Gibson Explorer measurements

[JAMESAK51]

Hello all!!
I posted this on the Gibson forum but haven't gotten any replies so I thought I'd post it here as everyone has always been very helpful here. If anyone here has an explorer with a tuna-matic bridge/tailpiece I would really appreciate a few real quick measurements!! It's an older explorer that I've been having some intonation issues with. I measured from the nut to the 12th fret and got 12 1/4". Shouldn't it be 12 3/8" seeing as it's a 24 3/4" scale? It appears that a previous owner changed the bridge and tailpiece at one time and who knows what else. My measurement from the nut to the center of the high E bridge post is 24 5/8" and the same measurement to the low E post is 24 3/4". I'd really be grateful if anyone here with an explorer could check these 3 measurements!!! Thanks in advance for any help!!
Best wishes!!
Jim

[lhrocker]

I would think that that measurement from the nut to the 12th fret should be slightly shorter than the 12th fret to the bridge. As the string is above the frets, once you fret the string, you are stretching the string, therefore once the string touches the fret, the two measurements would be closer to being equal.

Or maybe not...

I'll check the measurements of my explorers when I get a chance and post what I find for ya.

[JAMESAK51]

Ah, I see what you're saying!! It'll be interesting to see what your measurements show. Thanks for your reply Ihrocker, I really appreciate it!!
Jim

[DonP]

Gibson actually had three or more "short scale" lengths. I think the current one is less that 24 3/4". I don't have an Explorer to measure (Pete has the Blue one), but I'd say don't be jumping to conclusions. Why would somebody mess with the bridge? There's been a few dorks on MyLP or LPF that wanted to put a Nashville bridge on a Classic that came with an ABR-1 against what everyone told them, but that's few and far between.

[JAMESAK51]

Hi Don, thanks for the info. I just wanted to check some of the measurements that could cause any intonation problems. I remember back when I got this that the guy at the guitar shop said something that the guy who traded this one in changed the bridge/tailpiece because it had some type of trem on it and it was refinished when I got it. I refinished it a couple of months ago and did see that there where some holes plugged with dowels so who knows what changes this thing has been through.I just want to make sure that the placement of the bridge is correct if it was changed.

[lhrocker]

Hey Jim - I measured my 3 explorers, 1984, 1991 and 2006 and they all measure 12.25 (12 1/4) from the fret to the crown of the 12th fret.

What year is your explorer. You said that it had trem? If so, do you see the route for springs on the back? If not, and it did have a trem, then it was probably a Gibson Kahler from the 80's. If you have the Serial number of the guitar (1st and 5th digits, if it has 8 digits), then that will determine the year built and what kind of trem it may of had. Unless the person who did the fill/refinish was really an expert, you should see the outline of the trem that was filled on the body.

Best of luck, and pictures are always nice...

[ulijdavid]

You have to be careful with Gibson. As Don P stated, Gibson has a couple of different scale lengths that are "Close" to 24.75" that they refer to as 24.75". But, I think most of the oddball scales are on the older guitars. I have a couple of 1981 Vees that are 24-9/16". Very small difference. If you are trying to measure with a standard ruler, you will probably not know the correct scale for sure. I have also seen a lot of Gibsons that won't intonate. This is primarily due to the factory set-up jigs and the limited adjustment from the ABR bridges. If you are just a "hair" out of perfect intonation, you may want to get a new aftermarket bridge with longer saddle adjustments. If the nut has been replaced, the placement of your "zero" fret may also have moved enough to throw off your intonation. Many things to check. Good Luck!!!

[JACKSONFREAK]

You can also flip the saddles around to give ya a bit more adjustment room.
The nut slots may also be wrong depths which will also throw intonation off. Gil

[JAMESAK51]

Thanks for the replies and info guys, I really appreciate it!!!

[JAMESAK51]

Hey Jim - I measured my 3 explorers, 1984, 1991 and 2006 and they all measure 12.25 (12 1/4) from the fret to the crown of the 12th fret.

What year is your explorer. You said that it had trem? If so, do you see the route for springs on the back? If not, and it did have a trem, then it was probably a Gibson Kahler from the 80's. If you have the Serial number of the guitar (1st and 5th digits, if it has 8 digits), then that will determine the year built and what kind of trem it may of had. Unless the person who did the fill/refinish was really an expert, you should see the outline of the trem that was filled on the body.

Best of luck, and pictures are always nice...

Thanks a million for checking you measurements, I really appreciate it!! From what I remember the guy said that the trem that was removed was a cheap aftermarket surface mount. As far as serial numbers, they're gone, the numbnut that did the first refinish destroyed them, probably by sanding too deep or whatever. I got it back in the late 70's or probably very early 80's. For some reason this guitar has seen some changes so I really don't know what was original and what's not. I'd really like to check the bridge placement if I could get some nut to bridgepost measurements from you, I'd really appreciate it!! I'll get some pics up hopefully later tonight. I did a complete refret on it and refinished it in about 14 coats of nitro, that was a never ending process. Thanks for your help and I'll get some pics as soon as I can!!

[JAMESAK51]

You have to be careful with Gibson. As Don P stated, Gibson has a couple of different scale lengths that are "Close" to 24.75" that they refer to as 24.75". But, I think most of the oddball scales are on the older guitars. I have a couple of 1981 Vees that are 24-9/16". Very small difference. If you are trying to measure with a standard ruler, you will probably not know the correct scale for sure. I have also seen a lot of Gibsons that won't intonate. This is primarily due to the factory set-up jigs and the limited adjustment from the ABR bridges. If you are just a "hair" out of perfect intonation, you may want to get a new aftermarket bridge with longer saddle adjustments. If the nut has been replaced, the placement of your "zero" fret may also have moved enough to throw off your intonation. Many things to check. Good Luck!!!

Good call!! I'm guessing the nut was probably changed too at some point!! I got this guitar a long time ago as kind of a project guitar and that's really what it's turned into now that I'm really getting at it!!! I did play it off and on the way it was for a few years and just kind of parked it because of the work that it needed, like the complete refret which I finally finished a little while ago.

[JAMESAK51]

You can also flip the saddles around to give ya a bit more adjustment room.
The nut slots may also be wrong depths which will also throw intonation off. Gil

Thanks Jacksonfreak!! Flipping a couple of saddles would probably give me enough to get the intonation where it needs to be. I'll have to reslot them though because the slots really aren't centered on the saddle but that's no big deal!! Thanks for the idea!!!

[JAMESAK51]

Here are some pics guys, my refinish turned out really nice but I couldn't get it to show up too well in the pics. I haven't posted any pics here in a while so I hope I did it right!!
[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]