1981 F-100 in red

[Skyhawk]

I have a 80/81 F-100 in red. It is not a clear coat so I can't see the wood. I don't want to but I could pull the neck off to see what the wood is but I am going to ask anyone who may know, what woods would they have used on this guitar? I own an 84 f-100 that is ash and they sound very diff. More growl low end on the red one and the 84 more clean and clear. I thought it may be mahogany. I have heard lately that Leo use poplar, and that I didn't know even though I have owned G&Ls for 26 years now. thanks
LS

[Craig]

I have a 80/81 F-100 in red. It is not a clear coat so I can't see the wood. I don't want to but I could pull the neck off to see what the wood is but I am going to ask anyone who may know, what woods would they have used on this guitar? I own an 84 f-100 that is ash and they sound very diff. More growl low end on the red one and the 84 more clean and clear. I thought it may be mahogany. I have heard lately that Leo use poplar, and that I didn't know even though I have owned G&Ls for 26 years now. thanks
LS

Here's a page from the 1980 Catalog, we have in our Gallery:



Does your's color look like this one? You might remove the control plate and see if he can see some unpainted wood in there.
Note the body wood types listed in the catalog. Without seeing your guitar, I would guess that the wood is either Mahogany or Poplar.
If you could post a photo, I bet Fred Finisher could provide more information.

In case you have not seen this post in the G&L Knowledgebase, it might have some insight, as well: Finish processes, how we did it then by Fred Finisher.

Hope this helps.

[KenC]

I have a 80/81 F-100 in red. It is not a clear coat so I can't see the wood. I don't want to but I could pull the neck off to see what the wood is but I am going to ask anyone who may know, what woods would they have used on this guitar? I own an 84 f-100 that is ash and they sound very diff. More growl low end on the red one and the 84 more clean and clear. I thought it may be mahogany. I have heard lately that Leo use poplar, and that I didn't know even though I have owned G&Ls for 26 years now. thanks
LS

Like Craig sid, you need to expose some wood to know for sure. If there are any dings through the finish on your guitar, mahogany would be obvious due to its dark color. There was some use of poplar, which I believe was leftover stock from the MusicMan days. I would expect those guitars to be very light weight.

I own an '80 F-100 in ash and an '81 in mahogany. There is a distinct difference in tone between those two guitars. The 'hog has a much fuller sound, without the brightness of the ash body.

[Fred Finisher]

Skyhawk,
If your guitar has a tremolo, the spring area is the easiest place to check the wood type. Detune the guitar, remove the plate and springs and scratch through the finish to expose the grain. Before you do that you can also hold it up to the light to see if you have a porous grain pattern showing through the wood. At that time, the finishes were 100% nitro so there would be shrinkage visible if the body is Ash or Mahogany. That color should also have a gold base coat under the red. At that time the two red colors were clear red, shot over Ash or Maple, or candy apple red shot over gold. If it was shot over Ash or Mahogany, there is a good chance that a flaw appeared in the body during production that kept it from remaining natural.
Fred

[Skyhawk]

Mine is a hard tail. I'm going to take out a strap peg to see what that shows me. If I can't tell, I am going to take the neck off, I"m too curious as to what it is. There are no nicks. Its actually very near mint. I use to take guitars apart all the time and not give it a second thought, but I don't care to do that if I don't have to. I"m going to look today. I will let you know. Actually the first thing I will do is hold the guitar up in natural light to see what I see, if that doesn't work than on to the next thing.
LS

[Skyhawk]

I also noticed this ad says....ash, mahogany, or poplar. Greg G. on his site says his candy apple red 91 F-100 is maple. I believe mine is candy apple red. It sure isn't clear red. I think I may have taken the strap peg out already when I first got the guitar and if I remember it right, it surely wasn't mahogany the wood looked light which I'm guessing it is probably poplar or maple. If it is one of those I don't feel I need to know which one it is but I was more curious if mine was mahogany or not. I read the article about the finishes. I didn't realize Leo didn't like the tone of the mahogany and yanked them out of production.....interesting.
LS

[KenC]

I use to take guitars apart all the time and not give it a second thought, but I don't care to do that if I don't have to. I"m going to look today.

A word of caution - the neck pocket on your F-100 is likely to be tight enough that some body finish lifts off with the neck. I've had this happen a couple of times. Working the corner of a razor blade around the neck joint should prevent this. Most of mine also required a turn or two of the micro-tilt bolt to get them started out of the pocket.

Ken

[Skyhawk]

I posted on this but don't know what happened to it, so here goes again.

