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Gibson Memphis Tour Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018


Etienne Rambert

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My impressions:

 

1. The Gibson facility is huge. And it is in a prime Memphis real estate area. It is much larger than the factory itself. If it is sold - it could easily become the largest shopping mall in the Beal Street area. It appears to be a relatively new building complex.

 

2. The Memphis factory is turning out only 60 guitars per day. (Think about that.)

 

3. I saw maybe 50 workers turning out those 60 guitars daily.

 

4. There is ONE -- only one paint guy. He's been around a long time. So every

ES guitar really has a slightly different paint job. Impossible to get exactly the

same paint coating if you only have one worker doing it.

 

5. That one guy also paints over the bindings on the guitars.

 

6. There are two or three workers who then painstakingly remove the paint coats from the bindings by hand.

 

7. The tour was floor-level with the workers, not high up looking down. We were maybe 3 to 5 meters from the actual work area.

 

8. 2 PLEK machines (and a lot of other machines) in that factory. One old presser or stamper came from Kalamazoo and is still in heavy use.

 

9. No ES Les Pauls are being made in 2018.

 

10. I didn't know Gibson owned TASCAM & Line 6. But their gear was on sale

in the retail shop.

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I have a couple of ES guitars made in Memphis.

 

They did a super job on them.

 

My other Gibson came from Nashville, and I have 2 acoustics made in the Bozeman Plant, as well as a Flatiron mandolin. The other mandolin was made in Nashville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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