Page 70 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

VINTAGE BENCH TEST

THE TRAPEZE DIDN’T DISSUADE THE

ORIGINAL OWNER FROM PLAYING
THIS GUITAR AND MUCH OF THAT

PLAYING WAS DONE WITH THE playing this guitar and much of that playing was done
with the original tailpiece in situ. The original plating
ORIGINAL TAILPIECE IN SITU has worn away across the tailpiece’s top surface and
you can see marks under the bridge where the strings
have cut into the metal.
Somewhere along the line, presumably when an
found the protruding metal parts uncomfortable and owner decided to fit a Bigsby, the bridge was changed.
obstructive. Moreover, the tailpiece had a tendency Holes were drilled for conventional stud bushings
to slide around if the strings were hit too hard due to and a wrapover tailpiece was added. Clearly this
the insufficient downward pressure. wouldn’t have worked with the shallow neck angle,
It’s hard not to feel like the guys at Gibson were so the bridge base was skimmed to drop the action to
out of their comfort zone when creating this guitar. a playable level. The aluminium tailpiece that came
Les Paul had plenty of ideas of his own and expressed with this guitar is vintage and most likely a pre-1955
them forcefully. Gibson was a fairly conservative thin-eared example. As a result of the skimming,
company and you imagine that some of the highly cracks have appeared in the vicinity of the intonation
skilled and experienced employees there would have setscrews and it would be inadvisable to re-install it.
been sceptical of the solidbody concept, or regarded At first, Rob used a relic’d B7 with the wrapover
Les as an interloper. While we doubt this meant that tailpiece but changed to a bridge of a mystery brand
anyone was trying to undermine the Les Paul guitar, (possibly a 1967 Teisco) that he mounted using the
this first incarnation’s various incompatibilities do Gibson tailpiece studs. As well as allowing individual
suggest that it was designed by committee. string intonation, the bridge’s most unusual feature is
side-to-side saddle adjustment. This proved handy, as
HARD ROAD whoever added the Bigsby had mounted it off centre.
So the trapeze compromises playability, but it Existing Bigsby holes were part of the attraction
certainly didn’t dissuade the original owner from for Rob when he bought this guitar, but he had

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