New G&L Facebook page - CLF RESEARCH CO.

Wonderful wunkays.

This is a G&L El Toro, the passive version. However, the text on the back of this ad slick does describe the active version called the El Toro E.
I want one of those, just sayin.

This is one of the most beautiful early L-1000s I’ve seen in a while. It’s a customer bass in for repair, so I’m taking liberties posting : )

This wunkay was born here in the factory on April 8, 1981, in my favorite combo of Sunburst on mahogany and that slick ebony board.
Some of you know exactly what’s up with that. Anyway, sad story was that original neck went south a while ago.

I guess the owner heard the factory is making L-1000s again in the early style. That’s what lead to me taking these pics of the bass with a
replacement neck made with (I believe) Caribbean Rosewood fingerboard and vintage tint satin finish. Yes, it was made for the original 3-bolt
and the fit is super clean to the original neck pocket.

So one hand, there’s a sad story of a beautiful L-1000 with a dead neck and out of the game. No matter that sucks. But as a consolation,
it just got a beautiful new neck, bringing it back to life at the place it’s life began 37 years ago. I just completely dig that this repair job came
about because of the existence of the new CLFR L-1000s. If the customer sees this, thank you for the opportunity. : )

Shocked/happy to hear they'd deal with making a replacement three bolt

Shocked/happy to hear they'd deal with making a replacement three bolt

Well, the pilot holes are there already. In the body ...

But I wonder whether the neck heel has the disc for the neck angle set screw to push against.

- Jos

I forgot to mention I took this rejected body from up in the polish department loft. Can’t see a month in the stamp but the year is 1984
and I think it’s an El Toro E bass (battery pocket on rear). Need to confirm that and I’m away right now, so if any of you want to chime in please do.

Anyway. “So I got to thinkin” as George used to say. Seems to me that we have all the electronics to make an El Toro E in the lab, plus the other bits and bobs.

What if we make a new neck, try to use a crusty old El Toro headstock decal, cross our fingers and build this thing out?

I almost wonder whether G&L might consider my guitar 'repair grade' and do a bit of work to it after seeing the resurrections they're attempting

El Toro E build-1

I started collecting parts for the El Toro E build and... yeah, I kinda messed up.

I was sure there was a pair of these pickups in Leo’s lab but it turns out they are HG-2 guitar pickups which look sort of like El Toro pickups.
After an hour or so hunting in the lab I found some El Toro pickup covers and one bobbin fiber. There’s a whole pickup on Leo’s test board but
I’m not going to take that and anyway, I need two.

Then I told my brother Johnny about my screw up and he just took control of the situation. He already showed me some new El Toro bobbin fibers
lasered out and he’s sorting out the fixtures to assemble the bobbins and wind them. This project will probably take a little longer to complete because
we have to actually make the pickups.

Johnny is on fire! He sent me some pics as he worked on the El Toro pickup bobbins today with Norma.
1) cleanup of laser cut fibers.
2) brass connection eyelets are pressed in with the old Stimpson machine.
3) hammer down the eyelets a bit so they’re more flush with the fiber surface
4) the SB-2 bridge pickup jig lines up. Nice.
5) some DIY creativity to set the width between the bobbin fibers to match original El Toro spec.
6) completed bobbins are lacquer dipped and hanging dry just as they would have in the 1980s.

ohnny showed us his new sample El Toro pickups that have the old covers I found in the lab. That was fast!

Memo took the ‘80s powdercoated plate from the lab and loaded it with new forged brass saddles.
Johnny had some Rhodes springs handy which we’ll use for pickup mounting with a bit of damping material
in them. I forgot what these do on a Rhodes, but I think he said there are four levels of rigidity and these are
the softest ones. Seem to be similar size and tension as the CLF factory springs, which likely came from the same supplier.

This 1985 El Toro E arrived and looks to be in nice condition. Clear Red on swamp ash, rosewood board, matching headstock.
It’s just had a light cleanup, new strings and some screws turned. Thanks to Chip Schumann for tipping me about a fresh listing on the bay.
I grabbed it seconds after I saw his message. : )

I always liked this exploded view of an MFD “S-type” pickup in this ad going for aftermarket business: “The Ultimate in Replacement Pickups”

Ron’s friend just stopped by with his ‘84 L-2000 and I had a major GAS attack. This period had the black crinkle control plate and bridge plate,
hook headstock and those amp knobs do look kinda hot on there. It’s not for sale, which of course makes me want it more. Makes me think of that
knuckle biting meme with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Got this 1987 ASAT coming up to show you, but first I want to get these strap locks off. For some reason, I just need them gone like right now.
I could put brand new G&L ones on but a little patina would be perfect, so I hit up Dave Brown at G&L Custom Shop and he hooked me up with some
aged strap buttons and screws, plus a couple felt washers.

