Replica Les Paul rebuild

WezV

This one was dropped of yesterday.

It's a decent luthier made  LP replica on the surface, with few issues to solve.

1)  it has Gibson logo's.  They will be removed
2)  it has an extra hole in the top to plug.
3) the neck has twisted




First job is  to take all the parts off and see what it's like under the hood.   The cavities do give it away as a fake, and also show why the hole in the top appeared..... the wiring channels are tiny.  No way to get 5 braided wires through those.   The extra hole I need to plug was from when the wiring channels between bridge pickup and cavity was widened.



Next job is to remove the fretboard and neck.

I want to reuse the board if I can


Always a few options on fixing a twisted neck.   

The easiest is to heat treat it to straighten it... but it almost always returns as wood does what it does.

Second option is to  re-plane the neck shaft which can get it playable but the headstock will still sit at a funny angle.

We are going for the full neck replacement here.

Also, with the neck off I can enlarge some wiring channels.   They still won't be "authentic" as that needs to be done before the cap goes on.  I should be able to get them to accept proper wiring though.  

axisus

Interesting.

paulnb57

Subscribed to this joker!..

WezV

Searched through the wood stack and found a very well seasoned old stock Honduras Mahogany neck blank ready to go.  This was rough cut to basic LP dimensions a couple of years ago


It's a little wide as I don't always use ears on mine.... but I will trim this one down to more accurate gibson dimensions first.

PhilKing

That was really quick Wez!

WezV

PhilKing said:

That was really quick Wez!

I wanted to see what I was dealing with so I can form a plan

WezV

next bit I really need to deal with is the hole in the top.


It goes all the way through to the control cavity so its on an angle.  It also has a chip on one side that is a little too deep to hide in a re-carve.  

Normal plug jobs in LP tops are drilled vertically, fixing extra control holes and things like that.  That makes for a comparatively easy grain match.   here we need a plug with  and angled end that still matches the grain when blended into  the carve... that's a bit trickier and I wouldn't know how successful it was till  it was in???   the other option is to make a grain matched inlay that covers the hole and damage.  I can then plug the rest of the hole from the other side

anyway, first step is to find some wood in the right ball park.   This top is sycamore, and thankfully I have some offcuts of that.  Thankfully this damage is in a less figured area of the top, so i can focus on matching grain rather than grain and figure



this looks promising. We have 3 grain lines that seem to be a nice match for the missing wood

that gets pretty damn close

paulnb57

Thanks for sharing Wez, I love stuff like this…

PeteC

Really interesting job - will be following along. 

Jazzthat

This looks like ultimate repair . The match is almost perfect , and once done , I don't think anyone would see it .
The bit , that I am wondering about , is how are you going to match the paint in that area ?
Looking forward to seeing it done !

WezV

It's getting a refinish once done.


I haven't stripped it as I don't want to contaminate the hole

WezV

Now I have some wood for the fix, next step is to accurately map it.   For this I am using some fine line sharpies, and a piece of clear plastic from a tub of tomatoes 



Grain was also marked on with a different colour 


And matched with the wood

andy_k

No doubt this will be a good repair, I'm just astounded that someone would drill that hole in the first place.
Surely, the wires have to get from the bridge pickup cavity to the control cavity, or was he aiming for some sort of Jimmy Page switching on the pickguard?
He had to get through nearly half an inch of bookmatched flame maple, seems more like wilful destruction to me.

WezV

Drilling through a body at a low angle can go wrong.   I'm not ashamed to say I have had drill bits wander and  appear where I didn't  expect.  This one wasn't me, but I've been there so fully understand how it can happen. 

Frankly, I always breath a sigh of relief when an angled drill hole through a body appears where I want it to.  I have a drill bit I really like for this horrible job, but I also know if I don't keep a firm handle on it it will pull and wander... and appear where I don't want to see it. 

The aim here was to drill from control cavity to bridge pickup cavity  it needed to be larger than it was.   It didn't go well, now its being fixed.   Looks like it was then drilled the other way from bridge pickup cavity to control cavity, which is the easier route  as you can get the lower angle.


"Wilful destruction" is a bit of a stretch.     Its not the first guitar where a mod was needed, where what should have been easy didn't go well.


Edit.   I've also been guilty of drilling wiring holes too small, or not routing the channel you should have on an LP style build deep enough.

Gibson made the same mistake.   The 55 custom I restored had a narrow channel.  Gibson drilled from Jack to switch cavity on the 1 piece bodies  at this time.   A LP has 5 braided wires going through the last bit of that channel and it can be very tight

andy_k

I'm sure this is a case of somebody just closing their eyes and pushing through, in the hope that the hole would emerge in the right place, on a guitar they didn't care too much about. A bit of a shame really, given the general quality.
I'm intrigued by the original neck tenon too, did they just snap it off at the end?
I've struggled myself to get the angle right drilling between pickup cavity and rear control cavity, and it is well worth investing in some good long bits to get the angles close without the chuck getting in the way.

WezV

I'm sure the end of the tenon was just sliced off on the bandsaw.   It may not be that neat, but it wasn't really an issue.  The end of the tenon is not a structural part of the joint

barnsleyboy

I'll be following this with a great deal of interest to see how the repair turns out. If only to assess whether or not something similar could be done to this wood butchery that Andy's guitars in Denmark Street carried out for me.

My heart still weeps!

WezV

We will find out how it's gone soon.    Just glued the plug in place

Andyjr1515

Did you steam the neck joint, @WezV ?  Do you use a steam kettle and needle of some sort?

WezV

Yeah.   I drilled 4 small holes either side of the tenon. Once the fretboard was off


The only specialist equipment was a glue bottle with needle.   I used it to squirt boiling water into the holes and used the normal clothes iron to keep everything warm.   Literally rinse and repeat for about 30 minutes  until things start to loosen

PhilKing

andy_k said:

No doubt this will be a good repair, I'm just astounded that someone would drill that hole in the first place.
Surely, the wires have to get from the bridge pickup cavity to the control cavity, or was he aiming for some sort of Jimmy Page switching on the pickguard?
He had to get through nearly half an inch of bookmatched flame maple, seems more like wilful destruction to me.

I'll fess up.  It was me who did it, and I had a 1 foot long drill, but it was a flat wood bit.  I was trying to do it without a bench and holding the guitar in one hand an the drill in the other.  I was going to go from the pickup side, but it looked like the bit would mark the other side of the the pickup cavity and scar the top there, so I opted to go from the control cavity side.  I had the angle wrong, obviously, but because of the type of drill, the sawdust wasn't pulling out of the hole as I pushed, so I never saw the maple dust until it was too late.

I was not willful destruction and I was really cut up about it, even though it is not a vintage guitar.  I had it made almost 30 years ago and for a while it was my only Les Paul.  The original pickups on it were Gibson 57's, which had braided cable, then it got the Bare Knuckles that Wez just used on the Junior/Special build, and I got a set of BK 10th Anniversaries for it.  These come with 4 conductor wire and it was just too much for the holes it.

I thought it would be a simple job to enlarge the wiring channel, and in hindsight realize that I should have taken the jack plate off and gone in through there.  However at the time I didn't and the drill wasn't the sharpest, so I was probably pushing a bit too hard too. 

Anyway, that's the story on it.