chilipeppermaniac
Ambassador of Decibels
ECL, I can see that explanation. and I thought of that myself. But what about the Explorers? How come they don't call them Reverse Explorers? And your 2nd sentence is exactly what my brain was trained to do. Then I start seeing FB's with Necks and Headstocks oriented one way or the other with the 6th string/tuning machines in the Strat/Tele style manner, vs the Nuno Bettencourt Washburn N2 reverse neck. long Low E string style like this.
So, basically I am beginning to understand SOME versions of the Firebirds. Correct me if I am wrong, but the initial ones had the body style and neck/headstock like this...
WIKI:
Gibson had made forays into radical body shapes – the Flying V and Explorer in the 1950s – which met limited initial success. The president of Gibson, Ted McCarty, hired car designer Ray Dietrich to design a guitar that would have popular appeal. Under Dietrich, the Firebird took on the lines of mid-50s car tailfins. Dietrich took the Explorer design and rounded the edges. The most unusual aspect is that the guitar is "backward" in that the right-hand (treble) horn of the body is longer than the other. Thus, the original Firebirds were unofficially referred to as "reverse".
The Firebird is the first Gibson solid-body to use neck-through construction, wherein the neck extended to the tail end of the body. The neck itself is made up of five plies of mahogany interspersed with four narrow strips of walnut for added strength. Other features were reverse headstock (with the tuners on the treble side) and "banjo"-style planetary geared tuning keys. The special original Gibson Firebird humbucking pickup(s) – single, dual or triple – were smaller footprint versions of standard Gibson humbucking pickups, but were unique in that inside each of their smaller bobbins contained an AlNiCo bar magnet (standard humbucking pickups AND mini-humbucking pickups have one bar magnet that activates the 6 iron slug poles of one bobbin, and 6 iron screw poles of the other bobbin). Original Firebird pickups were also built without any specific bobbin fasteners – their bobbins (and possible "reflector" plate under the bobbins) were held onto the frame during both the wax potting process (to reduce/eliminate feedback and unwanted noise) and the solid metal cover that was soldered to the frame base. There are no screw poles on Firebird pickups. Some Firebirds from 1965 featured Gibson's single-coil P-90 pickup.
The Firebird line went on sale in mid-1963 with four models distinguished by pickup and tailpiece configurations (see below). Unlike the Les Paul and SG line, which used the terms "Junior", "Special", "Standard" and "Custom", the Firebird used the Roman numerals "I", "III", "V" and "VII". Gibson's line of Thunderbird basses is rooted in the design of the Firebird, and uses even Roman numerals ("II" and "IV") to distinguish it. From 1965 to 1969, Gibson introduced "non-reverse" models after failing to achieve marketing success with the unusual reverse-body design. Gibson had also received complaints from Fender that the Firebird headstock mirrored the Stratocaster and that the body violated Fender's design patents, with Fender threatening a lawsuit. The "non-reverse" body is a more standard double-cutaway design, with the bass horn being longer than the treble horn and the headstock having the tuners mounted on the bass side. It also had a standard glued-in ("set") neck rather than neck-through construction, as well as other, less noticeable changes in design and build. Pickup and tailpiece configuration for the V and VII were the same as the earlier "reverse" models, although the I- and III-models were now shipped with two or three P-90 pickups and plain vibratos. After a few years of disappointing sales, the "non-reverse" line was dropped. "Reverse" body Firebirds were first reissued in 1972, with a commemorative "Bicentennial" model released in 1976 which was made available in a variety of finishes including black, vintage white, natural, and the traditional sunburst. The bicentennial model was also distinguished by gold hardware and a red-white-blue logo on the white pickguard. The logo on most other models is red.