I took the neck off....it came off easy BTW and had no problems. I believe the body is mahogany by the color. The color is brownish/reddish, which I would not expect from maple or poplar. Anyway in the neck pocket was the initials J.M. and above that was just an "M"......no date. On the neck was a date which looks to be Jan. 6, 1980. The 0 does not sure up well, but in the light I can only deduct that its a 0. It kind of shows the top of the 0, one side of it and the bottom, the rest of it looks like it didn't stamp. I have a pic of the pocket, if someone can tell me how to post a pic from "my doc" which is where I have the pic, I will post it. thanks,
LS

[KenC]

Here's my 1981 mahogany F-100:



The only clear photo I have of an ash neck pocket is from my 2000 L-2000:



The stamps can be very difficult to see on the older mahogany bodies. Hopefully Fred can provide some insight into the meaning of those initials.

I'd take a look at that neck date again. The very earliest G&L necks and bodies were from June 1980, so June 6th would be much more likely than January 6th. That would make your guitar's neck one of the very first built.

I'm not sure what you mean by "my doc". I upload my pics to Photobucket, and link to them using the "timage=" tag. There's tutorial in the Knowledgebase that runs through the steps in detail, along with some other ways of doing it.

Ken

[Skyhawk]

I have a photo of the neck pocket on photobucket, but I'm not sure how to get it in a post here or how to get a link for it . I have a pic of the neck as well but it is not on my computer yet. I will have one sometime this week. First I have to see how to now get the photo here.
LS

[Craig]

I have a photo of the neck pocket on photobucket, but I'm not sure how to get it in a post here or how to get a link for it . I have a pic of the neck as well but it is not on my computer yet. I will have one sometime this week. First I have to see how to now get the photo here.
LS

See: Tutorial: Posting photos.

[Skyhawk]

Craig, I did look at it and I still don't get it. I 'm not the best on computers. I am at photo bucket and looking at my pic but cannot figure out what to do as I look and read the G&L instructions and look at photobucket at the same time. The only time I have posted a pic is on ebay where you just hit a button called browse and it takes me right to where i keep my pics and automatically sends the url to ebay. I may have to get my son to help me with it but It won't be until tomorrow or late tonight.......got to go to work.
thanks,
LS

[Craig]

Craig, I did look at it and I still don't get it. I 'm not the best on computers. I am at photo bucket and looking at my pic but cannot figure out what to do as I look and read the G&L instructions and look at photobucket at the same time. The only time I have posted a pic is on ebay where you just hit a button called browse and it takes me right to where i keep my pics and automatically sends the url to ebay. I may have to get my son to help me with it but It won't be until tomorrow or late tonight.......got to go to work.
thanks,
LS

Okay, let me try and step you through:

1. Go to photobucket (or whatever photo hosting service you used).
2. Display the photo you want to post.
3. Move the mouse pointer over the photo.
4. Right click on the mouse device then scroll to the "Copy image URL" selection and then left click on it.
The image URL will now be copied to your Clipboard storage area.
5. Bring up the G&LDP and go to the thread you want to post to.
6. Click on the Post Replay button which should bring up the Post Editor.
7. Below the Subject editing box look for the "Img" button and click on it, which will put the image BBCode in the editor window
with the mouse pointer positioned, ready to paste the image URL copied in step #4.
8. Right click the mouse device then scroll to the "Paste" selection and left click. This should paste the image URL.
9. After completing your post, click the "Preview" button and verify that you post looks the way you want it.
10. Click the "Submit" button to complete the posting.

I hope this helps.

[Elwood]

6. Click on the Post Replay button which should bring up the Post Editor.

( that would be "Post Reply" )

[Skyhawk]

Thanks Craig ! Here is the neck. The date is Jan. 6, and looks like 1980, but the 0 is not all there, what do you guys think. From the serial number 004xxx, it would seem so it would be from 81. Maybe a misprint on the year if its a 0.
LS

[Skyhawk]

Here is the body neck pocket. I think its mahogany. Looks like a JM in there but not sure about the J.
LS

[KenC]

The neck stamp looks like an '81 to me. It might just be the lighting, but the width of the last digit seems about the same as the strokes in the letters. A zero would have been the same width as the 8 and 9 (see the photo of my F-100's neck pocket for an example). The skunk stripe definitely puts it between the start of production in '80 and the change to bi-cut neck construction in mid/late '82.

Then again, stamp errors have been known to show up before (like dates after the 31st of the month).

