charliea
Senior Member
In 1961 Gibson mated the J-45 slope shoulder body with a twelve-string neck, added a trapeze tailpiece, and called it the B45-12. 77 were made. In 1962 they dumped the trapeze and went with their "belly up" pin bridge. Only a handful were made including, it's rumored, a couple of natural tops which would use the J-50 body, as the J-45s were all 'burst. Nobody seems to know exactly how few pin bridge guitars were made before Gibson ceased production, but it stopped because the instruments, with 6-string bodies and no additional bracing, were blowing up at an alarming rate. In '63 the slope shoulders were history. Gibson began using the square shoulder hummingbird body, and adding bracing. The resulting guitars, bluntly, weren't very good. I owned a '66 very briefly, and have tried others. No thanks. On the other hand, the slopes moved into legend.
Neil Harpe at stellaguitars.com was feeling adventurous. He had a B45-12 neck that he picked up from a dealer in Belgium, and a NOS belly up pin bridge. When he came by a 60's J-50 body the iron was hot, and he struck. His luthier put together an all-Gibson (except the Kluson tuners, of course) Frankenstein. Then he found somebody with more money than sense (me), and the deal was done. The guitar is an honest-to-(pick your deity) B45-12 pin bridge slope shoulder, exactly what Gibson would have put together for me if I had special ordered one with a natural top. I've attached his photos below, because I haven't taken any yet. What the pics don't show is the mojo. Up close, the guitar looks like it won a couple of bar fights. It's the kind of guitar that, if you take it out of the case in a crowd, you'd best know what you're doing with it. Looking closely, though, except for a couple of very small repaired soundhole cracks, all the damage is superficial. It wears a fifteen-buck Chinese sound hole pickup that floored me. The thing sounds fabulous plugged-in. Go figure.
How does it sound? A whole lot better than any other B45-12 I've come across. Not nearly the power of a Guild, but a very balanced, sweet tone. Here's a sound clip https://soundcloud.com/atkinsonkw/12a . It's a keeper. Neil installed a "popsicle stick" brace crosswise under the fretboard extension to keep it from caving-in. As long as I tune down a step, it should last.
Neil Harpe at stellaguitars.com was feeling adventurous. He had a B45-12 neck that he picked up from a dealer in Belgium, and a NOS belly up pin bridge. When he came by a 60's J-50 body the iron was hot, and he struck. His luthier put together an all-Gibson (except the Kluson tuners, of course) Frankenstein. Then he found somebody with more money than sense (me), and the deal was done. The guitar is an honest-to-(pick your deity) B45-12 pin bridge slope shoulder, exactly what Gibson would have put together for me if I had special ordered one with a natural top. I've attached his photos below, because I haven't taken any yet. What the pics don't show is the mojo. Up close, the guitar looks like it won a couple of bar fights. It's the kind of guitar that, if you take it out of the case in a crowd, you'd best know what you're doing with it. Looking closely, though, except for a couple of very small repaired soundhole cracks, all the damage is superficial. It wears a fifteen-buck Chinese sound hole pickup that floored me. The thing sounds fabulous plugged-in. Go figure.
How does it sound? A whole lot better than any other B45-12 I've come across. Not nearly the power of a Guild, but a very balanced, sweet tone. Here's a sound clip https://soundcloud.com/atkinsonkw/12a . It's a keeper. Neil installed a "popsicle stick" brace crosswise under the fretboard extension to keep it from caving-in. As long as I tune down a step, it should last.
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