nuke

LOL, they do! Always thought it was weird, but kind of understand it now. I have one very nice guitar, that is so nice, that I get nervous touching it and have OCD to wipe it down every time I get it out for a while. Bought it from a friend who lives in Japan. I'm afraid to take it out anywhere. It's gorgeous and plays like a dream. But a few years ago, was offered a killer deal on a new Gibson 60th anniversary Custom Shop 1960 Les Paul reissue. It came "lightly aged". I have no "first nick" trepidation and pull it out to play with ease. I'll even take it out to a jam or what not. I've always made my own patina, but it seems to take decades. The most "patina" of mine is a 1984 Fender Esprit, and it already had some significant marks when I bought it in 1988.

Since I was around and 6-string aware when Heritage came along, as well as G&L, I've held both in high regard. I really fell in love with the H140 when I first set hands upon one in the 1980's. Somehow, me owning one, never happened. I can say that among my friends who knew Heritage, we tended to regard them as a "G-style" guitar that was good, more affordable and useful as a tool for the working musician who wanted a good-quality, G-style instrument that was road worthy. That seemed to be the prevailing view of the brand into the 2000's among working musicians. Used Heritage guitars from the 80's and early 90's tend have a lot of... patina in my experience. G&L's, especially ASAT's, same kind of experience. Working man's tools.

Nice channel on youtube. You got a lot of videos there!

Welcome!!! I'm almost 60 myself. Just playing devils advocate a bit, not trolling you.

Why not just buy a Gibson? Not trolling, but what made you get the Heritage instead of the Gibson? My first Heritage was a '98 H150 (I bought used), which was a special dealer order with Seymour Duncan 59's and tune-o-matic tail and bridge (Nashville type) instead of Schaller pups and hardware and jumbo frets. Heritage put some weird value pots in it (basically the same as Norlin era late 70's Les Pauls, 300k and 100k). I played it for almost 20 years like that. Eventually, I had to replace the output jack, so put in the excellent Dimarzio 30% taper pots at the same time (500k and 250k). Much better. Then I put Faber locking ABR bridge and locking lightweight aluminum stopbar. Then I put on a set of Gotoh SG301 locking tuners in place of the heavy Grovers. That shaved a significant weight off the guitar, 8.8lbs now, vs a bit over 9lbs. More balanced and comfortable now. The Faber stuff is great, and is more functional change than stylistic change. Locking hardware and tuners are awesome at string change. Not long ago, I bought a virtually unplayed 2001 H535. It had the typical Schaller hardware and HRW pickups. I liked the Faber stuff so much I put it on the H535, along with a set of Gotoh SG301 tuners. (the Rotomatics had gotten stiff due to lack of use). I put the Faber inserts and bushings in and holy cow, did that ever bring the tone out! I was stunned how much difference that made to the 535. I just refretted it with the same Dunlop 6100 wire too. Turns out it had some of the worst factory fretwork I've ever seen. Explains why it was unplayed so long. But now, it's a forever guitar. I love it, hands down. I've compared it with a Collings I35LC with Throbaks (excellent guitar) and I am totally happy with my 535. I even put a CNC'd nylon nut on it, because they work so much better than bone. I didn't mind the stock Schaller hardware, but I'm much more used to the conventional tune-o-matic when I play. Just more comfortable. I also own a very killer Gibson, a Custom shop 60th anniversary 1960 Les Paul v2. It is a stunner of a Les Paul as well. I know what a great Gibson should be. (where I learned the value of Nylon 6/6 nuts - which were original on all the 'bursts from the 50's and 60's) So I ask, why do you want to change your Heritages? Are you: Correcting something? Changing something for practical purposed? Changing something to suit your playing style as it evolves? Changing something for aesthetic reasons? But I would suggest if you want it to be a Gibson, find the Gibson you want and get that. There are enough, minor, but important differences, that a Heritage isn't and never will be a Gibson. My H150 is never gonna be a Gibson Les Paul, and my H535 is never gonna be a Gibson ES335, but that's OK.

