Pancake Body Reasoning?

[BillB1960]

Originally Posted by LoKi

I hear ya bro. My 12.4lb Custom is a neck/back breaker for sure, but nothing else sounds like it.

The less the body vibrates the more the guitar sustains, this is true. A concrete guitar would, in theory sustain indefinitely.
The reality is though, how much sustain do you really need? Most people haven't got a clue. Are you really going to hold a note for 4 minutes, or the entire length of a single song? Can't most electric guitars do that anyway? Most of the actual electric sustain comes in the form of harmonic feedback from an amp. If you want your electric guitar to sustain forever while unplugged... Well... You are a dolt.

Really?

Impossible Guitar: Concrete Block & Piezo - YouTube

Impossible Guitar: Concrete Block & Piezo - YouTube

[Progrocker111]

Originally Posted by bruce bennett

and if you want a story. call me and I'll tell you one.. I can't type all that crap here. 423-760-0618 cell anytime

Very interesting info, thx. Im from Europe, so the call would be too expensive, but thanks for offer anyway. You was the Gibson employee during Norlin era?

[Elrathia]

Originally Posted by bruce bennett

Norlin which was a Brazilian Owned Textiles Company really was out of their element in the guitar business.

I have never heard that before.. I thought it was an Equadorian Brewery..

[captain tightpants]

I think the brewery was part of their holdings. Gibson was another.

[Elrathia]

I am sure they had lots of holdings, just asking.. was it an Equadorian Brewery or a Brazilian Textile Company? The parent company that is.

[pmonk]

Probably explains why I want to drink beer when playing?

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Cookie-boy

At the time I was given the "spiel" that this new construction "enhanced sustain". Unless I was more pissed than I thought I was I can clearly remember being told by some idiot that the "pancake" held the note within the sandwich before releasing it!!!!!!

Cosmic!

I remember the same sustain story, I know it was much more labor intensive and expensive to produce the pancake body, even though there are many pancake haters out there. the pancake body has no adverse effect on the tone of the guitar.

[roodyrocker]

Originally Posted by BillB1960

Really?

Impossible Guitar: Concrete Block & Piezo - YouTube

Upper fret access on that is worse than on a Les Paul. Although, they did address the broken headstock issue by going to a Strat style. Its perfect for "Hard Rock"

Rudy

[Vincent R.]

Originally Posted by shtdaprdtr

how about this....bodies cut and intended for the SG..then they re-introduce the Les Paul in 68...hey lets use the leftover SG wood and save a buck.

it makes a sense...yep,maybe that's the truth and the main reason Gibson started to employ pancake body. why not?

Originally Posted by LoKi

Pancakes are heavy as lead but they sound great, and play like a Les Paul should.

i don't understand how a pancake body be heavier than a full mahogany one. maple is lighter than mahogany ...so did pancake LPs mount heavier mahogany chunks than non-pancake Era? Which kind of mahogany was heavier than Honduras' one?

[ttakala]

Originally Posted by LoKi

Don't forget, Norlin saved Gibson from filing bankruptcy. You can't take a business that isn't making money and start making money with it unless you cut corners somewhere....

Everything I've read suggests a few factors moved the to use multiple pieces of timber.

1. Smaller stock already used in SG's could be used. This reduced the cost of the timber and controlled inventory.

2. I'm certain marketing was involved in the decisions and they would have brainstormed how to spin the change to body. I'm sure someone said, if we put the thinnest piece of Maple in between we can sell it as a feature. If I just slap two pieces of timber together then the public will see it as cost cutting.

I work in a large company that does just this. If we're on a cost reduction project we need to figure out how it can be spun to the customer as having a Unique Business Value...UBV

Fortunately when you get the right people in the room from Marketing, Engineering and Production you can usually come up with a cost savings that's actually better than the original product.

3. Gibson was taken from being a profit center to being a cost center at their factory. This is significant. A profit center will just look at the bottom line of what profit is made. Any profits can then be reinvested into the business etc.

A cost center has a specific agenda to control costs and produce the product. If they need funding for one thing then they need to find justification or cost cutting from another area.

If you put this all together you get

Introduing Gibson's new Multisection Crossbound Les Paul. Not only have we given our customers an additional slice of Maple to enhances the tonal qualities, we've also make it look sexier and last longer.

BTW, I have a 72 and it only weighs in at 9lb even. Perfect weight. I got lucky

[Progrocker111]

Originally Posted by ttakala

Everything I've read suggests a few factors moved the to use multiple pieces of timber.

1. Smaller stock already used in SG's could be used. This reduced the cost of the timber and controlled inventory.

I think that the two mahagony pieces in pancake body are thinner than SG bodies. Les Paul body isnt 2 times wider than SGs.

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Progrocker111

I think that the two mahagony pieces in pancake body are thinner than SG bodies. Les Paul body isnt 2 times wider than SGs.

exactly that is the most stupid suggestion ever put forward

[ttakala]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

exactly that is the most stupid suggestion ever put forward

Nice to be called stupid. Don't be hating. If you dont have anything nice to say, i find it more constuctive to refrain. I didn't become an Engineer with 24 years of manufacturing experience to be called stupid.

