Gibson Bridge Plate

[poopsidoo]

My 65 J-45 apparently has an oversized laminated maple bridge plate. Anybody changed theirs and gotten a louder or better sound?

[generalliamsayn]

The '65 J-45 I owned for a while (currently for sale at Acoustic Music Works) had it's bridge plate swapped to solid maple, but since I wasn't the one to do do it, I don't know how it sounded beforehand - so unfortunately I can't speak to whether doing so improved the guitar's tone.

IMO, of that era J-45, the biggest sonic improvement is to swap out the ADJ bridge if yours has one. The next would be thinning down the heavy, unscalloped braces those guitars have - but that is some serious surgery. The third would be the bridge plate.

But doing surgery to a vintage guitar open other cans of worms, mostly regarding resale value; most people like guitars untouched.

Having learned that a 60's J-45 didn't quite have what I wanted to hear, I opted to move to a different guitar. I only wish I could afford a 50's or 40's era J-45.

[Goat Mick]

Originally Posted by poopsidoo

My 65 J-45 apparently has an oversized laminated maple bridge plate. Anybody changed theirs and gotten a louder or better sound?

My '59 J-45 started having some issues with the top bellying and after some discussion with the luthier (he actually builds guitars) we decided that the best course of action to correct the problem and preserve the family heirloom would be to install an oversized bridge plate. He cautioned me going in that this would probably deaden the tone some, but we were most interested in preserving the instrument. Well to our surprise, the oversized bridge plate actually made the guitar more bright and lively.

Moral of the story is you never really know how a change is affect the tone of a guitar. It might be great, it might suck or you might not be able to tell any difference at all.

[1Charlie]

Agreed. I bought a '47 LG-3 a while back, knowing that the original maple bridgeplate had been replaced with a larger but thinner rosewood plate. I was prepared to return the guitar to spec, but all it took was one strum for me to change my mind.

[Scotso]

I have seen vids of a change to rosewood or maple vs the plywood on there now and the tone has improved. Never seen in person though