1960 Les Paul ‘Burst’ Restoration

StuartMac290

For.

Fuck's.

Sake.

This thread...

Skipped

usedtobe said:

With that in mind, can we even call this a Gibson, anymore, what with the replacement fretboard, and whatever..

Maybe this is tongue in cheek.

Neil Young's Old Black is heavily modded. Is it no longer a Gibson? Who is going to tell Neil?

To be fair, I have encountered the same argument on MLPF. "A Conversion is no longer a Gibson"

I then noticed 2 things.

The posters who were making such a claim  were the "Replica" owners. (How funny is that?)

And......there seemed to be an undercurrent of  anger every time a Conversion was posted by a proud owner.

(Why?)

I understand the point about another 52/53 being lost for posterity, but is that really a big deal? A couple of thousand guitars have never been touched and will never be touched because they are collectable.

But let's be honest about this. All of those guitars should have been recalled in 1953 and fitted with a re-designed Trapeze bar, as an absolute minimum, and possibly a neck re-set.

It is incredible that this was not fixed. Are you kidding me?

The early buyers went to the store and found that the strings were wrapped under the bridge.

WTF !

What was the dealer supposed to say to the customer?

"Oh.......don't worry about that. You will get used to it."

This was a catastrophic, mind blowing  production error. They pretended not to notice and somehow persuaded Les Paul himself to pretend that he had not noticed this serious problem. But he noticed. He noticed every time he chose a guitar that he was actually going to play (as opposed to pose with). In fact the episode reminds me of Brexit. No one brave enough to say that the Emperor is naked.

BTW......I still have a soft spot for those guitars. But if someone owns one today, and is re-setting the neck - why are you surprised?

If anyone here is still insisting that this guitar (the thread topic) is a Conversion and not a Restoration, that is OK. They are just words. It is a very desirable guitar.

I have a theory that every player (who can somehow put his hands on a few quid......lets say a Multiple Historic Owner) will eventually realise that early 50s Les Pauls and late  50s Les Pauls are essentially the same guitar, built by the same guys, with different  pickups and a different bridge. And when that penny drops......everybody will want a Conversion.

Preferably "in this Life". 

And that will be a problem because there are not enough to go around.

But that is just an opinion. We have a lot of those in this interesting thread.

fretfinder

I see this is for sale now. What’s the asking price? Thanks. 

roberty

fretfinder said:

I see this is for sale now. What’s the asking price? Thanks. 

Ooohh it's _this_ one. It's frigging gorgeous

LastMantra

I would have probably put it back to black lpc, I think it would be a nice interesting guitar in it's self and more "original" than anything else imho. Would you be able to see the cap in the pup cavity? 
Then get a new burst made from scratch to those specs. (or make one!)


Saying that, awesome job!


What I'd be a bit concerned about is, if it was to be sold at any point, eventually you don't know who might get their hands on it. 
Is there anything could be done to it to make sure? Some discret mark in the cavity or something? 

meltedbuzzbox

LastMantra said:

I would have probably put it back to black lpc, I think it would be a nice interesting guitar in it's self and more "original" than anything else imho. Would you be able to see the cap in the pup cavity? 
Then get a new burst made from scratch to those specs. (or make one!)


Saying that, awesome job!


What I'd be a bit concerned about is, if it was to be sold at any point, eventually you don't know who might get their hands on it. 
Is there anything could be done to it to make sure? Some discret mark in the cavity or something? 

But your intention isn't to make as much money as possible from the conversion.  That's why that guitar has been changed, to make money, nothing else

LastMantra

Whatever happens it's a bit of a grey area. Probably need better laws so that everyone knows where they are. 

That cavity though! When I seen that gaping hole I never thought it would have looked that good.

shaunm

Genuinely, I think I’m as impressed by the workmanship as I am disappointed by reading the comments on this thread. 

What a sublime talent @jumping@shadows has. 

designerseye88

LastMantra said:

I would have probably put it back to black lpc, I think it would be a nice interesting guitar in it's self and more "original" than anything else imho. Would you be able to see the cap in the pup cavity? 
Then get a new burst made from scratch to those specs. (or make one!)


Saying that, awesome job!


What I'd be a bit concerned about is, if it was to be sold at any point, eventually you don't know who might get their hands on it. 
Is there anything could be done to it to make sure? Some discret mark in the cavity or something? 

I think it’s unlikely many people would be fooled by this guitar, it’s been well documented on a number of forums and on social media. The work Yuuki did on this was brilliant but I think if you had it in your hands any potential buyer would see signs of the conversion/ restoration. 
I don’t know what’s the price is on this guitar but at least the work and what been done to it has been well documented. 

Sarge

It has been good to re read this thread again after a year, I'd forgotten how incredibly good the work was to get it looking that good.
It is also a stark reminder that a LOT of people shouldn't have access to the internet. 

