what is the little dot on the back of g&l headstocks?

[jhgreene64]

what is the little dot on the back of g&l headstocks?

[Craig]

It's known as the G&L birthmark.

It's where the neck is attached to a fixture used by the factory during production of the neck.
It's a hole that is filled with a wood dowel. The darker brown dot in this picture.



Here's a picture which Tim Page took at the factory of the CNC fixture and you can see the post where the neck wood goes into.


So now you know about the G&L birthmark .

Hope this helps.

[yowhatsshakin]

Hi,

The machines used to shape the neck have dowel pins to keep to piece of wood firmly in one place. That little dot in the back of the headstock is filler for the hole needed for that dowel pin.

Hope this helps or just see Craigs post above. He beat me to it again

- Jos

BTW, I think I know that guitar. I know it very well

[jhgreene64]

cool!

[darwinohm]

Which one of yours is it Jos, I have Custom Creations 021 in the F-100 return but it has a gloss headstock.-- Darwin

[yowhatsshakin]

Hi Darwin,

The back of the headstock is from my C.L.F. Centennial ASAT. Craig used one of the pictures from the Gallery.

- Jos

[Ribsspare]

The little dot can be a good way to indicate an authentic USA G & L in case if there are any fakes, perhaps.

[Craig]

Up until about mid-2006 there were two of these birthmarks on the back of the headstocks.

Here are some examples:

Early 80's F-100:


1982 S-500:


2000 ASAT Deluxe SH:


2005 ASAT JD-5:


When G&L started using CNC machines to cut the neck blanks (mid-late 2006), they were able to eliminate the upper birthmark (above the G string tuner).

Here are some examples of what the single birthmark looks like:

2007 Z-3 Will Ray Signature model:


2013 ASAT Classic 'S' Alnico Launch Edition:

[Case24]

I found this thread using the search function. This site is great! My ASAT Classic has the two birthmark headstock which helps to confirm it as a 2004 it would seem. Serial number is CLF33453. Thanks for the tip! I was wondering what the two dots were from. I can see another dot indentation on the back of the body just below where the strings come through; anybody else ever notice this? I have to hold the guitar in the right light to see it. Mine has a black body.

[Craig]

I found this thread using the search function. This site is great! My ASAT Classic has the two birthmark headstock which helps to confirm it as a 2004 it would seem. Serial number is CLF33453. Thanks for the tip! I was wondering what the two dots were from. I can see another dot indentation on the back of the body just below where the strings come through; anybody else ever notice this? I have to hold the guitar in the right light to see it. Mine has a black body.

It's the same production birthmarks as the necks. The body blank was screwed to a metal template and then the body was cut using a pin router.
The two holes were each filled with a wood dowel prior to finishing. Here's the back of the body of my 2004 all Mahogany ASAT Special Semi-Hollow:




Here's the back of the headstock:



Hope this helps.

[Craig]

A recent change was made to the production method for necks, which now eliminates the little dot on the back of the headstock.

I had contacted Spencer Brown (G&L Factory Foreman) in 3/2017 to get the details. Here they are:

Hi Craig,

We re-tooled our neck line last summer. In order to increase accuracy and consistency we went to tooling points off the end of the neck so we
can use the same holes for both the front and the back. In the past, we’d use the face dot holes when machining the back of the neck.
This would be problematic when doing face dot delete as you might imagine. Now when the neck is complete we simply cut off the tabs and
there are no tooling holes left on the neck.

This was a rolling change that ran from June to about September.

I’ve attached a couple pictures with the new system.

Thanks,

Spencer