Serial numbers aren't reliable indicators of production dates for older G&Ls, but for what it's worth my F-100 is G004121 and has body and neck dates from December '80 and January '81. Here's the neck stamp:



Ken

[Craig]

6. Click on the Post Replay button which should bring up the Post Editor.

( that would be "Post Reply" )

I'll make sure I correct that when I add it to the Tutorial.

Thanks.

[Skyhawk]

Ya, I think I agree with you Ken. It makes more sense to me that it would be an 81. I can't remember the serial number off the top of my head, but mine is 0045?? Looks like your neck is two days younger than mine. Now does the neck pocket look like its a mahogany body to you ?
LS

[Craig]

Now does the neck pocket look like its a mahogany body to you ?
LS

It does to me.

[Skyhawk]

Sounds good to me Craig. I was hoping it would be when I took the neck off. The neck also has a maple fretboard. This weekend I have around 4 more G&Ls to get into the registry. thanks for all your help.
LS

[Lazer]

That's not mahogany, wrong colour and wrong grain pattern, looks like ash to me.
Compare it with Kens, thats how mahogany looks like.

Cheers
L-zr

[Skyhawk]

It sure doesn't sound like an ash f-100 , which I have an 84 in ash. Not to say its mahogany 100%, but I would think maybe maple before ash. If you look at Kens mahogany pocket notice that the body is either sunburst or nat, not sure which, which is a darker color and more close to mahogany wood. Mine is candy apple red and still with a darker looking pocket than Ken's ash guitar or some others that I have taken apart myself. There looks to be an 'M" also on my pocket and maybe a JM. I don't know if they are initials or mean something else. Thanks for the input, because I'm not sure I'm 100% satisfied on the investigation of what wood this is yet either. lol
LS

[thecajunboy]

It's definitely not mahogany, and it isn't ash. Safe bet is alder or poplar, poplar getting the nod due to the ad copy somebody posted.

[thecajunboy]

Here's some pics to make things easier.

First up is mahogany.

Here are two pics of a mahogany Cavalier.




Here's a two piece mahogany body blank from the G&L factory.



Here's a one piece mahogany body blank from my stash.




Now on to ash

My ash body Legacy, 2 shots





Ash Tele body, 2 shots




NAMM ASAT body, not confirmed as ash, but looks like it.



SuperHawk body, 2 shots, likely poplar. there are visible knots in the wood, not seen in this photo.

[KenC]

I can't really tell from that one photo. Would it be possible to get a couple of high-resolution close ups? My 'hog F-100 has the clear "root beer" finish that was common on the earliest mahogany G&Ls. It almost seems like there is gloss in the neck pocket. It doesn't feel like bare wood.

I either didn't take pictures, or misfiled them, when I checked the dates on my '80 L-1000. I will look around some more for them. My other 'hog is an '82 S-500. I haven't checked the dates, but can tell it's mahogany from a couple of dings through the black finish.

Maple would have been possible in '81, but IMO it would be extremely unlikely. It didn't start showing up regularly until SB/SC models came out late in '82. Greg Gagliano shows a maple F-100 from March '81 on his website. I understand the use of poplar was limited to leftover stock from MusicMan production, and that was gone through pretty quickly. It didn't show up again until Lynx production in '84.

Ken

[Skyhawk]

Ken, I also was wondering about the gloss on the neck pockets. I didn't know if it was wood or maybe some overspray when finishing. I did take out a strap lock and I took out a strap lock out of my ash body f-100 and actually the only difference I could see (wasn't much to see believe me) was that the screw hole in the ash body shined white with a drop light on it and my red f-100 didn't and seemed brownish, but I'm still not convinced of what it is. I also have a 82 s-500 that I could take out the strap lock and see what it looks like.
Anyone, what about the control plate ?? If I loosen the everything up enough and lift the plate is that sprayed inside or do you think I would be able to see bare wood ?
LS

[sirmyghin]

While your body does not look like 'hog, I would have to put my bet on Ash, although some disagree. The only other wood I have used that looked like that, was Oak. Not sure if the flash is tricky me, but yours reminds me of a piece of red oak. It would of course be a total boat anchor then (or very likely). Not 'sounding' like ash is a pretty subjective approach to determining wood type, given the amount of variability in natural materials.

[KenC]

Anyone, what about the control plate ?? If I loosen the everything up enough and lift the plate is that sprayed inside or do you think I would be able to see bare wood ?

Here's my 'hog F-100:



Here's my 'hog S-500 (probably an '82):



It looks like both are finished down to the shielding plate.

Ken

[Skyhawk]

Thanks for the pics and the help everyone.
LS