fewmm said:
The reason the rings crack like that is a result of the carved top on the guitar. The rings are made flat with no radius to fit the carved top. The best fix is new rings with the bottoms radiused to fit the guitar. This has happened to every one of my gibsons! Hope this helps.
This is correct. Same thing happened on my 03 LS80... twice. Because of the Tokai top carve (which is 'historically correct') I'm not sure if it's a good idea to replace them with radiused rings, though; the carve in the rings will most likely be too strong fro the relatively flat top carve (so you'll have a space between the ring and top).
That's why I personally prefer to use the original flat rings. A trick to help them stop breaking is to not fully screw them down when you first mount them. Mount them so that they are mostly 'flat' at first, give it a week or two, then screw them down entirely so they arch with the top. Not sure if it makes a big difference, but it doesn't hurt for sure.
By the way: if you buy replacements, make sure you get 'tall' pickup rings as used on Gibson Historics. The ones used on Gibson USA are not as tall, and the pickup will rise quite a bit above the ring. If I remember correctly, this is due to the different neck angle and top carve on Standards (Tokais are closer to Historics spec-wise).
