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Main Description
Top Hat (or "reflector") knobs debuted in 1961, when Gibson® reinvented the Les Paul® (making something that would, eventually, become the SG®!)
Very similar to the bell knobs which preceeded them, but they were internally recessed to allow the knobs to sit flush with the top of the guitar. So even though they have existed for nearly as long as speed and bell knobs, they have only ever existed in that "modern" style.
Probably the "favourite" knobs for Gibson® guitars though - clearly labelled Volume and Tone, available in black or gold plastic with either gold or silver reflectors. Not as common as you'd think on guitars as "stock" but always well recieved.
Supplied in a set of 4 Suitable for Alpha or CTS Split Shaft pots.
Mounted with internal push on bush.
Gibson®, Epiphone®, Les Paul®, SG® and ES® are registered tradmarks of Gibson Musical Instrument Company, and Axesrus® makes no claims to these marks.
Metric Vs. Imperial
This one catches everyone out - so this is going to take a little bit of explaining!
This style of knobs are only designed to fit onto Split shaft pots - they "push" onto the teeth (the splines) of the pot, they slightly compress the split, and that tension, and that "meshing" with the teeth holds the knob in place and stops it freely rotating. Easy right?
However - theres one problem with that simple idea - Theres some variaiton in the splines of guitar pots - as a rough and ready rule, CTS pots (commonly found in Fender® and Gibson® guitars) have fine 24 splines (which is "imperial" (and approximately - it depends where the split lands!) where Alpha pots have coarse 16 splines (commonly found in Squier® and Epiphone®, and again, approximately! Split dependant!)
Because the pots have got to mesh with the splines pretty neatly - you've got to match up knobs to pots (atleast with acrylic knobs - ABS/PVC knobs are a little more forgiving being softer) - so, worth having a check of your pots to make sure your getting the right knobs.
These knobs only exist in Imperial sizes.
So - in short? Theres no fast answers sadly! But, for the most part - Metric pots and CTS pots are pretty simple to spot as long as you count the splines - and then its just a case of matching up knobs to pots!
Fitting
This might seem a little bit pointless, but fitting this style of knobs onto the guitars they usually turn up on, has a few pitfalls, so give this a once over just to make sure your not going to break anything!
Bell, Top Hat and Speed knobs are made from acrylic - its rock hard, and, as a result, quite brittle (Mohs around 4)- so ensuring that your fitting and removing them correctly is esential
to avoid damaging pots and/or knobs.
Compared to PVC and ABS knobs (UFOs and Witchhats, with a Mohs hardness around 2), Acrylic knobs wont "flex" or have their internal splines "recut" during fitting, so they're normally a little stiffer to fit and remove, because they're actually reshaping your pots "split" (brass and zinc being around 3 on the Mohs scale)
Vintage vs. Modern
Right - this is another thing that catches everyone out, and frankly, its as dull as dish water! - BUT - bare with me, because its important - DO NOT fall into the mindset of "Vintage is better!!" (because thats how we ended up with this weird situation!)
Originally, when Gibson®
first started producing electri guitars (in the late 1930s!) - they weren't using knobs we'd recognise by modern standards, but if you go back and look at the EH-150 and the ES-150, you can see something that looks a little like a speed knob, which sits (nearly) flush with the top of the guitar.
As Gibson® got further and further into the process, they realised that having the knobs "flush" was causing problems (I cant say i know what those problems where frankly - i'd guess is was either the knobs damaging the guitars finish, or variable thicknesses on the ES-150s top panel causing them to sit at different heights) - so around the late 40s, we see a change - and the speed knob as we know it comes into being (in gold!) - and the whole "vintage vs. modern" arguement starts.
The original Speed knobs sat about 4mm away from the top surface of the guitars. Well clear of the top of the guitar.
