Tuesday Lunch Report - 3/27/12

It's Tuesday!

Lunch Plan:
I came down with some sort of stomach bug last night, so the long commute into DC wasn't in the cards this morning. I've taken sick leave for the day, but continue to watch my messages and work on things remotely as they come up. Lunch will be something light - probably a bowl of tomato soup.

I work in the US Department of Agricuture's headquarters complex, so the cafeteria is something of a showcase for ingredients from small, local farms. It's open to the public, so there is a stream of tourists and school groups rolling through for the low (for downtown DC) prices. We're next door to the Smithsonian Institution, so the crowds can get pretty heavy at times. With this being peak season for field trips, I anticipate a lot of students waiting in the lines and taking up the tables for the rest of the week.

Which leads to the G&L Question of the Day: What were George and Leo thinking with the student model (SC and SB series) G&Ls?

Don't get me wrong, I have two of them and love them to death. But in an industry where "student" equals "small and cheap", the SC and SB series went against the conventional wisdom. They were made in the same factory and by the same craftsmen as the grown-up instruments, and used most of the same parts. At the time the student models came out in 1982, they were mainly distinguished from the "professional" instruments by having slab bodies single coil pickups instead of the contours and humbuckers used on the L-series and El Toro basses, F-100, and G-200. The only other single coils in the product line were in the S-500, and the SC-3 shared these. The bodies were maple rather than mahogany or ash, and were very slightly smaller than their "grown up" counterparts. Here are comparisons between an S-500 and an SC-2, both from 1982:





Here are some similar shots with an '81 L-2000 and a very early (possibly the prototype) SB-1:





I can't imagine there would have been a substantial cost savings compared to the professional models, but they needed special cases due to the slightly undersized bodies. Unlike student models from Fender, the G&Ls all had standard scale lengths (25.5" for guitars and 34" for basses), and 22 frets.

I guess I need to figure out a point here besides random old G&L porn . I have to wonder whether Leo cooked up the large MFD pickups and idea of maple bodies first, and then came up with the student models as a justification to put them into production. The large MFDs have outlived the SC-1 and original SC-2 by nearly thirty years, and maple bodies quickly became common on most G&L models (all of my Leo-era instruments built after 1982 have maple bodies). I could see the SC-3 logically being a way to roll out the small MFDs in a platform that was less Strat-like than the S-500. Any thoughts on this?

Non-G&L Question of the Day:
What are the spring (or fall for the Southern Hemisphere types) activities in your locality? As I mentioned, tourists are swarming Washington DC right now for class trips to the Smithsonian, and the annual Cherry Blossom Festival started on the National Mall last weekend. In my neighborhood, boats are being prepared for warm weather and we're starting to hear the sounds of kids playing outside until dark.

I hope everybody manages to have a great day!

Ken

Ken:

I'm not sure what Leo and George were thinking with the SC series. I've often wondered myself. I wonder what the price differential was between the SC-3 and the S-500. I can't believe that the SC's were cheap enough to entice, "student players". Now on the other hand, the current owners of G & L seem to have hit the mark with the Tribute series. It would be interesting to see the sales numbers but the Tributes must be outselling the USA models by multiples. I've been to several dealers and often they will have five or six Tributes and one or two USA models. I talked to one dealer, Capitol Guitars in Olympia, WA, and he was happy selling G & Ls and told me the Tributes are good sellers.

This last Sunday was the best day we've had this year and sure enough the hobby motor bikes riders were out in full force - primarily the Harley cruisers. I understand the appeal of riding a motorcycle on a good day. I don't understand the need to dress up like Mad Max to do it, especially since most of these guys and gals are suburbanite mortgage slaves, job slaves, spouse whipped, old and tired. But I guess for a few hours on a weekend they can feel like they are free.

What were George and Leo thinking with the student model (SC and SB series) G&Ls?


Ken

Hope ya feel better real soon,

SC and SB I believe are short for "solid color" and "solid bass" , and were designed for a budget conscious
player instead of a high school band caliber instrument (student).
They could use wood that had less than ideal figuring but still make an instrumemt that played and sounded every bit as good as G&L with pretty wood and special finishes.

Elwood

What were George and Leo thinking with the student model (SC and SB series) G&Ls?


