1928 Gibson L-0 Flattop Guitar

April 06, 2020

1928 Gibson L-0 Flattop Guitar

Update 2021: the owner sent this back for resale -- he's got all sorts of stuff going on so he's moving parts of his collection. Aside from a little more pickwear around the soundhole, it arrived back here exactly as it left in 2020 and playing just the same. I've taken fresh photos just in case.

Country-blues! Fingerpicking! Old-time! Yep, Gibson's late-'20s L-0/L-1/etc. flattop range of the time is right in there with all those terms. There's that famous Robert Johnson photo of him enjoying an L flattop, of course. The owner/consignor of this said to me, "hey, what do you think about, ya know, carving a little R and J on the back of the headstock?" Mm-hmm, nice try, buddy!

So, I have a fondness for these guitars. They're all a little odd because the bracing for the L-series flattops changed on a month-to-month basis, it seems, at Gibson. That's maybe a little bit of a lie, but it's not far from the truth, eh? These went from tic-tac-toe to fan to half-x to full-x bracing and all of them sound good for different uses. The x-braced models sound great for flatpicking and the rest make absurdly-good fingerpickers.

This one has a hybrid of half-X/fan-style bracing as the lower bout has the ladder-braced middle, two fan braces, and a single tonebar below the bridge plate. This is both the sturdiest bracing pattern and also the best for fingerpicking -- it's why I lead the video with fingerpicking rather than flatpicking. As a flatpicker, though, it's no slouch and sounds miles and miles better than your average ladder-braced "parlor" from the time under a flatpick. The woody-sounding, fundamental-sounding mahogany top doesn't hurt in that department, either.

For a smaller guitar, these guys pack a lot of punch and volume into them. They hold-up nicely in a jam and have a good amount of projection. Ones with this bracing pattern have a plainspoken voice with good sustain and snap. The mahogany top gives a little bit of compression to the sound and keeps one's playing trim and to the point -- a good thing, as the average L-flattop player is not playing slow airs on these boxes.

After repairs, it's playing bang-on-the-dot and feels great.

Repairs were a little fussy on this guitar as it had a damaged top at the bridge, though now that it's fixed-up, it's in good order and stable. The original bridge came into the shop split in several pieces and "folded-up" on the top with a piece of top-wood basically missing. To rectify this situation and make sure it didn't repeat itself, I had to glue an oversize bridge plate (I used spruce to save weight) under the top, fill the damaged area, and make a slightly-oversized rosewood bridge with about the same footprint as the original.

Another frustration during repairs was the truss rod -- I'd finished work on the guitar and was stringing it up when I found that rather than adjusting, the original brass truss rod was pulling out of the truss access point at the headstock when it was tightened-up. ARGH, right? I had to pull the neck again to gain access to the heel (where Gibson rods are anchored either with a nut or an L-shaped bend (this was the L-shaped bend). Fortunately, I cut access to it in the heel and soldered it all up (excessively) and it's functional once again.

Repairs included: a neck reset, truss rod repair (it was cracked at the heel), fret level/dress, side dots install, new custom bridge, oversize bridge plate install, a couple brace reglues, hairline crack repairs (one on the upper bout and two small ones near the bridge), new bone saddle, new ebony bridge pins and endpin, cleaning, and setup.

Setup notes: it plays perfectly with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. The truss rod works and the neck is straight. The frets were a little worn here and there and so they're not full-height but do handle like your average medium-sized frets after the level/dress job. The fretboard extension lightly dips-away from the rest of the board over the body but it's not super-obvious to the player. Strings are a custom set -- 54w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12. It'd probably take straight 12s just fine but I like to be on the safe side.

Scale length: 24 1/4"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"

String spacing at bridge: 2 5/16"

Body length: 18 7/8"

Lower bout width: 13 3/4"

Waist width: 8"

Upper bout width: 10 1/8"

Side depth at endpin: 4 1/8"

Top wood: solid mahogany

Back/sides wood: solid mahogany

Neck wood: mahogany

Bracing type: A-frame/fan-braced w/single tonebar

Fretboard: rosewood, ebony nut

Bridge: rosewood, new bone saddle

Neck feel: medium full-sides C-shape, roughly 12" board radius

Condition notes: replaced bridge, oversize spruce bridge plate replacement (with birch cap near the pins), replacement saddle and bridge/end pins, three hairline crack repairs on the top (one longer one on the upper bout and two short ones near the bridge), some light finish muck-up/discoloration where the heel meets the body, and mild usewear throughout. The original finish is extant and is actually in really good shape overall. The original tuners have bent D&G shafts at the buttons but they still work fine. The top does have a little "belly" under tension but it's been stable since repair. This is par for the course with these guitars as they're lightly-braced. The new bridge is slightly asymmetric and a little wider in the wing on the bass side. The original was cut this way so I cut this one that way, too.