It’s Throwback Thursday so I thought I’d share some photos of the G&L factory when I was there in 1998 doing research for my magazine article about Leo Fender’s legacy. As a fan of Fender instruments (gasp, I know), the factory tour gave me a huge insight about how Fender Electric Instruments worked back in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was almost as if time had stood still there in Fullerton. Everything was done by hand as in the FEI years and some of the same types of machines were still being used! It was like a photo of the old Fender factory right out of Richard Smith’s Fender book. Now, of course, things are a bit different with a CNC milling machine and a PLEK machine being brought in.
I think the most advanced machines I saw there in 1998 were the automatic pickup winders (though some pickups were still hand-wound) and vacuum tables for gluing tops on guitars. The pickups were still potted in wax baths melted in electric cookers. The parts for the Dual Fulcrum Vibrato were, presumably, sourced from different vendors and were assembled by hand. I’ll bet a 3rd party does that now as it is very time consuming as you can imagine.
You’ll notice in the photo of shop foreman, Ed Sebest, demonstrating how a neck blank is pin-routed using a metal (sometimes Lexan) template that is screwed to the neck (that’s where the “beauty” mark on the back of the headstock comes from). Although Ed was giving a quick demo (he wasn’t wearing his safety glasses), you can see how this and other types of hand-work could be hazardous. The CNC machines remove the workers from these hazards and, theoretically after the capital expense is amortized, will produce necks and bodies more quickly and at lower cost, too.
I included a photo of me, Darth Invader, and my friend Tim Pershing with one of the first ASAT Jr.’s that rolled off the line. FYI, Tim is the foremost expert on Fender Musicmaster, Duosonic and Mustang guitars and has written articles about them. He thinks G&Ls are okay, too.
Now for today’s question: From a completely metaphysical and aesthetic point of view, does the method of instrument construction alter your perception of any aspect of that instrument in terms of quality, tonal goodness, value, mojo, desirability, etc.? For me, there’s no denying that G&L’s current instruments are very well made and are in some ways better than during the Leo Fender era (e.g. – frets and finishes), but there’s something to be said for nostalgia and perceived mojo imparted by all that hand work that’s hard to shake. The variation in pre-CNC hand-shaped neck profiles adds to the fun, though I can certainly see the advantage to digitally-consistent neck shape. The bottom line is that I love, love, love all G&Ls… well, not quite all - only the ones without s/n headstock plates.
Enjoy the pix!
GG
) With a Badass brand bridge replacement and a tune up that guitar was the cat daddy for about 3 years. Cool little guitars, maybe G&L could do a SC1 and SC2 with small MFD's similar to the Musicmaster / Duo-Sonic?
