velorush

I didn't see the need.

Just installed the Callaham studs. Definitely locks the tailpiece down and there's no lean at all. Seems to be maybe just the slightest of difference in sustain / tone, but it was only $63 shipped, so certainly no harm done. Oddly (for Callaham) one of the studs required considerable thread chasing to get it to fully thread. I tried both studs on both inserts and the problematic one was problematic on either. A good bit of cleanup and a little oil seems to have gotten is worked out, but that's extremely surprising coming from a machine shop. Thanks again for the recommendation!

The thing I remember most about my Rockman was the loads of white noise.

Got about 2/3 through last night and enjoyed it very much - if nothing else, just gawking over all the guitars. Amazing, also, how many photos and videos of the early days were available. As I've explained to the kids, we didn't have a camera in our hands every minute of every day.

Listening to this as I work. Fantastic:

I have never seen that - absolutely amazing and explains a lot to me vis-a-vis Whitesnake. I went down the Sykes rabbit hole a couple of years ago on Spotify but never ran across anything I liked as much as that. By far my favorite rendition of that song.

Deer suck. Even fictitious deer, as this case may or may not be. Except on the grill (cooking grill... not the car or truck grill... then they definitely suck).

It occurred to me it might have gone this way: Gibson Employee #1: hey, have you seen the new Ibanez Fireman? Gibson Employee #2: nope, what's that? Gibson Employee #1: they took an Iceman, flipped it over, routed the back as the top and put a neck on it. Look! Gibson Employee #2: wow, that's really cool, and what a clever name! Maybe we could do something like that. Gibson Employee #1: Henry J would be stoked! Gibson Employee #2: exactly! Gibson Employee #1: what do we call it? Gibson Employee #2: we need something as clever as the whole Iceman / Fireman bit. Gibson Employee #1: absolutely. Gibson Employee #2: I know: "Firebird ZERO!" Gibson Employee #1: Brilliant! Henry J is going to be absolutely stoked! At least that's what went on in my head while looking at it...

That was exactly what I thought. I had no knowledge of the "Zero:" It's a reverse, reverse Firebird? Wow... weren't we just discussing guitars that make you ask, "why?" in another thread?

FIFY

Spectacular!

I was curious, too, as I know nothing of the geography. I used Google Maps to come up with this: That seems way too close for my comfort, but I just looked up YouTube and they posted a "Guitar of the Day" video just yesterday. Michael does mention them working with the community in the first bit:

I've admired them for years. If they'd make one with a baseball bat for a neck, I'd be all in. As it is, I don't think their thinner, albeit "ergonomic," neck would work for me at all. I really liked the Tele-esque one Keith at 5-Watt World had.

I saw that, but I'm remembering mine ('81) looking nothing like that. Mine were like this: Noteworthy due to the "Made in West Germany" mark. Are these maybe later 80's?

Agreed, but I love that color. The black one at Dave's seems a better deal. I am still struggling with leaving that one alone. Both are 8.4 lbs. Is that what they typically weighed? Seems on the heavy side of what I'd expect.

That voice! Seventy-one and STILL he has it! Amazing!

Would love to have one of those. Congratulations! The Bigsby'd 70's SG on the left is exactly the guitar I owned / modified / ruined in college. It was my first Gibson and the first time I spent $500 on a guitar.

According to THE BOOK (pp.152) the 25th Anniversary Model was an "all mahogany Artist without body binding, finished in cherry transparent with a small script below the headstock logo designating it as the Anniversary model. A very limited number of black 25th anniversary model guitars exist in the run, which ended in 1999." No mention of a burst, which lends credence to @BadgerDave's theory of a special one-off.

For me, it's just been an experiment about string tension. So far I like the lower string tension, but realize I'm likely only getting to play a total of an hour a week. That Lester pic, above, was part of an experiment to see why my old Howard Roberts plays so much better than the Lester (really, than any guitar I've ever played). I got out the feeler gauges and my machinist's ruler and went to town. I'm convinced part of the HRF's magic lies in the "fingers" tailpiece, which allows adjustment of break angle for each string. What I discovered was the Lester's top-wrapped break angle was actually less than the HRF (just eyeballing it vs. the picture in my earlier post). The problem had to lie somewhere else. Through measurement I discovered the problem (and this seems to be a persistent complaint on this generation of Gibson Plant guitars): too much relief. I tightened the truss rod and it is amazing how much more compliant the strings became. So much so I was able to lock the tailpiece down to the top (slop in the stud-to-tailpiece-connection-resulting-in-the-forward-tilt, not withstanding). Eyeballing the Callaham setup right now. I really really like their Strat bridges.

Ooh! Very interesting, and frugal (compared to the various booteek tailpiece lockdown engineering schemes). The tailpiece on my Lester has a 20-degree-ish forward slant using the stock Gibby studs. How badly did the tailpiece crush into the top? Definitely put the ball ends from the prior set on before stringing up as top wrapping without puts the ball-end winds exactly right coming over the tailpiece to make them extra stabby! ETA: This was while getting the relief set correctly. The tailpiece studs are now tightened down, but the tailpiece still has that tilt due to the difference between the stud inset and the thickness of the tailpiece.

Are we talking top wrap or replacing the Nashville with a stop tail? Pretty much any flavor (zinc, aluminum, titanium) will work for the former. Everything I've ever read about the latter is that it shouldn't be done without a change in the studs as the Nashville studs aren't designed to handle that kind of lateral stress (they'll tilt toward the nut).

Interesting they were visible to some initially. I can't even get the images by clicking the link - sometimes when this happens (FB, for example), I can click the link and get the image in a window. Either way, congratulations! The description sounds amazing!

Perfect size for Hafþór Björnsson. He should buy it and put it away for a retirement hobby.

I thought Ted Templeman's book was outstanding. Not Van Halen specific, of course, but included many insights from his perspective. Likewise, Sammy Hagar's book was interesting in its Van Halen insights. I've also enjoyed many of Drew Dempsy's ("Roundtable") YouTube videos on Sunset Sound, many of which were centered on Van Halen.