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Les Paul Jr Restoration
Posted on 10/10/17 at 10:37 pm
Posted on 10/10/17 at 10:37 pm
You guys might remember from a few weeks ago a thread by TheFretShack about restoring a '55 LP Jr. I saw that thread and it spurred me into action.
I have a '59 LP Jr. that is/was in need of a lot of TLC. It belonged to a friend of mine in high school. He and I foolishly decided that we should scrape off all the TV yellow finish it had and stain it cherry red. That didn't work out so well. The rattlecan finish cracked and wrinkled and looked awful. Somewhere along the way, my friend gave me the guitar but I never did anything with it. Over the last few months I decided that it deserves better and that I was going to find somebody to restore it. That's when I saw TFS's thread.
I contacted him and asked if he was interested in another LP resto project. I told him about the bad finish and that it also needed new tuners, a fret job, some work on the fingerboard, a new nut, new hardware, and who knows what else. With a fish like me on the hook, he shoved all in.
It just so happened that I was going to be visiting my dad in Mandeville the following week. So I brought the guitar with me and took it to his shop in BR to discuss the project with him. Jeff was very enthusiastic about it. He was more fired up about it than I was! So I left it with him to do his magic.
We're about halfway through the process right now. Jeff is done with his work and it's been sent off to a guy to do the finish work to restore the TV yellow. But Jeff got it back into playing condition and it sounds great. He replaced pretty much everything except the pickup -- which is original. He stripped off the shitty rattlecan finish and the cherry stain, refretted it, put in new tuners, new nut, a new tailpiece and new pots & caps. I think he re-radiused the fretboard too because it looks like a million bucks.
Here's what it looked like last week. TFS, please feel free to throw some more pics in this thread because I know you have more than the ones you sent me. (I think he's got some cringeworthy before pics.) When I get it back I'll take some afters and post them here too.
Here it is with the finish stripped off.
Here's the fretboard.
A couple of closeups of the fret job.
And here's what it sounds like.
I have a '59 LP Jr. that is/was in need of a lot of TLC. It belonged to a friend of mine in high school. He and I foolishly decided that we should scrape off all the TV yellow finish it had and stain it cherry red. That didn't work out so well. The rattlecan finish cracked and wrinkled and looked awful. Somewhere along the way, my friend gave me the guitar but I never did anything with it. Over the last few months I decided that it deserves better and that I was going to find somebody to restore it. That's when I saw TFS's thread.
I contacted him and asked if he was interested in another LP resto project. I told him about the bad finish and that it also needed new tuners, a fret job, some work on the fingerboard, a new nut, new hardware, and who knows what else. With a fish like me on the hook, he shoved all in.
It just so happened that I was going to be visiting my dad in Mandeville the following week. So I brought the guitar with me and took it to his shop in BR to discuss the project with him. Jeff was very enthusiastic about it. He was more fired up about it than I was! So I left it with him to do his magic.
We're about halfway through the process right now. Jeff is done with his work and it's been sent off to a guy to do the finish work to restore the TV yellow. But Jeff got it back into playing condition and it sounds great. He replaced pretty much everything except the pickup -- which is original. He stripped off the shitty rattlecan finish and the cherry stain, refretted it, put in new tuners, new nut, a new tailpiece and new pots & caps. I think he re-radiused the fretboard too because it looks like a million bucks.
Here's what it looked like last week. TFS, please feel free to throw some more pics in this thread because I know you have more than the ones you sent me. (I think he's got some cringeworthy before pics.) When I get it back I'll take some afters and post them here too.
Here it is with the finish stripped off.
Here's the fretboard.
A couple of closeups of the fret job.
And here's what it sounds like.
2
Posted on 10/12/17 at 3:07 pm to MountainTiger
Just a guitar nerd bumping the thread.
BTW when did the year 1959 become “oh shite that’s a 59’”?
A friend of mine has an old Springfield Trap Door Rifle. Some relative scrawled his name in the stock as a kid. Because what do you hand a kid back then for plinking? A Springfield. Lol. 45 fricking cal I believe. For a kid. Different times.
I digress.
BTW when did the year 1959 become “oh shite that’s a 59’”?
A friend of mine has an old Springfield Trap Door Rifle. Some relative scrawled his name in the stock as a kid. Because what do you hand a kid back then for plinking? A Springfield. Lol. 45 fricking cal I believe. For a kid. Different times.
I digress.