I'm going off of what I've Read. 2 slabs/blanks of SG material timber are thicker in depth then a Les Paul. It's not difficult to imagine a process that then trims this thickness down. It's called a plainer.

I wasn't there at the time. I suspect no one here was. That being said, it's a possibility that would make sense to a material planner. Might also explain why there's such a wide variation in weight, with body thickness variations.

[ttakala]

Originally Posted by shtdaprdtr

how about this....bodies cut and intended for the SG..then they re-introduce the Les Paul in 68...hey lets use the leftover SG wood and save a buck.

Makes sense to me. Not a Stupid idea at all.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

exactly that is the most stupid suggestion ever put forward

I think you're being overly harsh here.

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by ttakala

Nice to be called stupid. Don't be hating. If you dont have anything nice to say, i find it more constuctive to refrain. I didn't become an Engineer with 24 years of manufacturing experience to be called stupid.

I'm going off of what I've Read. 2 slabs/blanks of SG material timber are thicker in depth then a Les Paul. It's not difficult to imagine a process that then trims this thickness down. It's called a plainer.

I wasn't there at the time. I suspect no one here was. That being said, it's a possibility that would make sense to a material planner. Might also explain why there's such a wide variation in weight, with body thickness variations.

the difference in weight is because of the different densities of wood used to make the bodies and the first pancake layer of maple was very close to the top of the body and not in the center of the body

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Elrathia

I have never heard that before.. I thought it was an Equadorian Brewery..

On Dec 19, 1969 Ecuadorian Company Ltd (ECL that was a Ecuadorian beer Company), ECL bought controlling interest in Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI) which owned Gibson. The new company was named Norlin. Gibson was Norlin's last musical company asset to be sold off, in January 1986

[Vincent R.]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

the difference in weight is because of the different densities of wood used to make the bodies ..

mmhmmhm imho wood could be less or more dense, yep but it'ld affected the weigh just a bit..not drastically,say, of a couple of pounds only maybe..not much more, i suppose. If that happened (e.g if let's compare a 9lbs axe than a 17lbs one) so that might mean the type of mahogany chunks were differents and came from different areas . Maybe real Honduras mahogany Vs. another one from other sites? I think it's a possible explaination about that much weight differences

[Who]

This topic was actually answered pretty well in the very first reply.



Which, BTW was almost three years ago, if anyone is interested in going back to page one.

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Vincent R.

mmhmmhm imho wood could be less or more dense, yep but it'ld affected the weigh just a bit..not drastically,say, of a couple of pounds only maybe..not much more, i suppose. If that happened (e.g if let's compare a 9lbs axe than a 17lbs one) so that might mean the type of mahogany chunks were differents and came from different areas . Maybe real Honduras mahogany Vs. another one from other sites? I think it's a possible explaination about that much weight differences

the density of the wood will effect the weight dramatically

when the Les Paul was first designed they intended to build it with a maple body and neck, but when they built a prototype the guitar was deemed to be to heavy, so they changed there design to a mahogany body with a maple top, Gibson started to dramatically increase the number of Les Paul's they were manufacturing in the 1970's and so it became more difficult for them to source the wood, supplies of the lighter mahogany they had used earlier had dried up at this point, so they had to use heavier mahogany.

[Vincent R.]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

the density of the wood will effect the weight dramatically

i thought density would can affect the weight just a bit ,expecially if the piece of wood (the body) is not very large (it's not a tree lol). So considering a little piece of wood as great as a guitar body, i thought that about 10 lbs added than non-pancake LPs was because of a different species of mahogany. 10 added pounds are not plumage, so i don't get it again, sorry.

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

when the Les Paul was first designed they intended to build it with a maple body and neck, but when they built a prototype the guitar was deemed to be to heavy, so they changed there design to a mahogany body..

i got it. i thought maple was lighter than mahogany 'coz i considered just only that 850kg/cu.m maximum pick value african one could own (w/0 realizing/notice minimum value is lesser than maple, and not mentioned hHonduras mahogany is lesser than both) ..so i was a bit confused, sorry. yep,so maple is usually heavier http://www.csgnetwork.com/specificgravwdtable.html

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

..Gibson started to dramatically increase the number of Les Paul's they were manufacturing in the 1970's and so it became more difficult for them to source the wood, supplies of the lighter mahogany they had used earlier had dried up at this point, so they had to use heavier mahogany.

maybe was heavier just only 'coz was african mahogany and not honduras' anymore? african one is more dense and heavier, isn't it?
i get the feeling they started using african mahogany (continuing to claim it was honduras one ). that'd explain that heavy added weight 70s LP own. it's possible. why not?

[ttakala]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

the difference in weight is because of the different densities of wood used to make the bodies and the first pancake layer of maple was very close to the top of the body and not in the center of the body

I understand the Densities of timber vary, but I can't see how it would double the weight of the body.

See the image attached.

