1960 Les Paul ‘Burst’ Restoration

CHRISB50

PinstripePhil said:

CHRISB50 said:

PinstripePhil said:

Dude. You are a gem of this Board. We are so lucky to get to share in your work. 
 When the time is right for you, I would just love to hear that guitar sing.
 All the very best Phil x

Shit, I didn't realise you posted here. I love your videos on Youtube for Fretted Americana!

@jumping@shadows Amazing work. Your paint jobs are a thing of beauty.

lmfao. Good one!! :-)))

 By the way, there are lots and lots of similar maple capped Les Paul customs out there.  So everyone can rest easy and just enjoy the restoration work.    

Couldn't resist

ourmaninthenorth

Happy to be proved wrong...but I'll need those specific serial numbered examples in the meantime...

ICBM

ourmaninthenorth said:

Yukki has restored this guitar to it's original form. 

A one off snatch off the line does not a summer make. 

Unless of course I'm a halfwit and 50's LPC's came with flame maple caps, specific examples anyone? 

No, because it was never finished as a Standard. It never had a Standard neck - as Yukki said, the neck hasn’t been replaced so it was always originally a Custom.

If I had to guess why, it’s because the odd bit of missing flame on the treble side of the seam, and maybe the seam itself, weren’t thought good enough to be finished in sunburst, so the body was converted to a Custom before it ever got near being assembled.

I just feel sad because the overly elevated status of the Standard has resulted in the loss of a much more interesting example of an original vintage Gibson, which had survived more or less intact for 60 years.

To make a ridiculously exaggerated analogy , it’s like repainting an original - albeit damaged - Botticelli in order to make a fake Leonardo.

ourmaninthenorth

ICBM said:

ourmaninthenorth said:

Yukki has restored this guitar to it's original form. 

A one off snatch off the line does not a summer make. 

Unless of course I'm a halfwit and 50's LPC's came with flame maple caps, specific examples anyone? 

No, because it was never finished as a Standard. It never had a Standard neck - as Yukki said, the neck hasn’t been replaced so it was always originally a Custom.

If I had to guess why, it’s because the odd bit of missing flame on the treble side of the seam, and maybe the seam itself, weren’t thought good enough to be finished in sunburst, so the body was converted to a Custom before it ever got near being assembled.

I just feel sad because the overly elevated status of the Standard has resulted in the loss of a much more interesting example of an original vintage Gibson, which had survived more or less intact for 60 years.

To make a ridiculously exaggerated analogy , it’s like repainting an original - albeit damaged - Botticelli in order to make a fake Leonardo.

Show me a single serial numbered example of a 50's LPC with a maple cap...a single one will do. 

Brize

ourmaninthenorth said:

Show me a single serial numbered example of a 50's LPC with a maple cap...a single one will do. 

Whatever the number, there's now one less.

ICBM

ourmaninthenorth said:

Show me a single serial numbered example of a 50's LPC with a maple cap...a single one will do. 

The one at the start of this thread.

If you think it’s not, show me a single example of an original 50s Standard with a wide bound diamond-inlay headstock, ebony board and multi-ply body binding.

Just because it didn’t correspond exactly to any official model does not make it not an original Gibson, and it was never modded.

Gibson did also make unique one-offs to special order. How can you be sure this wasn’t one? After all, Les Paul himself said that Gibson got it the wrong way round - the Standard should have been the cheaper all-mahogany model, and the Custom the one with the fancier maple cap.

fnpt

ourmaninthenorth said:

ICBM said:

ourmaninthenorth said:

Yukki has restored this guitar to it's original form. 

A one off snatch off the line does not a summer make. 

Unless of course I'm a halfwit and 50's LPC's came with flame maple caps, specific examples anyone? 

No, because it was never finished as a Standard. It never had a Standard neck - as Yukki said, the neck hasn’t been replaced so it was always originally a Custom.

If I had to guess why, it’s because the odd bit of missing flame on the treble side of the seam, and maybe the seam itself, weren’t thought good enough to be finished in sunburst, so the body was converted to a Custom before it ever got near being assembled.

I just feel sad because the overly elevated status of the Standard has resulted in the loss of a much more interesting example of an original vintage Gibson, which had survived more or less intact for 60 years.

To make a ridiculously exaggerated analogy , it’s like repainting an original - albeit damaged - Botticelli in order to make a fake Leonardo.

Show me a single serial numbered example of a 50's LPC with a maple cap...a single one will do. 