Posted on 10/12/17 at 5:35 pm to LSU alum wannabe
:inb4ob:
Thanks for the bump.
Right you are! Springfield 1873 shoots a .45-70. That's a great big piece of lead.
I think maybe it's just anything 50's rather than specially '59. This guitar may actually be a '58. My recollection is that it's a '59 but they made TV yellows in '58 and '59.
Thanks for the bump.
Right you are! Springfield 1873 shoots a .45-70. That's a great big piece of lead.
I think maybe it's just anything 50's rather than specially '59. This guitar may actually be a '58. My recollection is that it's a '59 but they made TV yellows in '58 and '59.
This post was edited on 10/12/17 at 6:45 pm
Posted on 10/13/17 at 8:57 am to MountainTiger
There is a "Guitar of the Day" on YouTube. If you like the Norman Rare Guitars stuff.
They just had it two days ago. It's original and in the red that I guess you and your buddy we're going for, but it was painted by Gibson. Lol
Anyway. He goes into some detail about dates for these Guitars for double and single cutaways. Of course Fret Shack took yours apart and probably knows all the serial and date codes on parts.
They just had it two days ago. It's original and in the red that I guess you and your buddy we're going for, but it was painted by Gibson. Lol
Anyway. He goes into some detail about dates for these Guitars for double and single cutaways. Of course Fret Shack took yours apart and probably knows all the serial and date codes on parts.
This post was edited on 10/13/17 at 3:30 pm
Posted on 10/13/17 at 12:27 pm to LSU alum wannabe
No way to accurately date it in its current condition. SN was gone as part of the refin and the pot codes in the cavity dated them to 1977, around the time the refin and other modifications occurred.
Safe to say it's '58 or '59 as MT and I suspect, maybe '60. Juniors were singlecuts from '54 through '57, and then '61 saw the Les Paul name moved to the new double bat-wing cutaway design we know nowadays as the SG.
I'll share some more photos from the "player" part of the restoration plus some descriptions on what went down later today or this weekend.
Safe to say it's '58 or '59 as MT and I suspect, maybe '60. Juniors were singlecuts from '54 through '57, and then '61 saw the Les Paul name moved to the new double bat-wing cutaway design we know nowadays as the SG.
I'll share some more photos from the "player" part of the restoration plus some descriptions on what went down later today or this weekend.
Posted on 10/13/17 at 12:32 pm to TheFretShack
All the hoohah over late '50s Gibsons really started in the 1970s. Gibson had changed ownership and overall quality went downhill as the new owners employed cost-cutting measures disguised as "innovations." Since the new Gibsons of that day were basically lackluster, guys started seeking out the used older Gibsons which were better. It's the exact thing that happened at Fender around the same time ... they were acquired by CBS in the mid 60s, quality fell and players gravitated towards the "pre-CBS" Fenders on the used market.
Keep in mind, they were just "used" guitars at that time - it was before the vintage guitar market kicked in and prices subsequently skyrocketed.
Keep in mind, they were just "used" guitars at that time - it was before the vintage guitar market kicked in and prices subsequently skyrocketed.
Posted on 10/13/17 at 3:13 pm to TheFretShack
quote:
It's the exact thing that happened at Fender around the same time ... they were acquired by CBS in the mid 60s, quality fell and players gravitated towards the "pre-CBS" Fenders on the used market.
I was going to say the same thing. "pre-CBS" was a thing even back in the 70's. I have a '66 Princeton amp, which is technically post-CBS but it's a blackface because after CBS bought them, they used up all the parts on hand before they switched to the silverface design.
Posted on 10/13/17 at 4:35 pm to MountainTiger
Nice!......and get a haircut you damn hippie! 
Posted on 10/13/17 at 5:37 pm to TheFretShack
Great thread!!
Posted on 10/13/17 at 6:04 pm to Marco Esquandolas
Here's some more photos ... arrival, with her goopy layer of rattlecan root beer syrup. I immediately nicknamed her "Moe," 'cause she looked like she was coated with moe-lasses :)
Electronics were DOA so we got that fixed right out of the gate. First order was repairing the original dog-ear P-90 pickup. This primitive transducer by today's standards is core of the magic tone you heard on the video.
What took the most time on the first resto phase was fingerboard restoration. Removing the frets, even delicately and with proper tooling and technique, left about three dozen small splintered areas.
