BPorter - Posted - 11/12/2011:  10:14:39

Saturday, November 12, 2011 @1:11:00 PM

 

Back in the early to mid 1970s I received an original pre-war 5-string banjo neck RB3 late pattern, (Leaves and Bows) of which was cut in half lengthwise by either Tom Morgan or Paul Tester (deceased)  of Landover, Md.  The story behind the neck if memory is correct, that Tom Morgan cut the neck in half length wise to see how the truss rod was installed since he was having trouble with neck construction; at least this is what was related to me by Paul Tester.

I traded and/or sold the RB3 1/2 neck around 1979 with my music mail order business and several have asked about the neck since there is a pix of it on my website portercalls.com  in the About Us page(s).

Has anyone out there seen this neck in anyone's collection.

Just curious!

Bill Porter 

GSCarson - Posted - 11/12/2011:  10:55:18

Bill,

A close friend gifted me with some materials and odd parts from Paul Testor's shop, and among them are at least two cut up original Gibson neck heel sections that are cut up the middle to expose the truss slot. Kind of heart breaking in a way. They appeared to be tenors, but I've never really been certain about that and its been a while since I looked at them. If I have a chance this weekend I'll try to dig them out to refresh my memory...... I'll also take a look at your photo before I check them out. Also ended up with a flathead tone ring that is drilled and filed with all kinds of extra cut outs along the inside edge that is really scary, resonator back sections, lots of binding, etc, etc....

Best,
Glenn C.

Deaf Lester Crawdad - Posted - 11/12/2011:  11:51:32

quote:

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Originally posted by BPorter

Has anyone out there seen this neck in anyone's collection.

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Haven't seen yours, but I used to have an early halved TB3 neck that I sectioned to show people Gibson's original "upside down" trussrod installation. (The one that didn't work.)

The neck had already been broken off at the headstock -and very badly repaired- long before I got it, so it wasn't any great loss; and I seem to have misplaced it somewhere because I haven't seen it in years. 

~Pete

BPorter - Posted - 11/12/2011:  12:39:24

Thanks for the info Glenn; as much inlay and neck work that I did way back when, I  didn't cannibalize those tenor and plectrum necks,  most of the fingerboard inlays were less than .035 inches in thickness and enjoyed cutting the designs myself.    

BPorter - Posted - 11/12/2011:  12:43:14

Pete, it is amazing that some of those truss rods actually worked.  It certainly helped to apply external pressure at the neck and heel while adjusting the truss rod nut to help the neck move the way you wanted it.  The short tenors were a "dawg" sometimes but the rod worked much better with the plectrum and 5 strings versus the tenors. 

Bill Porter    

BPorter - Posted - 11/12/2011:  12:50:36

Pix of the RB3 late (leaves and bows) 1/2 neck behind and beside the Hearts and Flowers Peghead with the Mastertone in the peghead.

 

 

Deaf Lester Crawdad - Posted - 11/12/2011:  19:16:39

quote:

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Originally posted by BPorter

Pix of the RB3 late (leaves and bows) 1/2 neck behind and beside the Hearts and Flowers Peghead with the Mastertone in the peghead.

 

 

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 Heh!

I've got a box like that, but it's covered in cobwebs and has more old Vega necks than Gibson...

~Pete

jfb - Posted - 11/12/2011:  20:03:28

It seems there is a half neck around here somewhere Bill, but I do not remember it as being an original of any kind..Ik think it was just half of a newer neck..or maybe its just my memory of seeing it at one time in the past..the brain is slowly going..

USELESSWALI - Posted - 11/12/2011:  21:19:08

                   i had a sj guitar  the fiftys the whole guitar was cut   from peg head to the lower bout with the truss rod  in

Deaf Lester Crawdad - Posted - 11/12/2011:  22:53:07

quote:

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Originally posted by USELESSWALI

 i had a sj guitar  the fiftys the whole guitar was cut   from peg head to the lower bout with the truss rod  in

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I've never seen a Gibson that way, but during the mid-'70s Yamaha used to supply cut-in-half-lengthwise guitars to their dealers so it would be easy to show potential customers what they looked like inside. 

The guitars were purpose-built for this use, and had no trussrods or tuners.

Out local mom-and-pop music store still has one hanging up to catch attention, which it does.

~Pete

Edited by - Deaf Lester Crawdad on 11/12/2011 22:55:11

Oldtwanger - Posted - 11/13/2011:  04:53:02

Yes, I remember that neck and at Bill Porter’s behest I will try to relate what I know about it, or at least what I remember; it’s a neat story.

Paul Champion bought an RB-3 no-hole flathead (9473-5) from Tom Morgan’s brother Ross sometime in the late fifty’s. This is the one that Paul and Mike Longworth drilled the missing holes in the tonering at the Sewart Air Force Base hobby shop where Mike was stationed.

Around 1965 or so, Paul was a guest at a party in New York where another guest, highly intoxicated, wanted to play Paul’s banjo. In the attempt, the banjo was dropped and the neck, resonator and flange were badly broken. The intoxicated guest was none other than Bob Dylan.

Upon return to the DC area, Paul approached Tom Morgan for repairs. The resonator and flange were replaced with prewar orphans. The original neck had already had a broken heel repaired and had also been returned to Gibson at some point and outfitted with a bowtie fingerboard. Paul and Tom decided that a new mahogany neck would be made with the hearts and flowers inlay that Paul found more pleasing. The original neck was abandoned and shortly thereafter passed end to end through Tom’s bandsaw in a quest for better understanding of the truss rod installation in original RB necks.

It was in Tom’s basement shop in Takoma Park, MD that I saw the remains of Paul’s neck. I know Bill Porter had it sometime later, but its whereabouts now are unknown to me.

