Les Paul 1976 Custom

[kenNOR]

Hello! New to this forum,like what i C

Just bought this guitar. Dont know why but the paint is removed from the top. i didnt care.. PLEKd , new Jescar frets , new bone nut (PLEKcut). Other than this the guitar seems original.

Can anyone tell me anything about it? Did read some other thred regarding the 76 model. Funny history. One was really good, discussing the strange neck tenon Walrus10 found in his guitar, but the discussion stopped like BOoM! I have a different tenon than him.. same length but corners are cut 45º. Seems like an old body routed for long tenon.

I found a litle unconnected metal wire coming from the bridge. They must have forgot to solder to ground?

I like the guitar and its a real good player. Espesially after the PLEK , fretjob and bonenut. Ive never seen a neck this straight. Like an arrow.


Dont know if anyone can tell me anything i should know about it, but tnx anyway


Kenny

 

[jb_abides]

Welcome and congrats

 

[zacknorton]

that machine looks effin fantastic! LOVE a raw top Les Paul.

 

[gitmohair]

Yup, looks great. Got that awesome Ronno look It's from the time that particular mod was a tad popular too. What a great guitar

 

[gitmohair]

Oh, and "hello and welcome" btw

 

[Haaakon]

Awsome LPC! Is that the one that was for sale on FINN here In Norway?

 

[kenNOR]

Awsome LPC! Is that the one that was for sale on FINN here In Norway?

Hey! Yeah, and I guess u were the owner at some point? great guitar!

 

[seafood]

Great Guitar !!!! Really cool !!! Congratulations and have fun !!!

 

[Haaakon]

Hey! Yeah, and I guess u were the owner at some point? great guitar!

No, never owned that one, just saw it up for sale! Very cool

 

[kenNOR]

No, never owned that one, just saw it up for sale! Very cool

Aki. Funny cuz the dude i got it from bought it from a man called Haakon anyway. Yeah, im happy as f with this one. Tnx

 

[Midnight Blues]

Very nice!

Sorry, wish I could help, but congrats, HNGD

and play her in good health!

 

[Wilko]

IME, that is odd to see that tenon so late in 1976. It could have left the factory early '77 as the neck wasn't even glued on til Dec 1 at the earliest.

Every maple necked custom i've seen has no visible mortise in the cavity, and freehand inner rout shapes like these

 

[kenNOR]

IME, that is odd to see that tenon so late in 1976. It could have left the factory early '77 as the neck wasn't even glued on til Dec 1 at the earliest.

Every maple necked custom i've seen has no visible mortise in the cavity, and freehand inner rout shapes like these

Hello! Wow look at that. Ive seen a lot of photos online and in forums lately, every single neck connection seem to differ a bit - sooo.. I believe the stories are true that it was a mess in the gibson factories during the 1970s..

 

[GlassSnuff]

I've been meaning to pull my Custom out from under the bed for two days... maybe if I post I'll get motivated to do it.

I own one of two Les Pauls I know of that have maple necks and the large, "intermediate" tenons. The other, I think, is in the Netherlands. It seems they tried to use the same tenon they always had, but the maple didn't compress like the mahogany did and the necks wouldn't fit all the way in. My guitar needs the extra travel of a 'harmonica' bridge to intonate properly. So, they invented the "rocker tenon". It uses much less material and slips in easily.

I need to measure the mortise on mine, because it looks just like yours. And @Wilko is right. Yours should look very different.

 

[kenNOR]

I've been meaning to pull my Custom out from under the bed for two days... maybe if I post I'll get motivated to do it.

I own one of two Les Pauls I know of that have maple necks and the large, "intermediate" tenons. The other, I think, is in the Netherlands. It seems they tried to use the same tenon they always had, but the maple didn't compress like the mahogany did and the necks wouldn't fit all the way in. My guitar needs the extra travel of a 'harmonica' bridge to intonate properly. So, they invented the "rocker tenon". It uses much less material and slips in easily.

I need to measure the mortise on mine, because it looks just like yours. And @Wilko is right. Yours should look very different.

Hey! Tnx for reply. Would be nice if we could compare mortise and tenon / looks.. maby you just came upon the third guitar with this type of neck heck!

Mine intonates very vell, but i suspect it is an unoriginal bridge. I believe i read "made in germany" under the bridge when i re-strung the guitar. Or was it under the stoptail? I will take a look later today.

This pancake body ; is it put together from ome slab of maple (top) and one of mahogany (back) ? Where the paint is worn of on the backside the wood is so much darker than on the top?

 

[Wilko]

Those came with Schaller bridges made in Germany. Same with the tuners.

I’ve seen one other with the rocker tenon in an “intermediate” mortise like 69-75 style and was her at LPF:

Post in thread '1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom question'

Sep 8, 2023

The tenon area looks factory, though not Nashville Les Paul Custom. That would not be visible in cavity. May be very early maple neck, and it's missing made in USA and serial format is wrong for Nashville.

here are pics of '76 Custom I had: https://www.lespaulforum.com/index.php?threads/1976-les-paul-custom.165890/

• Wilko

 

[1allspub]

Cool and congrats from a fellow Norlin owner! That tenon is weird for 1976… just another example of the weird one-offs you find during the Norlin Era!

HNGD!

 

[GlassSnuff]

So, it measures 1 and 9/16 inches across the front corners of the mortise, just below the fretboard. If yours measures the same, then it's likely you have a '75 (or earlier) body with a maple neck.

What happened there was, early in the '70s they changed the order of the production line. Instead of routing the mortise, installing a neck, and then routing the pickup cavities, they routed both holes at the same time. That meant the neck's tenon would stick out into the pickup cavity. The old way, it was okay the tenon was too long, because the pickup routing cut it off. So through the early '70s, they cut the tenon short on a bandsaw and then inserted it. When they went to the rocker tenon in '76, it was not long enough to reach the pickup cavity, so they didn't route that deeply, as shown in the picture Wilko posted. That is, you could no longer see the tenon from the pickup cavity.

That wire is the ground wire for the strings. See if it will stretch to the back of the pot.

Most Les Pauls are a sandwich of maple for the top, and mahogany for the back. "Pancake" bodies also arrived in the '70s, and they have a thin layer of poplar(?) in the middle of the mahogany back. It's called "crossbanding", and it's a technique used in furniture making to make large table tops less likely to warp. Les Paul (the man) thought the resonating guitar was "stealing his sustain" and so this method was used to reduce vibration in the body. Les was wrong. So are all the people that think this was a "cost cutting measure". More materials and more man hours - a sincere effort to improve things. So was the volute. The "Nor" in "Norlin" dropped a bunch of money on the company. They weren't besieged by CBS penny pinchers like Fender was. The "lin" in "Norlin" was Arnold Berlin, whose father started CMI, the company that bought Gibson in 1944. Norton and Arnie went to Harvard together. Claims of a "take-over" are over-wrought.

Norlin was the biggest producer of musical instruments in the early '70s and if they had problems, it was fulfilling orders. Big Al and I sold the hell out of those Les Pauls, and Kalamazoo just couldn't keep up!

 

[Wilko]

In '69 they started crossbanding just under the maple cap. Added middle crossband late '69/early 70.

 

[Wilko]

In '69 they started crossbanding just under the maple cap. Added middle crossband late '69/early 70.