Lower end Japanese LP copies. Pankcake bodies, plywood tops, what does it all meeeaaaan?

Cirrus · October 2023

OK So I think I know what the pancake bodies are all about. Two thinner slabs of wood glued together to make a full body thickness, for some reason with a really thin bit of wood between them in the middle (why?) and Gibson did it the same way back in the '70s.

Does it do much to the sound?

I'm looking at a late '70s Aria LC500 just now that's got that, and also a (probably maple) plywood top, in the pickup cavity you can see that the top is maybe 5 or 6 layers of plywood.

So... what's that all about? Does that do much to the sound? There's a translated brochure that lists the body construction as:

Maple/ mahogany sandwich arched hollow (?) ply top

I'm not really interested in mysterious abstract posts about tonewood etc. I'm just wondering if anyone's got any practical experience of the difference between a solid maple top, a maple ply top, what the word "hollow" might mean in this context, and just generally how much it matters.

shobet · October 2023

have you played it? Does it sound OK? Does it speak to you?

I wouldn't pay much attention to what you've read on the 'internet' as it's mostly full of people who know fuck all.

If you like it and it sound and feels OK, then buy it. If it doesn't, then don't.

Funkfingers · October 2023

Cirrus said:
… what does it all meeeaaaan?

It usually means another HarrySeven NGD thread.

BillDL · October 2023

What language did you translate the description from?

I suspect the word "hollow" might just be a literal translation of a word used to describe a curve (i.e. carved) that has been used in combination with the word for arched, like "curved arch". If it is a sunburst, perhaps "hollow" has been the translation of a word that describes the concentric "rings" of colour in a sunburst finish with the lightest in the middle.

My guess would be that the slightly thinner mahogany bodies would have been carved on the top and then layers of thinner wood that have been soaked in water to make them flexible have been glued and clamped onto the carved top in succession and held in place with a concave former. The last maple veneer would be picked for decorative purposes to make it look as though it has a solid carved maple cap. Maple is harder on tooling than mahogany type wood, so money is saved there and using a laminate method like that would also save using thick planks of maple and wasting more than half of it carving it away.

One of the problems with laminates is where a guitar body gets a blow on the edge and the top layer of laminate lifts or chips off. It's harder to get a decent finish when patching it in. Careless screwing, or repeatedly removing and reinserting screws, into laminate (for example pickup surround screws) often starts to lift up and chip away the top layer of laminate with the lacquer around the screw holes.

Pancake bodies are a cost-saving method of assembly where thinner planks were cheaper. Where there is a thin harder layer of wood like a thick maple veneer in between the pancakes, I would assume this will be glued on with the grain running the opposite way to provide some additional strength between the layers like bricklayers interleaving bricks or boxes being built onto a pallet in opposing directions at each layer. I have watched two videos of luthiers dealing with Gibson pancake bodies that had started to separate at the glue joint. I think you would only ever get this once in a very blue moon after a guitar had sustained a hard blow and was then stored in an extreme environment for a long time, but I suppose there is always the possibility of a poorly executed joint in the factory on a Friday afternoon.

guitargeek62 · October 2023

^ not quite - a lot of these MIJ era had a pressed laminate top and then a hollow space underneath that to the mahogany(-type) body below. Lifting a pickup is an easy way to tell, and yes, this does change the tone and response away from a ‘typical’ LP build.

Personally I automatically avoid this style of construction out of snobbish LP conservatism, but I’m not HarrySeven… and if it still plays well, sounds good, and is priced right then there’s no reason it shouldn’t be an interesting buy still.

BillDL · October 2023

That's an interesting one to know @guitargeek62 I have never encountered one like that before, but it would make sense if it was done to keep the production costs down and assembly easier and faster.

p90fool · October 2023

Bear in mind that a lot of the arched hollow plywood topped LP copies also has single coil pickups hidden under humbucker covers.
This combination can lead to a horribly microphonic mess at volume and it certainly doesn't sound like a Les Paul, but on the other hand it might sound like this;

impmann · October 2023

I had an Antoria with similar construction. Awesome sounding guitar once it had a pickup swap and yes, it had the Maxxon things that folks rave about - I thought they sounded shite in that instrument.
Ignore the brickbats and naysayers

BillDL · October 2023

Was this specifically a 70s construction technique (pressed plywood glued on leaving a void behind it), or did this roll over into the early 80s in new guitars?

I'm really surprised to have never come across it before because I've worked on a lot of guitars, but only since the early 80s and the guitars I was tinkering with then would only have been a couple of years old.

thermionic · October 2023

My first half-decent guitar was like this - a Vantage Spirit VLP-510. Although I didn’t quite realise at the time (or maybe I thought that’s how all LPs were made). Despite this, and the bolt-on neck, they’re quite highly regarded guitars - decent humbuckers and made in the Matsumoku factory. This model came out in 1979 so I guess guitars like this were made up until the early 80s. I suspect what made guitars like this a step up from the earlier Avon/ Columbus black LP Customs was the use of maple rather than birch ply, and better electronics. I think of it now as a chambered LP with a touch of ES-335 - it was good for getting musical feedback!

TL; DR - some 80s Japanese guitars were made like this, and can be surprisingly good.

HAL9000 · October 2023

shobet said:

I wouldn't pay much attention to what you've read on the 'internet' as it's mostly full of people who know fuck all.

^This.

kentuckyklira · October 2023

Cirrus said:

OK So I think I know what the pancake bodies are all about. Two thinner slabs of wood glued together to make a full body thickness, for some reason with a really thin bit of wood between them in the middle (why?) and Gibson did it the same way back in the '70s.