Ken

Hope ya feel better real soon,

SC and SB I believe are short for "solid color" and "solid bass" , and were designed for a budget conscious
player instead of a high school band caliber instrument (student).
They could use wood that had less than ideal figuring but still make an instrumemt that played and sounded every bit as good as G&L with pretty wood and special finishes.

Elwood

I figured "SC" was Single coil and "HB" was humbucker and the number 1 or 2 was the number of pups...

Lunch today will be cold broasted chicken.

We are under the gun today, I grabbed some chips for lunch.`

I don't know why George and Leo did what they did, but I like them. I suspect it allowed them to use wood they would normally have to scrap. I like a lot of car colors from the 60's, even the Pink Cadillac was cool. My project bass will be Baby Blue like my 78 Caddie Sedan Deville.

Spring is a big question here. We have already set a record warm month for March. Things are green all over and we will have big problems if we have some hard frosts. I have already sprayed the weeds in the yard and will have to mow this next week. Our normal April cleanup was done a week ago. Thinks are out of whack so who knows what will be spring ritual here as it has already been done way to early. Hope you get to feeling better Ken, and your photos today really show the difference in the body sizes. Great work!-- Darwin

I hope you're soon feeling better.
Great pictures!
I bet those 3-string "overbridge" string retainers were great for behind-the-nut bending; no risk of popping out from the "tree" massively flat when you let a string down again.

My 2 children, both of them still in high school, have visited DC either on school or organization-sponsored trips. Both of them have visited at least one Smithsonian and enjoyed the visits. They can also claim that they have visited a city that neither of their parents have ever set foot in.

I am guessing the SC and SB are cheaper to produce since they don't need wood with nice grains as they are painted solid colors. And the slab body likely required a little less hand work to shape and finish. The rational could be that an SC or SB player will aspire to the 'professional' model and trade up if they like the 'student' models.

My SC-3 is a terrific player and sounds excellent. Recently I got curious and eye-balled the fretboard. My estimate is that it has a 7.5" radius. Although the action is as low as my other guitars with a 12" radius the SC doesn't fret out. And the neck feels great.



Kit

I figured "SC" was Single coil and "HB" was humbucker and the number 1 or 2 was the number of pups...

That's what I always thought........

I thought I read somewhere that they were using maple originally because it was relatively cheap compared to other alternatives.

Hi Ken, I hope you are feeling better. You have some nice basses there. That L-2000 appears to have the classic G&L sunburst over mahogany body. Very cool.
I don't know what George , Leo and Dale Hyatt were thinking with the SC, SB series but they sure did a great job in the manufacturing and design of those instruments.
I have had one or two people suggest that maple bodies don't sound good and I just show them my early SB-2 bass. It sounds great with its maple body.

That work cafeteria sounds good!

Slab bodies and single coil pickups sounds good to me I love that SB-1 of yours Ken, its a beauty.

We've had a cold, wet start to our autumn. As usual, people seem to be getting prepared by wearing their full winter outfits and practicing their 'grumpy & cold' faces. Today, however, is a lovely day - the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the raspberries in our backyard are ripe for picking - and the forecast for the weekend is for weather as good as the height of summer.

So the Dept of Ag, eh? Apple Division aka secret agent? Just kidding... Just a "Charlie Wilson's War" inside joke. As for the slabs, I could use one. A lean, mean, music machine. In Mpls, getting outside and enjoying this weather does the trick. I've been able to go bike riding 5 times so far. That's April numbers!


Cheers,

Will

Thanks for the well-wishes, everybody. I think the worst of this has passed, and I should be up and running tomorrow morning.

I'm with Patrick on the designation of "Single Coil", but I don't know whether I've ever seen that documented. In "Guitars from George & Leo", George Fullerton calls the original SB-1 and SB-2 the "'Standard Bass' Range", and says they were intended as "affordably priced basses comparable to the Precision bass and Jazz bass". He then says the "original SB-1 and SB-2 were conceptually similar to the SC range of guitars", that is, without contours and with simple controls, passive electronics and plastic knobs.

Nick, I've never really done behind-the-nut bends, but a quick test run showed the old retainers do work very well for it.

I have seen some examples of sunburst SC models with flame in the bodies, and the 1985 price list in the Gallery lists sunburst as the standard finish for the SB-1. My SC-2 has light flame all over the neck. I've read that the move to maple was due to problems with availability and consistency of swamp ash, and increasing costs for mahogany, as the original stock left over from Music Man production ran out.