Try this: Roll the volumes down to 9 and your tone controls down to 7. This will take the hair off the SD59's. My '98 H150 came factory equipped with SD59's. Heritage back then was equipping them with 300k volume and 150k tone pots, which smoothed them down quite a bit. A little too much in my opinion. I had occasion to replace a bad jack and a slightly scratchy pot, so I replaced the pots with Dimarzio 500k volumes and 250k tones. That's electrically, the equivalent of making 7.5 the top of the tone pots. Seems about right to me. The Dimarzio pots have a 30% audio taper, which allows smoother control of the volume as you turn down from full. The usual 10% audio taper pots are designed to give smooth control coming up from full off. I have a Gibson Custom Shop 1960 re-issue with the Custom Bucker III pickups. They're lower output, softer in the highs with a little upper high frequency shimmer. The Alnico 3 magnets are low flux, so the pickups can go closer to the strings, which they kind of need to. Had occasion to play a Collings I35-LC (ES-335 style) which was equipped with ThroBak SLE-101-plus pickups. Wow, match made in heaven. Clapton's ES335 was most likely "patent sticker" humbuckers. Lifeson's ES355 was most likely t-top humbuckers. Different tones, different eras.

Yeah, I had opportunity to play it for a month or two with just the bridge, then just the aluminum tail piece, then locked the tailpiece. The bushings though, made a lot of difference in sound. More so than I would have expected. I tend to think the bridge INserts were the biggest part of that. The odd ringing overtones are gone, leaves a really nice, dry, woody, mods-forward tone that I was looking for. A lot like the very expensive Collings I35-LC I played a few weeks ago. That was a nice playing and very good sounding guitar. I was a little on the fence about the bushings and inserts. Skeptical that the tail stud bushings would make any difference, and was not certain I wanted to make a change that precluded putting the original Schaller hardware back on. Once I did though, super happy with it and decided to go with the refret. I've got the frets off the H535 now, in the process of properly leveling the fretboard and re-fretting to get the playability up where it should be. I think this one left the factory with a poorly leveled fretboard, and I think a few people had a go at it over the years trying to correct the problem by leveling and crowning the frets. They still had the nibs, so it was factory frets. Someone had a ham-fisted go at it with a crowning file at some point. Also found the radius was 10" instead of 12". Not that unusual, but kind of a pointer at lax QC when this guitar was made. I think it will play super nicely. I have a CNC'd nylon 6/6 nut waiting to go on as well. (like Gibson in the 50's and 60's used).

A few months ago, I bought a used 2001 H535, blonde with HRW pickups. It had the typical Schaller roller bridge and top-loader tailpiece. I bought a Faber locking tail and locking bridge kit for it. Found that the tailpiece bushing holes were not deep enough to take Faber studs. Hunted around for a 11mm Forstner drill bit, eventually found one and sunk the holes another 0.21". While I had it out, the H535 bushing inserts were surprisingly short and easy to pull out. I had to raise them to get the Faber locking spacers on them to work, and it wasn't all that stable with the bushing not all the way down. So I opted to replace the tailpiece bushings with the Faber 11mm/Imperial thread, and got the INsert bridge studs while I was at it. Wow, that made a big difference. The tone greatly improved with the addition of the bushings. It really brought out that dry, woody, semi-hollow-body laminate sound. The tail studs are about 0.90" long, steel, and just slightly oversized, so they fit and bite into the wood tightly. It took some effort to press them in and flush with the to of the guitar. The real trick though are the bridge studs that replace the "Nashville/Schaller" threaded inserts. The Faber ones are much longer and have much deeper wood contact. On the 535, they couple not just to the upper laminate shell, they reach into the maple center block. Between the two, really good acoustic coupling into the wood. Made quite a tone difference in a very good way. Had the bridge and the aluminum tail on for a while now, but the bushings really did the trick. The original bushings in the H535 are on the left, the ones on the right are Faber (aged nickel).

Yeah, my 2001 H535 fret issues are varied. I can set the truss rod to get the fretboard straight using a notched straight edge. However, at that setting, the frets are not leveled properly nor does the relief match the tops of the frets. Or set the truss rod to make the relief measured at the fret tops more correct, which makes the fretboard wonky. The other issue is the frets are rolled off too far from the treble edge, especially frets 1 - 5. I don't know if it was bad factory work or someone did a bad job on it before I owned it. 2001 was kind of a weird time at Heritage. Some real gems from that era, but seems like consistency was off. I did a bit of leveling and crowning and it is better. Not completely happy with it though. Planning on a full refret with Dunlop 6100, bit wider and a fair bit taller fret. That's what's on my H150 and it plays like butter. Going to do a full refret, lose the nibs, and pay attention to properly level the fretboard first before installing the new frets. Guitar sounds great, looks great, but I don't think it lives up to its potential without fretwork.