Does it do much to the sound?

I'm looking at a late '70s Aria LC500 just now that's got that, and also a (probably maple) plywood top, in the pickup cavity you can see that the top is maybe 5 or 6 layers of plywood.

So... what's that all about? Does that do much to the sound? There's a translated brochure that lists the body construction as:

Maple/ mahogany sandwich arched hollow (?) ply top

I'm not really interested in mysterious abstract posts about tonewood etc. I'm just wondering if anyone's got any practical experience of the difference between a solid maple top, a maple ply top, what the word "hollow" might mean in this context, and just generally how much it matters.

I have a plaintop Aria like that and it´s great. If pancake bodies were good enough for Gibson, they´re good enough on my Aria.

WezV · October 2023

BillDL said:

Was this specifically a 70s construction technique (pressed plywood glued on leaving a void behind it), or did this roll over into the early 80s in new guitars?
I'm really surprised to have never come across it before because I've worked on a lot of guitars, but only since the early 80s and the guitars I was tinkering with then would only have been a couple of years old.

They still existed into the late 90's

I have a 90's Nevada Les Paul clone here with the pressed ply top. there are a couple of small randomly placed blocks of wood supporting the carve. It does at least have proper humbuckers, unlike its 70's brethren

OilCityPickups · October 2023

As others have said, often LP copies in the seventies had a heat shaped plywood 'top' to simulate the top carve, which would have a largish void between the actual body and the top. Columbus and Avon were definitely like this ... as were many others. This made them a bit prone to feedback and microphonics. Many did indeed have pretty basic single coils hidden in HB covers and were largely of low quality. I had an Antoria sunburst Les Paul and that had a very small void under the top and pretty good pickups as standard . When fitted with DiMarzio Super Distortions neck and bridge it kicked some serious arse.

Funkfingers · October 2023

OilCityPickups said:

… largish void … DiMarzio Super Distortions … serious arse.

This is why H7 collects Seventies plywood horrors.

DannyP · October 2023

My uncle has a Kay LP that my late grandad gave to him in the 70s.

Because of the sentimental value, my uncle wanted to upgrade it to sound and play as well as possible - set-up, new hardware, Seymour Duncans etc. It turned out to be a pretty nice instrument!

It happens to have a particularly nice, thick slab of rosewood for a fingerboard. As my uncle says, that rosewood doesn't know it's on a Kay!

HarrySeven · October 2023

BillDL said:

I'm really surprised to have never come across it before because I've worked on a lot of guitars, but only since the early 80s and the guitars I was tinkering with then would only have been a couple of years old.

Unsurprisngly, I've worked on/owned loads!

Philly_Q · October 2023

My first guitar was an unbranded "Arbiter" LP copy of the type described. It had the weird single-coil pickups under humbucker covers. I didn't keep it much more than a year, it could've been made playable with a pickup change and some replacement tuners, but it was very much a budget guitar.

I'm sure the bent-ply top approach was used on much better guitars than mine, but I can't see much point buying one now unless you're short of cash or have a specific interest in collecting old tat guitars from that period.

Cirrus · October 2023

Here are a couple of photos. So you can see the ply top, then there's this layer with regular holes in, then below that i guess is the first mahogany slab? What's the deal with the layer with those holes every couple of cm?

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53251922667_10227557d3_o.jpg

BillDL · October 2023

The open ends of grooves in the mahogany perhaps, rather than horizontally drilled holes? Intended to provide keys for the glue and as channels for air bubbles and excess glue to be expelled when the top is clamped on?

WezV · October 2023

it will be similar to a 335, where they used a kerfed block to fill the section between center block and pressed ply plate

Image: https://www.es-335.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/wsinside-1024x576.jpg

some of these cheaper guitars don't have anything as fancy as that. The Nevada i have here has one block wedged in between the pickups, and one under the bridge. The rest is hollow

Cirrus · October 2023

shobet said:

have you played it? Does it sound OK? Does it speak to you?

I wouldn't pay much attention to what you've read on the 'internet' as it's mostly full of people who know fuck all.

If you like it and it sound and feels OK, then buy it. If it doesn't, then don't.

I'm asking about a guitar that looks cool from the other side of the world, and I'm asking here because there are opinions I trust here. I don't want to dismiss it out of hand because of how it's constructed, but I want to understand what's happening - if it is a big hollow void, I'm less keen, but I'm not sure if it is based on the photos.

Cirrus · October 2023

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53252855686_aa56bd1a86_o.png

I've found this in an old aria catalogue. Could it be like the left example? The resolution the catalogue was scanned at won't quite let me zoom in to the level I can make out what's happening in that section under the carved ply.

WezV · October 2023

yeah, that looks correct

BillDL · October 2023

Those images would account for why I've never been aware of the construction technique on the right. The pickup cavities wouldn't extend far enough across to reveal what is a fairly small void, and it's probable that you may not even hear a hollowness by tapping the top.

MikeP · October 2023

p90fool said:

Bear in mind that a lot of the arched hollow plywood topped LP copies also has single coil pickups hidden under humbucker covers.
This combination can lead to a horribly microphonic mess at volume and it certainly doesn't sound like a Les Paul, but on the other hand it might sound like this;

Never watched that magic Sam clip. That's a lot of rocking for solo guitar, what's the guitar he's playing then?

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Lower end Japanese LP copies. Pankcake bodies, plywood tops, what does it all meeeaaaan?

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