And this idea lasts right through the run of speed knobs, and it continues into bell knobs, onto the Les Paul® and the ES335® and a whole host of guitars - until 1961 - when the "Les Paul®" magically turned into what we'd call, nowadays, an SG® - and with a new "shape" we see new knobs- Top hat Knobs, which were countersunk internally, and sat flush to the top of the guitar again (I assume the issues from the original EH/ES150 were either ironed out by that point!)
And thats that - Speed knobs and Bell knobs were consigned to history? Well... not quite.
Gibson ditched Speed knobs and Bell knobs on all guitars until they finally gave in and re-issued the "orignal Les Paul®" shape with the Les Paul® Custom in 1968 - and whilst that didn't use Bell or Speed knobs (opting for "witch hat" knobs!), it did revert back to the "raised knobs" (pressumablly because the "curved" top of the "proper Les Paul®" caused issues with flush knobs... but again, i'd be guessing!)
So - to take a bit of a rest from the bombardment of names and dates - up to 1979 (ish) - knobs came in two types.
Bell, Speed and Witch hats were "vintage" - they sat a 4mm above the top of the pots "thread" (and this can look a bit weird if the pots thread doesn't "end" at the pots nut!
Top hat knobs, and only top hat knobs, exist in the "modern" style - recessed internally to allow the pots nut to sit "inside" the knob, and, ideal scenario, the knob to sit flush to the top of the guitar.
HOWEVER - by 1970, Gibson® did the unthinkable, and started fitting Top hat knobs onto "proper" Les Paul® models (starting with the Gold Top Deluxe!) - and seemingly, people liked that the knobs were atleast a little closer to the top panel of the guitar (you can actually see the problem with it if you look closely, they're closer, but they're at different heights!)
because they lasted through on all models until 1979 when... lesson learnt... Gibson reverted back to Vintage Speed knobs, raised up above the body in all their glory.
Until 1985... when we see things get murky.
Gibson started releasing guitars with "modern" bells knobs - bell knobs with the recess from the Top hats! Bell knobs that now sit flush(ish) with the top panel of the guitar. And by 1988 (or there abouts) we start seeing "modern" speed knobs.
BUT - we still see "vintage" bell and speed knobs after that date too (generally on models fitted with control pointers on the pots) - but the writing was on the wall - Gibson® had started to move away from the vintage spec knobs and had begun moving everything over to modern (probably co-inciding with manufacturing of certain parts moving into Asia)
So yeah - to recap.
Before 1985, Speed, bell and witchhats sit above the pots nut, top hads didn'.
After 1988, with a couple of exceptions, they all sat "over" the nut/flush to the guitar!
Eventually, as you can imagine, no one wanted to be producing 2 different types of knob, and by 1990, vintage knobs were gone from all guitars EXCEPT the re-issues (Gibson were always pretty on the ball with accuracy in that regard)
So - there you have it. Modern for anything post 88, vintage for anything before (or pretending to be)
HOWEVER - around 2015, Gibson, for whatever reason, decided to change the speed knobs and bell knobs back to vintage spec on most guitars- to such an extent that the modern equivilent (atleast from the usual manufacturer/in the highest quality) disappeared nearly over night on the after market.
BUT - Gibson continued to produce guitars with modern speed and bell knobs... so whats the deal?
As near as i can tell - Gibson started using the Epiphone® knob factory to produce their modern knobs, and kept on with the usual factory for the vintage stuff - the Epiphone knobs were a much lower quality - they lacked the embossing on the underside, and the quality of finishing wasnt as high.
Now, obviously, no one ever really spots it - no one ever pulls their guitar to bits and goes "hey, these knobs are cheap! Theres no embossing!" - where with us at Axesrus? You'd better believe thats what people are doing when they open up the package! So we, currently, only have access to the vintage spec speed and bell kbobs. 100% historically accuate, the highest possible quality we can get... but you've got to get your head around the fact that until 1985, Gibson® guitars fitted with speed and bell knobs had them sat a few centimeters higher then you'd expect!
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