In the second pic you can see I brushed the strap button and screw on the right until I thought they would vibe with other the other old sorta shiny bits on the guitar.

Ok I didn’t clean it up first. This guitar is what I call original formula ASAT, from a time when could you just say ASAT and
didn’t need to clarify (classic? Special? Bluesboy 90 Semi-Hollow?). It was November of 1987, and this natural ash rosewood
example was the hot stuff on the menu here.

Yes, it’s heavy and built like a tank, but it sure handles with finesse. Can’t wait to get this thing pulled apart and gone through.
See that crack repair? Seems pretty solid but I’m thinking about doing some surgery and lacquer blend. Anyway, I’m pretty stoked
about this acquisition. Great vibes in this one.

Since I’m here messing around in G&L Custom Shop I want you to see what Leo’s personal 1960s winder looks like today.

Johnny restored it and added the swamp ash base with a Leo Fender decal. I tell you, he’s so next level on this stuff it blows my mind.

Anyway, imagine the customer who orders their G&L CS guitar with hand wound pickups. Sure, lots of people can do that. But what a
trip it is to consider that your pickups were wound on Leo’s personal winder, in his building, on his street, in the town where he made
it all happen. Of course (?) it doesn’t make it any better, but it is frickin’ cool.

But wait, there’s more! Check out Leo’s 1940s-ish desk lamp there. So your pickup is wound under the glow of Leo’s old lamp and
never mind the bulb is new because you’ll kill the flow. ; ). I can geek out so hard on this lol

I believe this is a mid to late 1950s design study for the Fender Sales, Inc. headquarters. Looks straight out of an old Sunset Magazine and I love it.

All this messing around with the Doheny MFD humbuckers reminds me of this idea we didn’t sort out.
It’s been hanging in my office for a year? Two years? No idea.

I do remember Spencer Brown wiring up this beast and trying to run through what it does. Did a lot of stuff though,
I think 19 possible selections. The neck and bridge humbuckers are made from paired S-500 single coils.
So each humbucker is like a pairing of a standard issue S-500 neck/bridge pickup and an S-500 middle pickup which
has reverse polarity and winding (RWRP).

Used as normal series humbuckers, they were way too hot. We kinda figured that would happen, but we just did this one
just for kicks. Could be refined though.

Skyhawk control assemblies ready to get soldered up.

Soooo coool to see

This 2018 SB-1 was in Ron’s office and I just snaked it. That’s a swamp ash body and the bass weighs maybe 9 pounds.
Just a great zone for bringin’ the thunder and man, this thing sounds massive. Full points in feel and looks departments, too.
It’s a welcome reminder of how nice the instruments are made today and that *really* feels good to me.

Took the 1982 S-500 out for a ride and despite a crackly jack, this thing is in full effect.
The first 3SC G&L model, the original style S-500 was super modern for the time, maybe too modern.
But that’s so rad in retrospect, you know what I mean?

Don’t these two look nice together.

Got an update on the El Toro build. First pickups didn’t have enough turns.
Sure, Johnny matched the pickup on Leo’s test board, but clearly that wasn’t the
actual production spec. Johnny had to add a couple hundred turns per coil and we’re good.

To keep this moving, I borrowed the neck off the old red SB-2. Well, we have a working bass
so now we’ll make neck for this thing. My plan is to try to match the headstock to the aged body
but I keep thinking a black headstock might be sweet. What do you think?

I’ve been going through the bin of ancient decals and came up with two. And that’s a bummer because if one fails,
I don’t have a backup of the same kind. The top one is good for natural or light colors, the bottom gold does dark colors best.

The gold one looks to be in better condition, so less risky. Anyway, even if we do a black headstock and the gold logo fails,
the black can be sanded down and we take another shot with the other decal on a natural or white headstock.

This is a master template, which is a machine shop template used to cut out the working steel templates used on the woodshop production floor.

This particular template is a wonderful artifact that has some stories to tell.

More in a few minutes...

The die-stamped text reads: “HG-2 GUITAR SERIES MASTER SEVERAL MODELS IN THIS SHAPE BODY 3-24-83 G-W-F This template is milled using the blueprint glued onto the steel. G-W-F is George William Fullerton, the G in G&L.

