A Sad Story

So I get this call from an owner of a 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom...

What is so sad, is what the previous owner had done to it! He'd done the following:

Stripped all the paint off of everything. She was originally all white.

Laquered the fretboard and headstock (very poorly)

Added a Stratocaster bridge! Which meant he had to cut through the body, rout out the back, and drill holes in the top for the mounting screws!

He'd routed out a massive recess in the back to accommodate a distortion pedal. The last thing he did was shave down the back so that the binding gradually disappears toward the neck joint.

This guitar would have been worth a pretty penny today, but instead, the only glorious this about it are the delicious vintage pickups. Wow, they're fantastic!

Phase one on this guitar was to get it playable for the current owner.

I did a fret dress, mounted a new stoptail (had to add a wooden buffer between it and the body as the stoptail posts had been modified for some reason and the holes were way oversized for the new posts) conditioned the fretboard, and turned the ABR1 bridge around the correct way (also flipping the saddles around and setting the itonation.

Second phase will be more intensive with major body fills and a refinish in some areas. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on her again!

Do What You're Passionate About

It dawned on me recently that the only thing different between those doing what they love and those not, is simply the "doing" part...
We have to believe that we were created just as we are, for a purpose, and that when this purpose is carried out, only then is true "doing" satisfaction experienced. This thought, is what fueled me to follow my dream of building and tweaking guitars for a living.
So here we are... years down the track... having "tweaked" for fun... now "tweaking" for more than.
I'm a one-man-show, working with the love of guitars as my motivation, and the conviction that YOUR GUITAR should play the way YOU want it to so that YOUR playing experience is better than before. I also believe that EVERY guitar should have a second chance, even a third...
I do it because I WANT to do it, not because I NEED to do it...