21/01/2026
Very interesting article from friend of the company and consultant Mr. JT Ribeloff .
Please head over to his page and check him out or Google his name for a fascinating in-site on the Gibson guitar and his illustrious career working with A list guitarists.
A Little Side Story About Elliot's Left-Hand Double Neck
This is a completely one of a kind hand made double neck Gibson EDS-1275. It is a one piece mahogany body and one piece mahogany necks. All wood is South American mahogany and Indian rosewood fingerboards. The double parallelogram inlays are placed in custom left hand fashion. This guitar was custom made for Elliot. Pickguards were also custom handmade, because there was no left handed tooling for this model at that time. Regular production model EDS-1275 used maple necks.
This custom order left-handed EDS-1275 piece is based on a 1966 Gibson double neck. When I was making the guitar, I was looking at close up photos of Jimmy Page's double neck and the 1966 Gibson catalog. The center pickguard lower center point, rather than just a radius, was inspired by the catalog as well as blueprints in the engineering blueprint drawings. I beveled the one piece body to match the bevels of Jimmy Page's double neck.
This is a very rare one of a kind Gibson double neck. This is the only left handed Gibson double neck that I know of at the time. I did make a right handed double neck for Steve Clarke soon after Elliot's. Actually, the most double neck guitars I made during my Gibson days were for A/B testing refining pickup designs, such as the ’57 Classic, Classic Plus, and BurstBucker. Also for designs that went into LP Classic, Firebirds, M3s, and Nighthawks. These double necks had two six string necks. The body and necks were picked to try to keep the same tone for both halves of the guitar for A/B pickup testing when I designed pickups.
When I joined Gibson, my main inspiration was to bring the McCarty era of design and construction back. It was a fortunate time for my goals to do exactly that. Ray Atwood and myself did all the engineering to bring the Historic Collection to life. With prices always being increased, this gave me the ammo to fight to make the classic models to original specifications. I knew the difference of Gibson guitars made up to 1964, compared to 1965 onward. Some pre-1965 work in process guitars were released after 1965, such as 1958–59 Vs and Explorers, as well as some 1960 Les Paul Customs finalized in 1968. The pre-1965 Gibsons were very graceful and great resonating musical instruments.
There are many Gibsons, including this model, that I always wanted to make for myself. But my time at Gibson was always precious. Sixteen to eighteen hour days was my usual routine. Many 48 hour days as well. When making Tony Iommi's total custom hand made SG, that was a 72 hour day. This is what it took to get the bad designs that cursed the brand from the late 60s through the mid 80s refined back to the real Gibson recipes. Even with all that effort, I was still not satisfied. Sales were great and the owners were happy with that. I had different visions of concepts that respected the brand and its customers. It was not my sandbox, so after 11 years of giving my all, I decided to retire and play on my own.
