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--sorry for screwed up formatting on this post. Can't seem to fix it, and don't have time to start over... Gibson did move the neck joint to the 19th fret (like a 335) in 1968, and these are called "long-neck es330s or 330L's." There are a couple, both original and reissue, on sale on Reverb: We had a thread. about this years ago. There's a post that I think TalismanRich made that shows the interior of a 530, which has a pretty substantial block.https://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/37263-question-about-the-h-530/

Good question. I think you are right, but it's hard to tell for sure given the angle of the pics. I looked for, but couldn't find, a catalog that had a pic of a Roy Clark and a 535 from the same angle and from the same point in time. Based on the pics in this thread, there's not as much difference in the relationship of bridge to f-hole between the RC and 535 as there is between the Roy Clark and 576, but there does seem to be some difference. I'd guess they had to do a little finagling to make the guitar look right with no cutaway on the top, but, again, that's just speculation. My sense is that they tried to use the same parts and jigs as much as possible between models, but that sometimes changes in, for example, scale length, meant that they had to make modifications ... and, those mods were not always consistent over time. In digging, I found a pic that MartyGrass had posted on another site that showed a block under the front pickup on the 576, so, maybe my speculation that it was built more like a 550 was wrong, which would undermine most of my other guesses.

--sorry, should probably be more clear. On the Roy Clark, there can be more neck clear of the body because the block into which the neck is set is integral to the structure of the guitar. On the 576, this is not the case, the neck is set into a block as with traditional acoustic guitars or archtops. So the issue become neck stability. Sort of like the difference between the two versions of the es330; the later version --full hollow but with more neck clear of the body like a 335 but mounted into a relatively small block-- had neck stability issues, as did the LP Signature for similar reasons. I seem to remember that Heritage addressed this with the 525 by extending the neck block further into the body than Gibson had done with the later version of the 330 or the Signature. The 550 and 535 are the only versions of these that I own and can speak from my own inspection of how they are built. The rest is hearsay and speculation. I do think all these guitars are made with top and bottoms laminated with the same molds and then cut to 16 or 17, and cutouts added, which is why the 550, and I presume the 576, have tops that are not very deeply arched.

I don't own either of these models, but, speculating based on what I know and from the pics, the neck meets the body (on the non-cutaway side) at different points. Maybe this is because the Roy Clark is essentially a 535 (semi) but with one cutaway instead of two, and the neck slots into the solid central block, and the 576 is constructed like a full hollow but with a block under the bridge, like a 550. --in other words, I basically agree with Talishman Rich's post above. I don't think the 576 has a full through-body block. On the 550, it's actually more like a plate into which the bridge is mounted, but not sure if the 576 is exaxtly the same.