There's all kinds of crazy theories out there. The most coveted vintage Gibson electrics are the sunburst Les Paul standards from about 57-60. In reality, these were factory-equipped with *nylon* nuts, aluminum tailpieces, the early ABR-1 bridges without retaining wires (so you can look for the saddle and screw on a dark stage when a string breaks) The ABR-1 was mounted on 6-32 machine screws threaded directly into the wood, which had a tendency to lean over time from string pressure. The bodies were cemented together with phenol glue, which was radio-induction cured (literally radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation) not "hide glue" like everyone thinks. They also used aniline red dye, which bled into the binding and quickly faded on exposure to sunlight, even in store windows before they could be sold. The wire was added to the ABR-1 to prevent loss of the saddles when changing a string or when one broke. They went to threaded inserts so they wouldn't tend lean over time and to improve manufacturability. The tailpiece went to zinc as a cost saving measure. The Nashville bridge allowed for more adjustment range, since not all the necks mated to bodies in the right place... But as a benefit, the saddle no longer came loose and pinged across dark stages, nor was there a crappy wire to rattle and buzz. Then there's the whole rabbit hole of pickups too. I have a Gibson 1960-R2 Custom Shop 60th anniversary Les Paul. It is awesome actually. 8lbs and about 2 ounces, single piece body and all the pure vintagy hoo-hah. But I have to say, it plays and sounds incredible. Totally nails that "a great Les Paul sounds like a beefy Telecaster" thing in spades. There's really nothing wrong with the Schaller hardware or their humbucker pickups for that matter.

I own two Heritage guitars, a 1998 H150-CM which was factory-equipped with a Nashville bridge and a zinc stop tailpiece, as well as Seymour Duncan 59's. I bought it second-hand from the dealer who had a special run made and their customer traded it in. It was also fretted with 6100 wire and no nibs. Possibly done by prior owner, but they look factory to me. I swapped the zinc tail piece and Nashville bridge for Faber ABR and aluminum, and replaced the heavy Rotomatics with exact fit Gotoh tuners and lost enough weight to bring the whole thing nicely under 9lbs. I have a 2001 H535, which I bought recently in near-mint condition. It came with the usual Schaller hardware and HRW pickups, the medium jumbo fretwire and nibs. I've tried a few combos of ABR bridge and tailpieces, including a Nashville, anylon saddle ABR, and a Faber tone-lock ABR. I have an aluminum stop bar on it. I couldn't lock the Faber tail on, since the stud holes are a bit too shallow on this particular 535. Honestly, I can't say any of the bridges were ground-breakingly different in tone. If anything, the tune-o-matic bridges are slightly brighter sounding, and a little bit off my target of getting more of that mid-range forward semi-hollow sound. The nylon saddle ABR bridge really didn't sound materially different than the nashville, nor the metal saddle ABR. I'm considering just putting the Schaller stuff back on it. Like I said, they're in near-mint condition. Kind of weird looking and not exactly what I'm used to. But I can certainly play them well enough. I played a Collings I35-LC the other day. Holy cow, that thing sounded absolutely amazing. Totally nailed the tone. Collings uses the heavy zinc tail and ABR from Kluson of all things. Whatever they did with the wood though really hit the mark. Acoustically it instantly had that sound.

There's nothing wrong with the Schaller top-loader tailpiece nor the roller bridge. They're on the heavy side and that's out of fashion these days. The rest of the objection is look and feel. I'm more accustomed to the common Tune-o-matic bridges and stop tail piece, in terms of how they feel under my hand. I also have a 1984 Fender Esprit Elite, which also came factory with the Schaller bridge and tail. I've played it for many years. The bridge is nice because you can set the string to string spacing. I'm not sure it is intended as a "roller" so much as it is intended for allowing for string spacing adjustment. One thing that does go wrong with the roller bridge (Schaller calls it STM bridge) is the threaded rod on each roller works loose from the forks that hold them. They're just peened into place at manufacture and over time, they work loose. The looseness tends to be a bit of a tone-sucker. Also, they sometimes get so loose they fall out if a string breaks or during a string change. The fix is pretty simple: You can get brand new saddles from Schaller right off their website. If they aren't broken, I've found putting the tiniest spec (teeny-tiny) of red loctite into each fork and inserting the roller assembly back in is a permanent fix. Don't try to tighten the forks by bending, they're made of zinc and will just crack. It's why they come loose in the first place. The Schaller bridge and tail are just fine, work as well as a Nashville and heavy zinc stop bar in every respect, and allow for string spacing adjustment.

Yup, Gibson does it the same way and pretty much everyone else who winds up with nibs. Martin has been doing "pocketed" fret slots even on unbound fingerboards, so no visible fret tangs.

