Are there still Loar clone builders

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here is an example of a Randy Wood that I owned. It fooled many (then)

[Rroyd]

BobLeeSwagger
I recall the posts you were referring to; MandoMedic had posted about the fake Loars that were apparently being used
to finance white supremacist activities, and Charlie D. had questioned their existence. It was not long before one of the Supergrass-Loarfests in Bakersfield, as Charlie had suggested they discuss it over a burger while attending the festival. Hope that helps.

[danb]

Well, that's an interesting story. Sounds like Loar tabloid stuff I haven't heard of that one, but it could obviously be looked into if one of these alleged ### Loars could be photographed for us to comment on or seen in person.

As Darryl says, most copies that go to the effort of putting "the gibson" on the peghead were made some time ago. There haven't been any modern forgeries that we are aware of that have tried very hard to pass off a fake as a Loar, but it's always worth a look.

The real issue is mostly that it would extrememly expensive to use vintage hardware that looks right, or indeed extremely expensive to make all the hardware look right vs the perceived payoff. The skill that is requried to imitate some of the oddities is also considerable, a good copy requires intense research and skill levels that would probably limit the pool of potential forgers to folks who have already been very successful as legitimate builders.

There are so many places that it could get tripped up, that it would be nearly impossible to put one on the open market without being caught in the act.

[Spruce]

"There are so many places that it could get tripped up, that it would be nearly impossible to put one on the open market without being caught in the act. "

Which points out just how difficult it is to copy that instrument with it's quirks and tells galore....

Hell, Blackguard Telecasters and Esquires are fetching 150K these days....
It's a lot easier to copy one of those.....

[HoGo]

One thing that I think is really hard to duplicate is the binding shrinkage issues.
One thing that I see in the modern Gibsons, and I have to say this is mostly in photo's here is a quick bend in the scroll binding to get the joint to align.

Jim,
you are very exact. The binding is pehaps the most difficult thing to replicate.
The carving and cutting of the scroll is another thing that none of the MM's or DMM's had right. The scroll on them is usually not cut around the button like on originals and the "quick bend" is necessary to join the bindings' ends.
Other thing is that I rarely seen correct size/shape of the neck button area.
And thirdly and most important is wrong shape of body. This is least visible thing, but after spending several years re-drawing plans of Loars and trying to catch every typical curvature I can clearly see some wrong curves on the MMs. Especially between the points and shape of upper the point is usually wrong. It's not necessarily result of wrong patterns used at Gibson, but the technology. Use of inside moulds (MMs) causes different distortions of the rim during assembly than use of outside mould (like on Loars).

[Links]

Quote:

"The real issue is mostly that it would extrememly expensive to use vintage hardware that looks right, or indeed extremely expensive to make all the hardware look right vs the perceived payoff. The skill that is requried to imitate some of the oddities is also considerable, a good copy requires intense research and skill levels that would probably limit the pool of potential forgers to folks who have already been very successful as legitimate builders.

There are so many places that it could get tripped up, that it would be nearly impossible to put one on the open market without being caught in the act."

Dan has it exactly right. It is really not a question wheteher it can be done on not - certainly it could be done where I don't think the experts could tell. There is enough variation in the Loars where there could be some differences, but you would have to know where those "tolerances" were. Therefore it would first take a builder with the skill of the best builders of today (don't think you could find one willing to do it) working with someone like Darryl or Dan to point out the details that most people don't notice, and access to original hardware or the capability to duplicate it (very difficult). I am sure the binding shrinkage could be figured out to duplicate an original.