1960 National 1155 Slope Dreadnought Guitar

Update 2020: the owner is downsizing so this is back and for sale. I've updated the pictures, added a new video, and updated the description where necessary. Back to the original info...

National's 1155 was a combination of a Gibson-supplied J-50 jumbo body with a National-supplied Stylist adjustable-angle neck, National-supplied bridge, and National-supplied pickguard. National decided to use the Gibson-style 24 3/4" scale length on their hybrid models, however, which means that this guitar still sounds and mostly feels the same as a 1960 J-50.

It has the big low-end with the mildly-scooped mids/highs of the era but a good amount of mids-emphasis. It's a perfect singer-songwriter backup guitar because of that and still has that woody/chunky Gibson sound in spades. Compared to slightly-earlier J-50 bodies, the bracing is both narrower and lighter and the top itself is a lot lighter. Thus the soundboard is less-stiff which is why the punchy, mid-'50s projecting tone has yielded to a more bass-heavy, chord-centric tone. The soundboard has a mild dome-style belly in its center tuned-to-pitch which is par for the course with these early-'60s bodies as they're so lightly-built.

Anyhow, this came via consignment (it was later taken-home by the owner as he likes it too much) in pretty good shape but I did have to do some work to make it shine. Now that it's done-up it plays a treat and sounds a beaut. Both its National serial number at the headstock and the Gibson factory order number at the neckblock point to a 1960 build.

The Stylist neck fitted to these is adjustable for back-angle and so you can set your action on-the-fly really easily with the help of a couple of allen wrenches. I have it set to standard 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12t hfret. The neck itself is actually made around a metal core and "wrapped" in thinner mahogany veneer, essentially. This makes for a durable, often warp-free neck. Once in a while they go bad, but most of the ones I've serviced have been like this one -- dead straight and needing only a level/dress job of the frets. The frets themselves are like '50s Gibson frets -- smallish, low, and thin.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, repro bridge install (the original was in the wrong place as well as damaged), bone saddle, replacement Gibson-style Tortis (high quality) pickguard from LMII, and general setup and cleaning.

Setup notes: it plays perfectly with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret and is strung with 54w-12 gauges. I think it's a "Jake-nudged" set, though, individually gauge at 54w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12. The owner had just restrung it before drop-off. The neck is straight and, of course, action is easily-adjustable via the neck-angle-adjuster gizmo at the heel.

Scale length: 24 5/8"

Nut width: 1 9/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2 5/16"

Body length: 20"

Lower bout width: 16 1/8"

Side depth at endpin: 4 7/8"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid mahogany

Bracing type: x-bracing, light

Fretboard: Brazilian rosewood

Bridge: rosewood

Neck feel: medium full-C-shape, ~10" board radius

Neck wood: mahogany shell around magnesium core

Weight: 4 lb 15 oz

Condition notes: there's an old repair of a ~3" hairline crack on the treble, lower-bout side, and a hairline crack in the neck's veneer-wood near the heel itself (a non-issue), but the guitar is otherwise crack-free and looks great save for a little wear-and-tear around the pickguard and the usual minor buckle-rash, finish discoloration from arm-wear on the lower-bout, and finish-cracking you'd associate with nitro finishes from the time. The pickguard and bridge are replacements, but I patterned the bridge on the (damaged) original.

It comes with: a decent hard case.