I think nibs are more of a process thing. Fretboards are mass produced and fretted before attaching to the neck. It's a lot easier to mass produce bound fretboards by installing the binding after the frets are installed, leveled, crowned and ends beveled. The board is shaped, with the channel for binding, then the frets installed and trimmed and dressed, then binding is glued on to the edge of the fretboard. Then it is trimmed level with eh edge of the wood, leaving a nib at the fret end. It's just faster and easier that way. I have a Martin acoustic with a bound fretboard (OMC-PA1 with ovangkal binding). Martin uses a "pocketed" technique to apply frets over the binding, with CNC doing all the precision work on the fretboard slots, leaving the bound part unslotted. (at least that's how it was explained to me at the Martin factory).

Yeah, I was thinking the H140 evolved over time a bit. 7.2lbs is a great weight for that!

Ahh, I was wondering what the differences were. Always was a fan of the H140 and played a bunch of them, just never seemed to get the opportunity to own one.

Is the H150 "Special" just a renamed H140? On the "variants of Les Paul Jr." theme, there's a lot of competition in that area. The Eastman SB55/v is astoundingly good for example, and very well priced.

I once came across an H140 that was well over 11 pounds. I couldn’t believe it, but the scale didn’t lie. I can’t imagine how it could weigh that much, being a thinner, slimmed down Les Paul. I’m old enough now that anything with a strap weight over 9lbs is not comfortable and over 10 is a no go.

I took a real close look at both, my H150 (1998) and H535 (2001). I bought the H150 around 2001 at a guitar show, from Buffalo Brothers, who were a big Heritage Dealer long ago. They told me it was part of a special dealer run that they ordered in 1998. Their customer traded in for another guitar. Unlike most 1998 H150's, it came with a tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece (nashville and heavy zinc, exactly like Gibson) and Seymour Duncan 59's. The H535 (2001) was a recent acquisition. It literally looks nearly unplayed, inside and out. It had the usual hardware on it, Schaller roller, top-loader tail, and HRW pickups. The hardware looks nearly factory new, as do the pickups. It looks like it was a case queen. I looked at the frets under magnification and measured them. I'm convinced they're factory, over the binding. They're also jumbo, larger than the H535. Looks like 57x110 (like Dunlop 6100). The binding is also different than my H535, much thinner. No nibs, as the board looks like it was bound, then fretted. Fretwork on the H150 is very high quality. Fretboard prep is really great on it, as well as the fret work itself. If it was a refret, I wanna meet that guy, cause it shows no sign of refret. Checking truss action with a notched straightedge (fretboard) vs. a ground straightedge (tops of frets) are pretty close to flat with each other. (sign of good board prep before fretting). By comparison, the H535 frets are almost certainly Jescar 47105 (.047x .104) wire. Nibs of course, binding is a lot deeper (front to back) than the H150. Fretboard and fretwork not as nicely done overall. There's really no wear on them, anywhere. Using the notched and ground straightedges, truss adjustment shows board flat vs. frets flat at very different settings. Means the fretboard prep wasn't as well done. While the fret tops are well dressed, the finished height from the top of the fretboard are significantly different all over the neck. It ranges from about .035 in the first few frets to about .044 above the 12th fret. Despite all that, the 535 still plays pretty well, sounds fantastic and looks beautiful. I'm considering perhaps refretting it the same as the H150. Would lose the nibs, but it would probably play very well.

A few weeks ago, I acquired a 2001 H535 with HRW's in natural maple. It's gorgeous and sounds great. The guitar seems to be nearly unplayed condition as well. Now that the excitement of newness has faded a bit, I note that the fretwork and the nut slotting were not the best work I've ever seen. This one has binding nibs over the end of the frets. By comparison, my 1998 H150 has fantastic fret work and plays like butter even after I've played the heck out of it for 20-something years. The nut is easy to adjust. The frets though, were shaped in a manner that lowers toward the fingerboard too far from the edge on the treble side. That and the nibs reduce the amount of 1st string playable area a bit. Had a few places with some poor leveling under the 1st string as well that were correctable. The fretwire appears to be the same as what was put on the H150, just leveled lower too far from the treble edge and with binding nibs. My H150 I've never had anything done to the frets, other than polish them from time to time. I've worn some divots in the lower frets, but not enough to warrant correction. I was under the impression that Heritage guitars didn't normally have the nibs in the late-90's-early-2000's, but I'm wrong about that? Kind of pondering a refret to get the H535 to play more like my H150 does. Lose the nibs in process, use the same wire on my H150 and same leveling process to maximize the playable area towards the edge of the fingerboard. Comments?