Kit, that's a gorgeous late 80s SC-3 you have. This was another interesting concepts for a "student model", combining the Skyhawk's body with the S-500's pickups. The only departure from the professional models at this point was having a single tone control instead of PTB. Does yours have a color matched neck?

Bill, my L-2000 is indeed a mahogany body. I've had it less than a week, and find it very hard to put down. I agree that maple bodies are wonderful. Even under a solid finish, knowing a guitar or bass is maple makes me GASsy.

Slab bodies and single coil pickups sounds good to me

Jamie's comment made me think of the progress we're making on the GbL Limited Edition 2 model. There are still a lot of design decisions to be worked out, but we seem to be well on the way to the ultimate take on the SC-1 or SC-2 models. If anybody is interested in learning more, please visit the LE 2 sub forum. We're shooting for a price that's not too far from a production SC-2 and are still a way off from placing orders, so this could be a good way for some G&LDPers to move from Tribbies to a Fullerton-built instrument without needing to place a deposit for a while. It could also make a nice second or third (or fourteenth ) G&L without breaking the bank. Please come over and join in if you're interested!

Ken

I have a theory that MFD pickups were designed with maple bodies in mind. I have no evidence, but they just sound great together.

I'm lucky enough to have acquired an old SC-2, a first-style SC-3 and an early SB-2 - maple all. Great stuff.
Close your eyes with these instruments in hand and the mind screams "Vintage Fender" - which is true.

What was the question? Ha! -ed

Kit, that's a gorgeous late 80s SC-3 you have. This was another interesting concepts for a "student model", combining the Skyhawk's body with the S-500's pickups. The only departure from the professional models at this point was having a single tone control instead of PTB. Does yours have a color matched neck?

Ken

The whole guitar is painted red. In fact when I first saw it my first reaction was "This is not me!" But after I played it a bit I convinced myself that I can play a red guitar and not feel like everyone is looking at me. Here's a picture of the back.



Kit

My 2 children, both of them still in high school, have visited DC either on school or organization-sponsored trips. Both of them have visited at least one Smithsonian and enjoyed the visits. They can also claim that they have visited a city that neither of their parents have ever set foot in.

I am guessing the SC and SB are cheaper to produce since they don't need wood with nice grains as they are painted solid colors. And the slab body likely required a little less hand work to shape and finish. The rational could be that an SC or SB player will aspire to the 'professional' model and trade up if they like the 'student' models.

My SC-3 is a terrific player and sounds excellent. Recently I got curious and eye-balled the fretboard. My estimate is that it has a 7.5" radius. Although the action is as low as my other guitars with a 12" radius the SC doesn't fret out. And the neck feels great.



Kit

if this was the sc body shape of the GbL II, i would jump all over it. why did they change it? this looks great.

I wonder if the SC series was a bit of a test bed, think about it. Leo could put all these single coil and body style ideas into practice and since they are aimed at a lower price point it would appeal to more players and might explain why so many SC series features later made it into the limelight.

Just my $0.02.

if this was the sc body shape of the GbL II, i would jump all over it. why did they change it? this looks great.

Louis,

This was the last version of the SC-3, just before it was discontinued. I don't know for sure that it was dropped to make room for the Legacy, but the Legacy did come out the following year at a similar price point, with features below the modern S-500. So at least in essence, this guitar was changed to the Legacy.

The shape the current SC-2 was based on came before this one, and was only used from '82-'84.

Ken

I wonder if the SC series was a bit of a test bed, think about it. Leo could put all these single coil and body style ideas into practice and since they are aimed at a lower price point it would appeal to more players and might explain why so many SC series features later made it into the limelight.

I completely agree. The original SC-2 series definitely lives on in the ASAT, thirty years later.

Ken

Kit, is that an '87? I have one exactly like it. I wasn't all that jazzed about the red at first, but for $275 (ten years ago) for any G&L -- well, I couldn't pass that up. After a couple years the color grew on me and now i love it. Missing the trem, though -- no idea where it disappeared to. Also, the knobs are losing their chrome in a few small places (it was like that when I adopted her). I've been gravitating toward Les Pauls in the last year or so, playing the SC-3 less frequently, but she's still pretty high up on the proud-to-own list. The serial on the red is 0023882. What's your's? They may have come from the same run.