The African Mahogany is the lightest, Spanish the Heaviest.

Now if the lightest Norlin made from Mahogany is just under 9lb, we'll call it 9 for the purposes of this post. And the heaviest is 17lb (that's what the other guy posted).

Now lets say the body alone weighs roughly 80% of the total guitar weight on the lightest guitar and 90% of the total weight on the heaviest guitar. I'm guessing here.


Then the following

9lb x 0.8 = 7.2lb (least dense)
17 x 0.9 = 15.3lb (most dense)

with African Mahogany at it's lightest density of 31lb/ft cubed and Spanish Mahogany at 53lb/ft cubed, that would mean a ratio of 1:1.71

with African Mahogany at it's lightest density of 31lb/ft cubed and Honduras Mahogany at 41lb/ft cubed, that would mean a ratio of 1:1.32

I'm assuming they switched from African Mahogany, which actually varied between 31 and 53, to Honduras Mahogany at 41. Either way you spin it the maximum difference in Density would have been The difference between African and African, the same as Spanish at its heaviest.

If I take a 7.2lb body x a ratio of 1:71 = 12.3lb

A 12.3lb body would make a 13.7lb guitar.

There you have it. The maximum variation, assuming all dimensions are the same would be roughly 9lb to 13.7lb. That's assuming the maximum variation in Density

I would also highly doubt the fluctuation in Mahogany didn't have a ratio that high. I'm thinking more around the 1:1.5 Maximum considering Honduras Mahogany was involved.

This would mean

7.2lb body x 1.5 = a 10.8lb body maximum

10.8lb body / 0.9 = 12lb guitar

So the range with all dimensions equal should be 9lb to 12lb.

This doesn't account for a 17lb guitar at all. The maple has a density that falls within this same range, between 39 and 47lb/ft cubed and therefore contributes nothing substantial to the equation.

There absolutely has to be differences in thickness. I'm going to post a new thread asking for pancake thicknesses from top edge of bind to bottom edge of binding and see what variations we come back with.

[Vincent R.]

Originally Posted by ttakala

I understand the Densities of timber vary, but I can't see how it would double the weight of the body.

exactly ,this is THE QUESTION (..the same ? i wondered for)

Originally Posted by ttakala

The African Mahogany is the lightest..

not. you're half right 'cos african mahogany gravity values range covers either the lightest value or also the highest one among all types of world mahogany: between 495 and 850 Kg/cu.m ..so maybe THIS is the key to understand the why some axes weigh a lot and others are more light

Originally Posted by ttakala

Now if the lightest Norlin made from Mahogany is just under 9lb

so i think would be made of Honduras mahogany (545kg/cu.m) [or also by african light mahogany (495kg/cu.m)]

Originally Posted by ttakala

And the heaviest is 17lb (that's what the other guy posted).

the heaviest axes might be made of spanish one or african heavy mahogany (850 kg/cu.m)
(More probable they used african one 'cos of Africa had greater abundance of mahogany resource than Spain)
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wo...sity-d_40.html


http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/chemdata/woods.htm

[TateTheGreat]

I thought it was because the supply of wood was harder and cost more to get so they went the other route.

[moff40]

Originally Posted by blakem

I actually think it was a tone and sustain expieriment for Gibson, because they put a thin peice of maple in the middle as well... I know my guitar not even plugged in just resonates better the any other electric I have ever owned..I think there may be something to it...the more mass the louder it is, take your guitar unplugged and push the headstock up against a door post or against a wood wall and strum it.. you can hear it amplify much louder...

That's simply because the guitar is transferring energy to the wall, making it vibrate like a speaker. It has nothing to do with adding mass to the guitar. I actually prefer my later-model Deluxes (with the maple necks and non-pancake bodies) to my '74 with mahogany and pancake.

[HOT-BRIT]

I remember it was promoted at the time as a sustain experiment for Gibson, which would explain the thiner layer of maple they placed just under the maple top, this layer started showing up in early 1970 right when Norlin took over the operation, it was not a cost cutting exercise as theses bodies were more complicated, they took more time and so were more expensive to manufacture.

[Vincent R.]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

..which would explain the thiner layer of maple they placed just under the maple top..

actually was not just under the maple top but it was placed inside the mahogany body which consisted of two mahogany chuncks (not more one)

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Vincent R.

actually was not just under the maple top but it was placed inside the mahogany body which consisted of two mahogany chuncks (not more one)

yes I know it was a pancake layer that was just below the maple top that appeared first in late 1969, later on there was a pancake layer in the center of the body and many also had also the pancake layer just below the top as well

[Vincent R.]

alright, i didn't know that: i thought the maple layer was placed just in the center over the whole pancake-era. so which year did they start to place it in the center instead of below the maple top...in '74-5?

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Vincent R.

alright, i didn't know that: i thought the maple layer was placed just in the center over the whole pancake-era. so which year did they start to place it in the center instead of below the maple top...in '74-5?

the first examples with the pancake layer close to the top appeared first in late 1969, then later in 1970 the center pancake layer appeared