Now there was an HG-2 model, but none of the pickup cutouts here could be used for those pickups. More in a few minutes...

Here’s a prototype with all three of the intended pickups. These are MFD angled mini humbuckers,
the same pickups used in the production Cavalier guitar which had two of them (no middle pickup).

And yes, I showed you this prototype before and told you I would put a bridge on it and whatever to get it running.
And I will so just leave me alone, mom! More in a little bit...

The printed text reads: “G&L ARTISTE GUITAR WITH HUMBUCKING PICKUPS -
OFFSET 25 1/2 SCALE 2-19-83 GWF G&L MUSICAL PRODUCTS INC and that lower text
was added to the revised blueprint. REVISED ON MAR 7 - 83 TO SHOW CONTROL PLATE
FOR SINGLE PICKUP ALSO TO ADD THE SWITCH TO MAKE ACTIVE ELECTRONICS
THE NEW 2 PICKUP MODEL WILL BE CALLED [crossed out] we can see written in ink pen
CAVALIER. What I can’t make out is what is scribbled out. It’s not ARTISTE as you see crossed out earlier.

Anyway, this is old school development where they made decisions and altered blueprints and
master templates and so on as they went along. It was the normal course of things and still sort of is.
Now we have technology to greatly aid in the process, which is wonderful, but artifacts like this remind
me of the manual and mental effort that went into doing things the old school way.

"New Prototype", and this picture is music to my ears and eyes!

If we click our heels and say, "There's no place like G&L." will it magically appear?

Thanks for the update Craig, new varieties of this guitar and pickup options would be outstanding. We will remain seated and wait patiently.

I’ve been thinking about sharing some letters illustrating the decline of the relationship between CLF Research and Music Man.
Please keep in mind that all of those guys, Tommy, Forrest, Leo and George, they were real people, just like you and me, and nobody’s perfect.

And none of this has anything to do with the good folks at Ernie Ball, as all this happened years before they bought the Music Man brand.

That said, here’s a letter from Tommy to Leo dated May 6, 1980.

Let’s rewind five years from 1980 to 1975. The 2548 Fender Avenue building is complete and R&D is continuing while
the factory floor is being outfitted for production. What we have here, I believe, is the oldest complete CLF Research guitar prototype,
finished in spring of 1975.

We’ll study the tech together later but just take a look first. To my eyes George’s styling was fresh, hip and fun for the time.
There was a sense of roundness to nearly everything. Now, look at the G&L Skyhawk, like the new CLFR ones. Do you see similarities? I do.
George used to revisit his styling elements just like Leo would with his technical elements.

Anyway, the CLF-75 prototype guitar has active electronics and I can’t remember the last time it worked, so I’ve just changed the battery and
now we’ll see if it’s alive! Probably not, but...

I’m so surprised that it fired right up! I wanted to tell it “Yeah, it’s 2018 and you missed some stuff but never mind that now.”
We’ll check it out more later, I promise. And now, I am about to be beamed to the brave new world of tomorrow, 1975 style.

phpBB [video]

Left to right: CLF-75 prototype guitar with nearly production shape Music Man headstock, 1981 F-100,
1982 S-500 (hook added to headstock) and a 2018 CLFR Skyhawk standing in for ‘84-‘86 Skyhawk.

I admit I’m not a big fan of the early S-500 headstock, as George’s rework for the Skyhawk/Nighthawk/Rampage
et cetera is much better proportioned to my eye.

Jeez. That F100E is the evil twin to my regular F100 . Has me eager to finish the refin.

This is the early style SB-1 bass, and I think this one is a 1984. Simple, honest, badass. Just arrived, actually,
so we’ll give it at at least a little love before we have a better look at it here.

Circa late 1967 to early 1968 new concept development for the Telecaster. It has two split coil pickups and active electronics. Truly next level stuff at the time.

Tonight I’m going to focus on the technology in his bridge design. While i imagine it would be impractical to execute in production (I wouldn’t want to sign up for this),
the amazing thing to me is seeing him explore technical concepts that I understand influenced his bridge designs of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Note the saddles are barrels with intonation screws approaching from the opposite direction. Already a little weird. Now see how the strings go down metal bars that
are not part of the plate itself. I’ll post a look underneath shortly so we can understand Leo’s CLFR future tech of the late ‘60s.

First let’s look at the back of the body and of course the first thing you notice is the battery box
with 6 AA batteries to supply the active circuit. Anyway, back to the bridge. Notice those nicely chiseled
rectangular slots in the body, seems like there must be one for each string. Now as you flip through the
pics you’ll see how those long rectangular metal bars fit into them.

