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what i'm working on...

1952/1953 Trapeze Les Paul tailpiece upgrade.

10/21/2017

8 Comments

 
When the very first Les Paul was introduced in 1952, the degree of the neck angle was not properly set to account for the height of the guitar's maple top.
It is believed that the original design was without a carved top, and thus a Les Paul Junior style neck angle was used. However, leading up to it's release, it was suggested that a carved top be added.
My guess is that tooling had already been made and it was easier to mill the tailpiece bridge so that strings wrapped under?
This is truly a fact that puzzles me to no end. Especially when you consider that this was coming from a company synonymous with building such amazing instruments. The fact that they accepted this oversight for over a year and a half of production is truly puzzling. Not to mention the fact that the instrument's endorser, Les Paul, was known among other things, for his "Palm Muting" technique.

With this, the trapeze tailpiece bar had to be made in such a way that the strings wrapped under it to achieve proper action. A little over 1.5 years passed and the design was adjusted in two ways; a slightly steeper neck angle, and a thin eared wrap tailpiece mounting to two anchored threaded studs.

For years, countless trapeze gold top's were modified/converted/butchered to fix this issue.
The first time I saw one with a super thin retrofitted bridge was in late 2007 on Keith Urban's unbound '52 gold top, done by Nashville repair legend, Joe Glaser.
This style modification looks great and uses brass; however, is highly custom in nature and not readily available.

Enter the MojoAxe compensated top-wrap trapeze tailpiece. A fellow enthusiast, Dan of MojoAxe filled several gaps in the vintage guitar world.

Pictured below, are two tailpieces of their’s I use regularly.
The wrap-tailpiece on the left has a discrete yet effective milled ridge along it's length, allowing for greatly improved intonation.
The trapeze tailpiece on the right, lowers the trapeze assembly thus allowing the desired action to be achieved and more importantly, strings to wrap over the top of the bridge.

8 Comments
Andrés Forero
3/7/2018 08:40:48 pm

Hi is this available for purchase
What a great invention

Reply
Sorokin Guitars
3/8/2018 04:40:13 am

Hi Andrés,

This is indeed available for purchase.
Go to this site: http://www.mojoaxe.com and email the owner for what you need.
mailto:[email protected]

I order all of my compensates tailpiece’s from MojoAxe.

Alex

Reply
will dean
3/18/2022 04:00:04 pm

I have this, but the bridge moves from side to side with my palm on it. Any suggestions

Reply
Matt Morgan
10/25/2022 11:46:37 am

I had the same problem. Even when I upgraded to this bridge. Since I view my guitar also as a tool I made a tough call and had my luthier adjust the bridge to it’s perfect location and then drill a small hole under one of the two elevation feet (adjustments) so one of the feet would sit in a small impression so that it couldn’t move (mainly) from side to side. The alternative in my mind was to buy the custom trapeze that’s being made (can’t remember if it’s Gibson or someone else) that looks more modern and has more structure to it so it doesn’t distort its shape as easily ie more ridged. But I didn’t like the look of it and wasn’t certain it would achieve as solid a feel for me so I chose drilling the hole. 😬

Reply
William dean
10/25/2022 02:59:52 pm

That is a tough call. I am going to try an adhesive pad.

Jim Williams
7/26/2023 10:35:32 am

A small piece of soft plastic between the guitar body and the bottom of the supports keeps the bridge in place. I use a plastic covered cloth tape measure and cut a small square out each time I change strings.

Norris Neal link
10/18/2022 12:49:49 pm

With this, the trapeze tailpiece bar had to be made in such a way that the strings wrapped under it to achieve proper action. Thank you for making this such an awesome post!

Reply
Derek Blundon
5/15/2023 09:44:11 am

The best solution yet is what Johnny Skull’s guitarist Lenny “Legbone” Grunthauser did on his three ‘52 models…

When he has all the hardware off the guitar to apply the “bowling ball swirl” paintjob, he routs them for a Floyd Rose. The icing on the cake is switching out the old depleted 50s pickups with a DiMarzio active system, which also requires routing for the humbuckers and for the battery pack. I heard that in his first ‘52, he steamed the maple cap off it and routed the whole thing so that he could put a bunch of batteries in for long life (in parallel), but in the Oct ‘88 issue of Rip! magazine he told the interviewer it took too long to do so.

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    Woodworking, photography, and guitar are all major passions of mine. This site is the result of being able to combine those 3 things.    Hopefully my passion shows through every detail and step of the process. 

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