We patched those areas with clear epoxy, pigmented with Brazilian rosewood dust saved during the fingerboard re-radiusing process. The goop, scraped flush and oiled along with the fingerboard after fretwork, is undetectable in the end. In essence, we patched the fingerboard with itself!
Scraped patch (red circle) next to unscraped epoxy/rosewood goop.
Electronics were DOA so we got that fixed right out of the gate. First order was repairing the original dog-ear P-90 pickup. This primitive transducer by today's standards is core of the magic tone you heard on the video.
What took the most time on the first resto phase was fingerboard restoration. Removing the frets, even delicately and with proper tooling and technique, left about three dozen small splintered areas.
We patched those areas with clear epoxy, pigmented with Brazilian rosewood dust saved during the fingerboard re-radiusing process. The goop, scraped flush and oiled along with the fingerboard after fretwork, is undetectable in the end. In essence, we patched the fingerboard with itself!
Scraped patch (red circle) next to unscraped epoxy/rosewood goop.
Posted on 10/13/17 at 10:03 pm to Zappas Stache
Ha! That's Fret Shack. :)
Posted on 10/14/17 at 6:02 am to TheFretShack
the fret shack... THE place to bring your guitars for any work. Jeff has a zeal unmatched by anyone around here for fixing broke arse shite 
best luthier work you will get in the state.
best luthier work you will get in the state.
Posted on 10/14/17 at 11:20 am to monsterballads
Posted on 5/29/18 at 4:04 pm to MountainTiger
I promised I'd post more pics when I got the axe back. Before I do that I just want to say that Jeff and Shane did awesome work on this guitar. As previously mentioned, Jeff did the "playability" part and Shane made it pretty. I wholeheartedly recommend these guys for any sort of lutherie work if you need it. They were both enthusiastic about the project; they completely bought in. They were also very careful to find out what it was that I wanted out of it. In short, I couldn't be happier.
There was a huge gouge on the guitar just below the pots. I think it may have been a cigarette burn but it looked like somebody dug a trench into the top with a trowel. Shane milled off 1/32" of the top and that got rid of the gouge.
There were a couple of raised areas and cracks on the rear of the body behind the bridge studs. It was like someone had tried to crank down those studs too much and caused a bulge on the back side of the wood.
There was also a crack in the headstock (a common problem in Gibsons) that Shane fixed with a cleat.
The next step was to put a base coat of white down. It looks like whitewash in that you can see a lot of wood grain through the coat. I don't have a pic of that but here it is after the first coat of TV yellow.
So there's TV yellow and then there's TV yellow. The tone can range from wheat to butterscotch depending on how aged you want it to look. Shane was careful to find out exactly what shade of TV yellow I wanted. I wanted it to look aged but not all the way to butterscotch and I sent him a pic of another guitar that looked like I wanted and he used that as a guide. He sent this picture and I wanted it just a hair darker.
So he added another coat of half-strength yellow and nailed it.
He then added the lacquer coat(s), polished it and made a pickguard for it.
Here it is packed and ready to ship. I have to say the packing job was superb.
Voila!
There was a huge gouge on the guitar just below the pots. I think it may have been a cigarette burn but it looked like somebody dug a trench into the top with a trowel. Shane milled off 1/32" of the top and that got rid of the gouge.
There were a couple of raised areas and cracks on the rear of the body behind the bridge studs. It was like someone had tried to crank down those studs too much and caused a bulge on the back side of the wood.
There was also a crack in the headstock (a common problem in Gibsons) that Shane fixed with a cleat.
The next step was to put a base coat of white down. It looks like whitewash in that you can see a lot of wood grain through the coat. I don't have a pic of that but here it is after the first coat of TV yellow.
So there's TV yellow and then there's TV yellow. The tone can range from wheat to butterscotch depending on how aged you want it to look. Shane was careful to find out exactly what shade of TV yellow I wanted. I wanted it to look aged but not all the way to butterscotch and I sent him a pic of another guitar that looked like I wanted and he used that as a guide. He sent this picture and I wanted it just a hair darker.
So he added another coat of half-strength yellow and nailed it.
He then added the lacquer coat(s), polished it and made a pickguard for it.
Here it is packed and ready to ship. I have to say the packing job was superb.
Voila!
Posted on 5/29/18 at 4:27 pm to MountainTiger
Sweet looking guitar.
Posted on 5/29/18 at 8:00 pm to FightinTigersDammit
What a great ride. So glad it hit on all cylinders!
Posted on 5/29/18 at 8:34 pm to MountainTiger
That's a beauty
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