|
Current
Owner: Danny W.
Current Location: Phoenix, AZ
Original Owner: Yes
Purchase Location: Gibson Custom Shop
Alterations:
None
JA 187 is a beautiful right handed JA with a Bigsby in Sunset Glow. It is
also the first JA I have seen on the JAR with antiqued Bound F-holes.
Here's what Danny W. has to say about his new guitar.
I’ve been playing
17” hollow bodies (Gibson L-5) and 16” semi’s (Gibson ES-355) since the
early ‘60’s. I use the big archtops for sit down jazz gigs and the 355’s
for stand up rock and pop gigs. As I get older, I’ve been moving towards
smaller and lighter guitars. A few years ago I decided that standing for a
couple of hours with a 355 was really tiring, so I had Gibson make me a
Custom Shop CS-356, in faded cherry with bound f-holes. It turned out so
nice that I soon sold almost all my 355’s and bought another 356 in
antique natural.
I don’t use this type of guitar much now, since I mostly have been playing
jazz, but when I do, I really notice the difference in scale length
between it and my archtops. Gibson has always used the shorter scale for
their solids and semisolid guitars, so this has always been a bit of an
issue for me. When I saw the announcement for the Johnny A, it looked like
it would be the best of both worlds. At the 2004 Winter NAMM I had a
chance to play the guitar and chat with Johnny A about it. A few months
later I ordered one from the Custom Shop, with bound sound holes and a
slim taper neck, since I found the Johnny A profile a little deeper at the
nut than I like on this type of guitar. I also had a bound pick guard
quoted, but after seeing the price, decided the laminated one was fine.
It took much longer than the estimate, and when the guitar arrived I
immediately found a serious problem; there was a flat spot in the neck at
the 10th fret, and the neck seemed too deep to be a slim taper profile.
To Gibson’s credit, they arranged for return shipment and agreed to
reshape the neck. There were also a few minor cosmetic problems I asked
them to fix.
This took awhile too, but in early January it came back and was virtually
perfect this time. Exemplary neck shape, excellent setup, cosmetics fixed
and it even had the strings I had specified (.011” with wound third). The
only things I had to do was tighten the Bigsby arm and drop the action a
bit (I set it to about .050” at the 12th fret). It looks great, plays
great and sounds great! I love having a small guitar with long scale. Once
I tightened the Bigsby arm, it works flawlessly. The fretwork is perfect,
too.
The are a couple of small details that I would have probably have had
quoted if I had thought of them. I would have liked the edges of the
Florentine cutaways to have binding, as on a Kessel or Florentine L-5. I
would have also liked to see multiple binding on the neck edges. Still,
the guitar as delivered is quite beautiful, with outstanding woods and a
beautiful burst. Time to order another one in either faded cherry or
antique natural.
|