Under tension, a string is pulling tight against the drum saddle, so that string is pulling on whatever that
bar thing is it goes into. Look at the last pic and you see the metal bar has a notch, which makes the bar
act as a lever under the tension of the string, and that forces the other side of the bar hard against the
end grain of the wood at the core of body.

The bridge plate sits atop the two hex head posts, and they are threaded into the body wood to allow to
bridge plate to be raised or lowered.

Seems to me we’re looking at Leo exploring how to get more string energy into end grain, and that was a
huge focus with his later Music Man and G&L designs. All of those were far more robust and effective than
this prototype. But that’s what what R&D is about, and that’s why Leo named his business CLF Research, Co.

I told you a while ago that I would put a bridge on this proto and I’m finally doing it.

The pickups are prototype angled MFD mini humbuckers with offset pole pieces to maintain string alignment.
This thing has three of ‘em so this should be fun.

Those frets sure looked like they had sat in a bedroom for 35 years. Can’t deal with that so I just gave them a little love.

Wouldn’t it be too convenient for me to come back and tell you this is the greatest thing ever.
I’m not gonna BS you guys like that. But damn this thing is amazing.

Maybe these prototype pickups are different than those in the Cavalier. Maybe they just work better
in a 3SC arrangement. Maybe when you see these 3 pickups, you approach it from a different perspective,
you just ask it to do that Strat® (a registered trademark of my friends at FMIC you guys know that so just
leave it alone in the comments ok) stuff and it has its own style on that job.

I don’t know, but in the first 30 seconds after I finished setting it up I discovered the most amazing chimey
compressed jangle, so funky it hurts, and that was enough to blow my mind.

Now its the bridge pickup grinding the Marshall shockingly well. It’s crisp, defined, nice chunk, but it comes
from a single coil place. It’s not humbucker lite, that’s for sure.

Anyway, everyone is gone now so I need to crank this the hell up. I don’t know if we’re going to make this or
anything at all right now. I just know I put the thing together and - so far - I’m stunned. Yes we will get some clips.

A quick iPhone clip of the bridge pickup banging out a big bold ‘Mercian rock and roll vibe. This thing is fun!

phpBB [video]

Love it! One of the few guitars where I like the look of the Maple neck. I'm usually an Ebony guy but Ebony on this would be out of place. I would love to have one.

Tom

I’d like to thank our friends at Dave's Guitar Shop for this cool ASAT Signature Series, a guitar we completed here back on August 23rd, 1990.
That white pickguard is powder coated aluminum, not plastic. Back then the regular ASAT had black crinkle powder coated aluminum pickguard and
other matching black hardware. The ASAT Signature had a more trad vibe, with the clean look of chrome hardware and white pickguard.

Leo’s BK Precision 283 Digital Multimeter fires right up.

phpBB [video]

Let’s have a look at the smallest rental unit we have here at the Fender Avenue industrial park created by Leo Fender in the early 1970s.

This 20’ wide unit has a spacious front office featuring central air conditioning and heating. Step out into an expansive 70’ deep space,
equipped with two fully tiled bathrooms plus utility sink. This actual unit was first available for lease in 1974.

The next size Fender Avenue unit is 24’ wide and the front office space is divided into two rooms,
each having its own window to the front of the building. The other features are same as the narrower 20’ unit.

I’m thinking about adding this unit and the other one I posted tonight to the CLFR business space. They’re right
nearby our main factory building and we’re lucky we can keep making these little expansions. It’s also how Leo
planned it, so if things are going well he could expand CLFR into more units in his Fender Avenue development.
If the music business got tough, he could get rid of some units from CLFR. Let me tell you, the former is a hell of
a lot more fun than the latter.

A beautiful evening outside the historic 2548 building.

‘70s and ‘80s game is looking pretty strong here.

Here’s a warehouse that has guitar boxes, tape, a forklift and stuff. Pretty awesome, I know, but it gets better.
See, this warehouse is right behind Leo’s Lounge and, you know, this whole lounge thing is really fun but it could use
more space. A lot more would be nice. Like, maybe a stage over there and sofas and club chairs around there,
you know, a much more spacious scene to hang out in. For our guests, of course.

We deemed that a rock solid business case, so today we agreed to move this warehouse into the 2536 building and that’s
why I’m in here geeking out with a tape measure. Hmmm...the place has potential. I’ll take it!!!