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Gibson Futura and Ugly Duckings


NancyJohnson
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I think the slimmer waist and the sharper angle on the vestigial top cutaway makes for a more purposeful beast than the Explorer. Also, the whole thing looks more 1950's.

As for an awkward headstock the mythical Moderne takes the biscuit, IMO. Look at those string paths...

98883-ebe822b9ecd1ea6df3940577af949c0c.j

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I think the Flying V, Explorer, Moderne and Futura were all designed in the 1950s, which says a lot for the design team working then, compared to the one working now.  (TH I'm not certain whether Gibson have a design team anymore.)

I've seen photos of Explorers with the split V headstock and it works on that model too.

I'd seriously consider a Futura at some stage.  I never go out live on guitar, so it would just be a vanity purchase.  Lovely though.  Really lovely.

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The 2008 'Reverse Explorer' managed to combine a bastardised version of the Moderne headstock with a disastrous re-imagining of the body.

You can just imagine someone at Gibson whose first name starts with the letter H thinking 'Oh, that looks really nice. We'll sell bucketloads.'

 

1365-desktop.jpg

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2 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

The 2008 'Reverse Explorer' managed to combine a bastardised version of the Moderne headstock with a disastrous re-imagining of the body.

You can just imagine someone at Gibson whose first name starts with the letter H thinking 'Oh, that looks really nice. We'll sell bucketloads.'

Lest we forget this monstrosity:
gibson-reverse-flying-v.jpg?itok=SZT-kuc

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50 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Lest we forget this monstrosity:

The so-called 'Lawn Dart' (real lawn darts now banned in USA; should have applied to this guitar.

49 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Or this:

You see, that's just silly.

Back in the 80's I used to own an E2 Explorer like the one below. A sandwich of different 'exotic' woods, neck as wide as the M4 and someone had stuck an SD Jeff Beck in the bridge position. Totally woofy sound and weighed a ton. Flogged it on.

5ab00dfbbb164_e2explorer.jpg.d6f27b3539ed9b25953993302dc7f3f3.jpg

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1 hour ago, dlloyd said:

Ehhhm....

V2group2.JPG

 

Edit: No... they're lovely

I recall seeing some V2s in Denmark Street early 80s...like the two on the extreme right in this photo.  They were an abomination.  A classic case of a company tweaking a design for 'betterment'.  Nasty.

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2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I recall seeing some V2s in Denmark Street early 80s...like the two on the extreme right in this photo.  They were an abomination.  A classic case of a company tweaking a design for 'betterment'.  Nasty.

The V2 was the companion model to the E2 I used to own - Gibson released them as a matching set and I suppose someone must have bought a pair of them to throw on a bonfire put in a bank vault. I thought the v-shaped pick-ups were remarkably ugly. Funny thing: my E2 was like a boat anchor. Tried a V2 one time and it was feather-light by comparison.

Anyhow: Bigsbys on Vees à la Lonnie Mack. I like them in part because most people think it's an abominable notion.

Gibson put out a sig Lonnie Mack model in 1994. Yum:

zfmlubdq1vp3j829fcvu.jpg

 

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I once played in a pub covers band whose second guitarist used to turn up to every gig with a different guitar. Most of them were Gibsons of one sort or another and he couldn't really play any of them, but the one time he produced a Flying V I seem to recall he spent most of the night playing several frets too high due to the unusual offset neck position. Had we been a jazz band we might have got away with it...

Oh, and Bigsbys on Vees are an abominable notion.

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3 hours ago, KK Jale said:

Then of course there was the Gibson Thunderbolt...

Holy mother of god.

In their defence, Hamer did only make one and if you look at their old workshop blog, it seems more of a case of doing it because they can, rather than it ever becoming a production model.

Horrific.

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10 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

Oh, and Bigsbys on Vees are an abominable notion.

The weird bit about that is that the back bit of the bigbsby isn't really needed, it is just a decoration, and without that it would have actually looked quite good!

Anyway, I will have a fireman soon, as soon as I can decide if I could genuinely build a bass :D

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4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

The weird bit about that is that the back bit of the bigbsby isn't really needed, it is just a decoration, and without that it would have actually looked quite good!

Like this:

gibson-flyingv-b5g.jpg

Dunno, still prefer the agricultural angle-iron approach involved in fitting a B70.

On an Explorer?

gibson-explorer-b5g.jpg

 

Perhaps the neatest wang-bar for a V is the short Maestro / Vibrola:

JHendrixFlyingV.jpg

On an Explorer not so nice:

5ab672520cdf5_explorervibrola.jpg.951537a4b3ea59965fbfdb4a6f37ad2e.jpg

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3 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

Like this:

gibson-flyingv-b5g.jpg

Dunno, still prefer the agricultural angle-iron approach involved in fitting a B70.

 

I like that.


Even though I don't actually like using a bigsby, they do look good on somethings (I have one on a Peerless gigmaster).

 

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