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  05:34:54

Thanks Frank, Lester, Walt and John for the update on the RB3 1/2 5-string neck...I would have bet serious money that the fingerboard was still the original RB3 late leaves and bows pattern........I am really curious now....grin if you must! John, you need to dig that neck out...I think the one you have maybe one of the mid-1970s neck blanks that was done from "head to heel" on a multiple spindle carving machine. I had quite a few of those neck blanks that left the factory as "seconds" but I certainly didn't see anything wrong with them at the time! That was in the days of some serious "horse trading"....grin again!

Bill Porter

Oldtwanger - Posted - 11/13/2011:  05:39:16

quote:

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Originally posted by BPorter

...I would have bet serious money that the fingerboard was still the original RB3 late leaves and bows pattern........I am really curious now.... 



Bill Porter

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You may be right, Bill!  They sorta run together after a while......been so many with that bowtie board...............

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  05:48:11

Frank, I know what you mean...I took some good notes over the years but around 22 years ago thought I didn't need 55 plus gallons of research data and notes and the landfill became the new owner and I had two file cabinets available to store new "stuff" and it which has long since been overloaded as well. Hindsight most of the time is 20/20.

Oldtwanger - Posted - 11/13/2011:  06:18:45

quote:

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Originally posted by BPorter

Frank, I know what you mean...I took some good notes over the years but around 22 years ago thought I didn't need 55 plus gallons of research data and notes and the landfill became the new owner and I had two file cabinets available to store new "stuff" and it which has long since been overloaded as well. Hindsight most of the time is 20/20.

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Well Bill, my trouble is I can't ever throw things away!  I found this in my files from Mike Longworth in 1998:

Subject: Re: Gibson solid (no-hole raised head tonerings)

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998

From : LongworthM@aol. com

F r a n k ,

I have only seen one no-hole flathead.  It belonged to Paul Champion. When I first saw it in Virginia in 1956, it had the Reno style A peghead/ was original five-string, but it had a new bow-tie fingerboard. Several years later, in 1958, we drilled the tone ring (duh).  Later on he apparently did a H&F neck with the center figure somewhat higher on the head than stock.  Paul lived in Orlando, and passed away a few years ago waiting for a replacement heart.  He was the only witness to Earl's use of my RB-4 banjo on a record, ‘Groundspeed.’

Mike L .

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  08:59:48

When that neck is located, I will probably loose my bet on the fingerboard inlay pattern...grin if you must! Someone eluded that Huber might have it in his neck collection, don't know.

Bill

DHutchens - Posted - 11/13/2011:  09:22:43

A few years ago when I did some trading with Harold Crisco and he had a style 3, that was cut down the middle. I think this one had a leaves and bows fingerboard.   Don't know if its still there, but you don't forget seeing things like that.  

Stu Mac used to have a RB 100 neck cut down the middle they displayed way back when they started.  This was in the days when they would go to Union Grove, Camp Springs, Berryville etc and set up with parts for all of us drool over.(69-71 or 2.

Doug

Edited by - DHutchens on 11/13/2011 09:25:15

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  10:26:04

Thanks Doug, I will give him a call and see if he still has it and/or remembers it. Harold and myself did a tremendous amount of trading back then.

Bill

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  10:38:02

Doug, I just got off the phone with Harold Chriscoe and he said he did get the neck from me and he let Larry Perkins have the neck of which he was planning on taking it back to the Gibson factory for some reason or another. He thought it had the RB3 late fingerboard inlays on it but he wasn't 100 percent sure either.

I will see if I can get up with Larry Perkins and see what he can recall about that RB3 late neck that was cut in half lengthwise.

Thanks,

Bill

BPorter - Posted - 11/13/2011:  12:57:20

Doug, I emailed Larry and he could not remember the neck due to all the trading that he and Harold did over the years but if Harold said he got it, that would certainly be correct!

Thanks for your help.

Bill

josh95843 - Posted - 11/14/2011:  00:08:20

wow great stuff guys

iluvearl - Posted - 11/14/2011:  15:27:04

I have seen half an old mahogany doublecut 5 string neck with fingerboard and 5th string hump (minus the inlays, frets and nut) at Huber's shop; could this be the one you are looking for?

BPorter - Posted - 11/14/2011:  16:41:13

This could be the one, thanks,

Bill Porter

BPorter - Posted - 11/16/2011:  13:02:25

I contacted Jim Runnels at Huber Banjos today and Jim took a look at the RB3 1/2 banjo neck cut in half lengthwise in their possession and it did have the leaves and bows fingerboard and to verify that it was the same neck, he observed where the neck heel had been repaired.

Frank, I guess the ole memory kicked in and a trip to Vegas might be in order since I feel "lucky". Thanks to all for your help and I will post the info on my website with permission given from Steve Huber.

Jim said the neck has since been broken in two at the 5th peg area and they were thinking that the neck was a salesman's sample but thanks to Frank (Oldtwanger), we know the complete story behind this neck and its where abouts.

Bill Porter

DHutchens - Posted - 11/16/2011:  16:11:43

Glad to know that some of our memories are still intact....

Can't remember my name or what you look like, but I never forget a wounded banjo neck.....

Doug

BPorter - Posted - 11/16/2011:  16:55:08

Doug, thanks for the lead on that banjo neck and you sure made me grin on this one!

Bill

BaldPaul - Posted - 11/18/2011:  15:58:50

This has been a great read. Like a mystery story. Any chance of a good photo showing the cut side?

BPorter - Posted - 11/18/2011:  16:49:25

I emailed Jim Runnels, Customer Service Rep. at Huber Banjos again to see if he would take any pixs of it and he said Steve Huber was the camera man and would forward his request to Steve....maybe.

Bill Porter