teh third is a 1958 Gibson Les Paul gold top with the big pickups . any info you give me would help greatly

REPLY

Thank you for your e mail I will go over the various truss rod covers that were found on vintage Gibson les paul guitars for you. again i am going by what you told me i have not seen the guitars so by the information you gave me i will tell you teh correct one

The first Gibson Les Paul standards which were in gold have a truss rod cover 2 ply black white black material. there was no name or model on these cover. These early covers had fine lines or ripples running horizontally across cover only seen upon close inspection called roll marks  and are  back is white. these have a wide bevel or white border around them compared to the new ones. The Les Paul customs has the words Les Paul custom in script on the cover. the script is finer than the late 1960′s Les Paul customs

The next version on on the 1957-1959 les paul standards both goldtops and flametops were basically the same . Again the Les Paul customs bear the same script and wording on the top of covers. By 1960 the truss rod cover looks exactly the same but there will be no lines visible in the plastic . 1960 was a transition years for Les Paul’s in the fact that several features changed on the Les Paul including some of the plastic parts so this an important thing to remember

The 1954-1960 Gibson Les Paul jr. truss rod covers are totally different they are one ply black plastic . they look and feel very cheap as would be expected because these were basically student guitars. they have no ripples in plastic and are very hard to describe except that eh plastic is a bit thinner on the original ones than the repros I have seen today

Finally one model you did not mention but I will mention is the 1960 -1962 gibson Les Paul sg model. These just have the words Les Paul in script on the covers and agin it is a two ply with a wide white bevel .

I hope this helps o make sure you can e mail me pictures at THE PARTS DRAWER and i can tell you exactly what ypu need

JIm Pasch