LastMantra

designerseye88 said:

LastMantra said:

I would have probably put it back to black lpc, I think it would be a nice interesting guitar in it's self and more "original" than anything else imho. Would you be able to see the cap in the pup cavity? 
Then get a new burst made from scratch to those specs. (or make one!)


Saying that, awesome job!


What I'd be a bit concerned about is, if it was to be sold at any point, eventually you don't know who might get their hands on it. 
Is there anything could be done to it to make sure? Some discret mark in the cavity or something? 

I think it’s unlikely many people would be fooled by this guitar, it’s been well documented on a number of forums and on social media. The work Yuuki did on this was brilliant but I think if you had it in your hands any potential buyer would see signs of the conversion/ restoration. 
I don’t know what’s the price is on this guitar but at least the work and what been done to it has been well documented. 

Fortunately I'll probably never have to worry about these things anyway  

fandango

StuartMac290 said:

For.

Fuck's.

Sake.

This thread...

Indeed! It’s like watching @Emp_Fab buy a car or going veggie, because you've nothing else going on in your life.

soma1975

The work looks brilliant. 

The guitar looks brilliant.

Customs are rubbish.

Black LPs are rubbish. 

It's a guitar that had an interesting story and now continues to have an interesting story and a new life. It still plays. Nothing about it is ruined. 

Danielsguitars

I love customs personally but I'm not moaning about this because that's how he makes a living, there's a market for it simple as that

I'll never be able to afford anything from a junior up, let alone custom shop stuff so I don't worry about it, I just make mine because I can 

FelineGuitars

One of the early questions as to why Gibson would have been willing to use a body destined to be a LP standard for a custom is easily answered by looking at a 1959 pricelist

The LP standard sunburst sold for $265

the LP custom sold for $395

That makes the custom 50% more expensive than the standard, so "wasting a standard body on a custom before knowledge that either would have any kind of vintage guitar cachet, makes sense  as it would end up on the more expensive guitar.

Also lets not forget that according to Les Paul himself Gibson got the two guitars mixed up and wrong in the first place - the standard was supposed to be all mahogany and the custom was supposed to have the maple cap.

 

LastMantra

My the paul deluxe is not a firebrand, but it has a firebrand TR cover!! 

Kittyfrisk

LastMantra said:

My the paul deluxe is not a firebrand, but it has a firebrand TR cover!! 

I'm pretty sure that The Paul Deluxe WAS a Firebrand.
Not all of them have the Gibson logo actually branded into the wood, some had the same silkscreened gold logo as The Paul.
All mahogany, then it's a Firebrand or Deluxe,  all Walnut it's a 'The Paul'.
Both types had ebony fretboards & are great guitars for the money.

Not claiming Wikipedia is the source of all wisdom, but it's fairly clear  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_The_Paul
Edit  https://www.tdpri.com/threads/ngd-gibson-firebrand-the-paul-deluxe-1981.879760/

Fretwired

jumping@shadows said:

I guess we’ll always stumble on that mate.. Personally the Burst is the pinnacle of ‘50s Les Pauls, so I tend to aspire toward that aim, but you have differing inclinations, which is perfectly valid   

I agree with you. Impressive work - I prefer the burst.

LastMantra

Kittyfrisk said:

LastMantra said:

My the paul deluxe is not a firebrand, but it has a firebrand TR cover!! 

I'm pretty sure that The Paul Deluxe WAS a Firebrand.
Not all of them have the Gibson logo actually branded into the wood, some had the same silkscreened gold logo as The Paul.
All mahogany, then it's a Firebrand or Deluxe,  all Walnut it's a 'The Paul'.
Both types had ebony fretboards & are great guitars for the money.

Not claiming Wikipedia is the source of all wisdom, but it's fairly clear  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_The_Paul
Edit  https://www.tdpri.com/threads/ngd-gibson-firebrand-the-paul-deluxe-1981.879760/

Ah nuts!


It says on it Gibson Firebrand "the paul" Deluxe. No burnt bits though. All 'hog (ebo.brd).

Sure I read somewhere that they just used old firebrand trcovers to save money. The whole point of these was a cheap but gig worthy guitar so I thought that was alright (Gibson do these kinds of guitars well imho).
Could be a parcel of pish.

Rocker

I went back to the first few pages to refresh my memory about what was being discussed in this thread.  I think it is sad to read the negative and questioning posts.  First things first, it is the owners guitar and he is free to do what he likes with it.  In this case he took a restoration guitar and rebuilt it to what he wanted it to be.  And while I never saw the actual guitar, it looks a superb job he did and IMHO the finished guitar is way more interesting than when it had three pickups.

I am fortunate in that I got a chance to play a few chords on a real '59 burst a few years ago.  For the five minutes it was in my hands, I held what Gibson were capable of building, a Les Paul that actually wanted to be played.  The balance between the pickups was simply amazing, no new Gibson I tried since came anywhere near that standard.  So for someone to have the skills to assemble a guitar from guitars and 'bits' from that era, and the result would be in that ballpark is truly inspirational.