Exactly, it was an odd guitar and should've been kept intact as an oddity. Just refinished in black. IMO of course, it's not mine.

PVO_Dave

First off, thanks for coming back to the forum @jumping@shadows ;after the last thread was ruined 

Love seeing these threads

Couple of quick questions;
How does the headstock look now, did you trim that down to regular burst size / spec?
Did you have to do anything to the neck as you say it was shaved / carved in the past?
Any plans to sort out the minute gaps where you had to put the maple in on the front for regular binding?

Looks amazing in the pics though, congrats  

bodhi

Probably an awkward question, but do you intend to sell this guitar, and is it now worth more as a conversion than it would have been in its pre-converted state?

matone

Another old Gibson vandalised to make another `issues` `burst,how sad.

Brize

ICBM said:

The one at the start of this thread.

If you think it’s not, show me a single example of an original 50s Standard with a wide bound diamond-inlay headstock, ebony board and multi-ply body binding.

There was a thread on this guitar in 2015 where it was speculated that it was originally a Standard that had been upscaled to a Custom, but it was concluded that the maple cap was original and it left the factory as a Custom:

https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?198339-1960-Les-Paul-Custom-with-Maple-top

WezV

The problem for me is that any 50's custom with a centre seamed maple top would raise a lot of questions.   Many here would scream "fake", some would say "too risky".  People generally don't like deviations from standard spec.   As much as this would have fallen into the "the factory sometimes did that", some would always have doubts about its authenticity.

Whatever you think of this approach, the guitar is now well documented in its entirety and any future buyer will know exactly what they are getting.

Danielsguitars

IMO a  custom is and always will be a full carved top mahogany body, it's a guitar i really love personally and do not even consider a maple top custom the same, it's a totally different guitar to me, if i build a custom I'd be using a whole mahogany body not just sticking a maple cap on it

This is the right thing to do and it looks fantastic 

ourmaninthenorth

WezV said:

Whatever you think of this approach, the guitar is now well documented in its entirety and any future buyer will know exactly what they are getting.

That's about the strength of it.

One does one's own thinking.

My thoughts are obvious, as are others.

Miles vary considerably and interestingly. 

I repeat my congratulations to Yukki on a superb restoration, and leave it at that. 

I wish you well with your guitar, I humbly and personally think it's your best work to date. 

Bridgehouse

matone said:

Another old Gibson vandalised to make another `issues` `burst,how sad.

The “vandalising” clearly happened prior to the OP getting hold of this - it’s had two acts of “vandalism” on it already:

- stripped top with garish Gretsch orange
- refinish in a customburst colour

Given that is the state of play prior to this conversion, I’d say that the two viable restorations were:

- Refin (again) back to custom black
- Refin/convert to what was intended when it was on the line at Gibson. 

It’s funny how you don’t see this sort of controversy if someone takes a stripped fender or a refinished fender and has some sort of Refin to another fender colour or indeed a non fender finish. 

Brize

WezV said:

The problem for me is that any 50's custom with a centre seamed maple top would raise a lot of questions. 

No more questions than a '59 single-cut Junior, the blackburst, the red-top (8 1689), Joe B's brown-top or the short run of 1960 cherry Customs. Authentication is not that difficult.

mandosteve

There will never be a right answer and you can never win with this sort of stuff. Ultimately people complain that vintage guitars like the original bursts will mostly sit in collector's vaults rather than being played in anger ever again. Also people complain about vintage guitars that have been 'messed' with to be played. I think if the ambition is to have the guitar you want (or even of your dreams) to actually *play* (and make music with) then I have no complaints about it. They are tools for music first and foremost. 

I think if you have the time and skills to make the guitar you want then fair play - it looks awesome!

It wasn't collector's quality in the first place - just an interesting, anomalous old weird guitar that had been messed with a lot. Even after restoration it is still exactly that. Except now somebody might play it!

WezV

Brize said:

  . Authentication is not that difficult.

The thread you previously linked to suggests otherwise.  

Authentication of something like this always comes down to speculation and opinion.   That's enough to put off many buyers

 

Brize

WezV said:

The thread you previously linked to suggests otherwise. 

I think it goes without saying that any authenticator would need to actually have the guitar in their hands.

Brize

customkits said:

IMO a  custom is and always will be a full carved top mahogany body.

The amount of maple-topped Customs out there will probably out-number the solid mahogany guitars by a ratio of more than 100 to 1.