Explorer Bass Finally Converted

[ChWillie]

Friday, I will receive my lefty Gibson Explorer guitar. Always wanted one but only pulled the trigger after I bought a righty Epiphone Explorer bass.  
 

I had major surgery 2 1/2 weeks ago but felt great the last two days, strung it up, raised the action to get rid of buzz, and the Rex Plorer (righty Explorer) is now playable.  
 

I’ll post pics of them together. 
 

ironically the $500 Epi is made of Korina, while the Gibby is mahogany.   

[LeftyJ]

16 hours ago, HippieNerd said:

ironically the $500 Epi is made of Korina, while the Gibby is mahogany.   

 

Epiphone was able to do this because they used multi-piece bodies with a korina veneer on the top and back. So while the bodies may look like a single piece from the front and back, they can be made up of up to 10 narrower pieces glued together which will be visible from the sides. Gibson would not get away with that on a USA-made guitar, but Epiphone can. There's been a lot of speculation on the web whether the Epiphones are actually made of genuine korina (African limba), and several people who sanded their bodies down to refinish them claim they look more like basswood or poplar underneath the finish. But Gibson has made it very clear in response to these discussions they should indeed be genuine korina. There are some rare exceptions: there was once a Czech-made series of Epiphones (mostly Flying V's) with 2-piece korina bodies! 

Edited July 13, 2022 by LeftyJ

[ChWillie]

10 hours ago, LeftyJ said:

 

Epiphone was able to do this because they used multi-piece bodies with a korina veneer on the top and back. So while the bodies may look like a single piece from the front and back, they can be made up of up to 10 narrower pieces glued together which will be visible from the sides. Gibson would not get away with that on a USA-made guitar, but Epiphone can. There's been a lot of speculation on the web whether the Epiphones are actually made of genuine korina (African limba), and several people who sanded their bodies down to refinish them claim they look more like basswood or poplar underneath the finish. But Gibson has made it very clear in response to these discussions they should indeed be genuine korina. There are some rare exceptions: there was once a Czech-made series of Epiphones (mostly Flying V's) with 2-piece korina bodies! 

Thanks for the information.   It might even be made of toothpicks. Haha it sounds great.  I’d gig it.  Cheers