KenC,
I wasn't on this board when this post first appeared. The reason for these guitars was simple, we needed to sell some guitars! The F-100s were not exactly flying off the shelves and Dale wanted to get our guitars out to more dealers. We lost money on every one we sold. I remember Dale and Lloyd both telling me that we gave away one hundred dollars on every one we produced. The original intent was to keep it as simple as possible so as to cut costs. The tremolo was the same because there was no point in making another one because the DF only cost around $25.00 each back then to have made. Making a cheaper bridge would have meant spending money on an inferior design to make it different.
One of the first things we tried to reduce the cost of was the polishing process. We attempted to finish these without polishing them but they looked terrible so that was dropped and we went back to full polishing which raised the cost considerably. Nitro does not look good without wet sanding and polishing.
Although we sold them we weren't making any money even though the options were limited and the designs were simple. We went through all the same processes to produce them and set them up. I think they have stood the test of time well.

Fred,
Great information, and they have surely stood the test of time ( a little flaking on the knobs is fine with me ).
At most the used prices they still seem like you are getting at least $100
extra in value.

Maybe you can help with a question a few of us have discussed ( and if the answer is out there ...I have since forgotten it );
Do the initials SC stand for Solid Color or for Single Coil ?
...and does SB stand for Solid Bass ?

Elwood


and Welcome Speadneck !
I had a red SC-3 like kit's also...I can check my old pics for a serial just for fun.
I still have a white late model SC-3 , probably an '87 ...somewhere at a friends house down In Ocean Beach,Ca.
I need to have him mail that one to me...they are so easy to play and sound as good as any vintage strat to me.

Thanks for the insight, Fred!

Ken

KenC,
You're welcome,
Elwood,
The SC stands for Single Coil and the number behind it is the number of pups. The SB stands for Single ( coil ) Bass. the C is silent with the number again denoting the number of pickups. The main reason for the maple bodies was the finish. A maple body could be finished without using paste wood filler. Prior to Maple, we were using Poplar ( Music Man ) for unfilled bodies but the Pacific Coast Maple was a nicer wood and cost about the same amount. Ash and Mahogany both had to be filled which created more processes and therefore more cost. The original colors were solid so that gluing up body blanks did not require color matching the pieces. If you ended up with a figured body it was by chance not because someone took the time to make sure it came out that way. Later on Sunbursts were offered and the nice bodies were used for those. Hope this helps,
Fred

A maple body could be finished without using paste wood filler. Prior to Maple, we were using Poplar ( Music Man ) for unfilled bodies but the Pacific Coast Maple was a nicer wood and cost about the same amount.

I never would have thought of that! I guess poplar didn't have the budget guitar connotations then that it does today, after it became the default for cheap imports...

Ken

I never would have thought of that! I guess poplar didn't have the budget guitar connotations then that it does today, after it became the default for cheap imports...

KenC.
If you look at a lot of the Music Man guitars and basses you will see that many were made from Poplar. This includes the Sunburst and Walnut models. When G&L came along we stopped using Poplar partially because it was becoming known as a cheap wood and also because the color was all over the map. Poplar could be almost white to nearly black in streaks with lots of greens and even purple. The Maple was very consistent in color and weight so it became the default.
By the way, what is the name of the color on your Red SC? Although I still haven't run across the Viking Blue paint can in my mess in the basement, I did find the can for the SC Apple Red. Was that the name you were told it was called? Just Curious.
Fred

Fred,

I believe it was the standard red. There's a copy in the Gallery of a page from the '83 price list that gives "black", "white", "red" and "blue" as the options for an SC-3, so I'm guessing it would have been the same for the other SC models. The finish on my SC-2 seems to have yellowed a bit. The shop I bought it from thought it was orange. My SC-1 is blue, but it has also yellowed quite a bit, almost to a surf green (disclaimer: I am color blind, so I may call them a bit differently than most folks!). Today is going to be pretty busy for me, but I will try to get the SC-1 and SC-2 outside for some photos if the sun comes out.

I'm waiting for a New Guitar Day later this week. It's an early F-100 which, if the salesman described it correctly, will have clear finish over a mahogany body. The one photo I've seen is out of focus, but the body looks dark brown, like the middle of my sunburst 'hog basses from '80 and '81. I have read comments on various discussion boards about a "clear root beer" finish, which I assume would just be clear over a very dark body. I will post photos when it arrives. I look forward to your comments on that thread!

Ken