Well I’ve had a Les Paul on the wish list for ages.  A truly iconic guitar but a little out of my reach.  However I came across this in a local guitar shop.  It’s been hanging on their wall for a few years and they’ve just not been able to sell it.

For one thing it’s got those Tronical auto-tuners.  Nobody seems to like them, and I’ve been asked to remove half a dozen sets and retro-fit standard heads.  I like the idea but they are ugly.  I’m probably going to live with them for a while, see how I get on with them.

Then there’s the brass nut.  Again I’m not sure about that.  I can easily drop in a bone one but I’ll see how it goes.

The biggest problem with this one though is the electrics. It’s got some strange boost amp fitted, but no battery?  

You can see where it should plug in even.  I’ve looked at all the others like it and the battery is mounted on the cover plate.  I don’t know how, but this one came off the line without one?  The shop had been chasing Gibson over it but had no reply so it’s unresolved.  I guess it’s also put people off buying it.

Since I want a standard Les Paul I decided to bin the amp and wire in a second tone circuit.

Like that.

And there it is back in place.  All I had to do was widen out the hole for the tone pot.

And I’ll need a new knob.  I quite like these new style ones but I’m struggling to find one for a 24 spline pot’.  Oh and I quite like the pointers so I fitted a set of those.

While it was on the bench I gave it a quick once over..

The neck relief was about right.

I knocked the action out of adjustment while the old strings were off and I was polishing the top, around the bridge posts.

so they needed to be reset.

The action at the first fret was fine.  A little lower than normal for a Gibson so I left the nut alone.

The intonation was way out.  It’s a really nice, good quality bridge so the adjustment was easy.

I couldn’t find a singe tone knob to match the others so I changed them all.  I’m not sure if I really like them?  But then I can’t think of anything that’ll look better.  I’ll have to have a look around, see if I can find something different.

So that’s phase one.  I’m going to see how those heads hold out, I’ve already learnt a couple of subtleties in using them.

For any other repair or service needs follow the link to www.guitar-george.co.uk