Recurve on a Les Paul Custom?

[aeronius]

Hello fellow forumites. After many years of not owning a Les Paul Custom, and with the current stratospheric cost of '68 RI, I've gotten the itch to build one myself. While I'm not particularly concerned about vintage accuracy, I was wondering if anyone knows if vintage Les Paul Customs have any sort of recurve to the top. My guess would be no, as it would extend into the rather copious amount of purfling. I've owned various Customs over the years ('78 Artisan, '88 Custom, '03 68 RI), and none of them had any sort of recurve. But as we all know the carve has changed a lot over the years so maybe it existed back in the '50s? Any insight will be appreciated.

Also, if anyone knows where #CS 0325 is (natural finish, 3 pc. maple neck with ebony fretboard) give me a holler!

 

[ARandall]

I cannot imagine why there wouldn't be the exact same recurve to the vintage Customs. Its was made in the same sort of way as every other Goldtop Les Paul but with more binding and more bling.

And every Les Paul build can only ever have the binding channel cut after you have done the carve, so not only does the recurve already exist and you are cutting based on the edge height. But also basic building technique should always be that you are always cutting the channel depth very slightly too shallow and scrape the excess back. That is what you do with every binding cut no matter where or what type it is.

 

[nuance97]

Yes if we are talking ‘50s Customs they have recurve. The template used in their duplicate carver was the exact same template used to carve Burst tops

 

[cmjohnson]

But, it looks to me like the recurve that was machine carved into the top often does not always survive the encounter with the worst of all machines Gibson uses in production, the dreaded slack belt sander, that infamous destroyer of contours and curves that was designed for flat sanding DOORS.

If I took over GIbson I'd take massive pleasure in taking a cutting torch to the slack belt sander and cutting it into flaming chunks and warning that anybody who even THINKS about replacing it with another slack belt sander would be fired.

 

[valvetoneman]

To my eyes they don't have a very big recurve, I've been up and close stripping a 55 custom for repair work and definitely no big recurve, you've also got maybe 5mm of binding which is a big rebate