The zinc stop bar weighs 78 grams, the Faber weighs 28, so between the stop bar and the tuners, reduced the net weight of the guitar by 130 grams. The Nashville to Faber ABR change, was worth about 5 grams of reduction. So reduced by 135 grams total. So that's about 4.76 ounces, or just a bit more than a quarter pound reduction over all. So from the low 9lbs and into the upper 8lbs range. (barely). But it definitely is enough to feel in the hand and on the strap. It looks nice and plays and sounds nice. Pretty much a win over all.

Nice. The Gotoh SG301 are available with those knobs as well, and really, all kinds of options to figure out, locking, locking with a knob, height adjustable posts, adjustable posts with string lock. Here's the Gotoh product page. https://g-gotoh.com/product/sg301/?lang=en The Gotoh locking tuners are pretty much the same weight as the regular Gotoh tuners, but a good bit lighter than the Rotomatics.

Yeah, mine was in the lower-9lb range, close enough that I thought I might be able to get it under the mark. It was a factory equipped tune-o-matic and factory SD59 pickups, from 1998. I have a Gibson Custom 1960 Les Paul 'burst re-issue, and it is crazy light, 8lbs 1oz, one-piece mahagony, not relieved. Really awesome guitar. I realized that it could probably land the H150 in the high-8lbs range just by changing the hardware. I knew the zinc stop-bar and the tuners were both heavy. That sort of turned into a bit of a parts hunt. My thinking was plastic keystone tuners, like the Grover 135 and an aluminum stop bar. But they're not drop-in. And then I found the stop bar was a little wider than typical stop bars. That's when I stumbled onto the 1960-reissue and kind of set aside the project. Once I found that the Faber stop-bar fit the H150 perfectly a few weeks ago, I decided to hunt the catalogs and realized the Gotoh SG301 were perfect fit for rotomatics, and the option of a lightweight aluminum knobs, I figured game on. They're not quite as light as the stamped, "Deluxe vintage style" tuners, but they're pretty close. I might move the SG301 with the aluminum knobs to my H535, where the Rotomatics are very stiff, and put the "keystone" knob tuners on the H150, since it is kinda likes vintagey. But I kind of want locking tuners on the H535... Which got the aluminum stop bar that didn't fit the H150, and a locking ABR style with nylon saddles. Brought to you by the department of can't leave well enough alone. 🤣

I've been on a quest to reduce the weight of my 1998 Heritage H150 electric (Les Paul style) by reducing the hardware weight. The stock, heavy zinc stop bar and Nashville tune-o-matic have been replaced by locking Faber aluminum stop bar and ABR-1 style bridge. That's a considerable weight reduction already. That left the tuners. Grover Rotomatics are quite heavy, surprisingly so. Gotoh makes a machine head that is a 1-to-1 footprint match with Grover Rotomatics. Exact hole and screw position. The basic model number is SG301. They are very high quality, sealed, smooth turning and have 18:1 gear ratio. The tuners are available in wide variety of options, colors, button types, post heights, locking and non-locking versions. Of interest is Gotoh SG301-AB20-C-L3/R3. "-AB20" is an *aluminum*, chrome plated, Rotomatic large style button. The Goto tuners weigh 29.6 grams each. That's versus Rotomatics at 43 grams each. Each SG301 with the aluminum button is 13.4 grams lighter than the Grover Rotomatic. This shaves 80 grams, 2.84 ounces, off the headstock of the guitar. The look of the guitar is maintained, no holes drilled or altered at all. The tuner change and the Faber hardware got me under the 9-pound mark. I weighed in at 8lbs, 15-ounces, ready to play. It also has good balance on the strap. For comparison, I weighed a plastic, "keystone vintage style" tuner at 26.6 grams. That would have shaved another 18 grams off the guitar, but the mounting screw pattern is not identical, would have required some drilling and left evidence of a tuner change. Not worth the extra half ounce. I ordered the tuners from JAParts from Canada. Had them in stock and took about a week to arrive in the US.

You just need the right set of Faber hardware. The matrix of parts on their website is a bit overwhelming, but some careful measuring will get you the right set of hardware you need to make it work. I have a 1998 H150, which came from the Heritage factory with SD59's and a tune-o-matic stop tailpiece and nashville bridge. Heritage used the Gibson spec tail on mine, with a slightly wider spacing, such that a Gotoh aluminum tail piece wouldn't fit (82mm, a millimeter too narrow spacing between the studs) but a Faber one fit perfectly (83mm). I even screwed up the first time and bought the wrong set of studs. Easy exchange for the correct set and good to go. Weirdly enough, I have a 2001 H535 which came with the Schaller roller bridge and top-loader tail piece. The Gotoh tailpiece slipped right on that, and a Gibson Nashville bridge swaps on perfectly.