Ten Year Les Paul Custom Restoration Project

I found this picture on the web. It shows how the nitrocellulose can really chip when installin the hardware. So I thought I sould test fit the hardware before I put all the clearcoats on. I also looked at my own other Gibsons and some new guitars at Guitar Center, and saw that it looks like some guitars have clearcoat OVER the tailpiece studs. So...I decided to go ahead and put them in.
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One trick I used was to put some clear nitrocellulose around the hole before pounding the stud in. This way, any chips would stay in place. Also, the nitrocellulose melts together and can fix itself that way.

I almost forgot to get that little wire in place on the stud hole toward the control cavity. It is a ground for the strings.

Again, I have a couple of clear coats on this surface to protect it while I work.
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You may or may not know that the potentiometers of a Les Paul are manufactured by CTS and they have a date code. The guitar itself does NOT have a date code. So, I have the original 1976 potentiometers, however, when tested they show 25 to 45 ohms when wide open. Not shure if the older pots are all like this or not, but the NEW pot from Gibson (which does NOT have a date code, it has a Gibson LOGO on the back) read only 2 ohm when wide open.

What I am going to try is to pry off the backs of the old pots and put them on the innards of the new pots.
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Since the neck is also a lot lighter wood than the back, I will spay a few coats on the neck to darken it up, then do the neck and back together for the final color. Here is the neck masked ready to paint. I have installed those tailpiece studs and they are holding the face of the guitar off the ground to protect the finish under that blue plastic bag.
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I accidentally got some thinner in the air valve of the paint gun and it caused the rubber valve to swell. I had to air it out and wait for it to shrink back before the gun would work again. Took a few hours.

Eventually I got a few coats of tinted nitrocellulose on the neck. Just enough to match the un-stained mahogany back.

Then I masked off the front (which is already stained) and prepared to shoot the back, neck and sides together. You cannot see it here, but I used some white masking tape on the back binding so that I have less 'scraping' to do after the paint is on.
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In this picture of the back of the headstock there is tape covering the serial number. I'll have to peek under it later to check that I get the right number of coats to match.

More pictures getting ready to spray the back and neck together.

Again, the front surface is being propped up on the tailpiece studs, to protect the front from scratches.
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It was getting dark, but the atmospheric conditions were still OK for painting, so I had to get out the flood lights to illuminate the area. It turns out that they make the stain look a lot brighter. I actually took a break and mixed up another can of to spray on the back. Then I brought the guitar inside to check it out and it was already almost too dark.

As I was laying on the stain, I had no way of knowing how dark to make it. The original finish surrounding the serial number on the back of the hadstock was always darker because it had the new stain layers on top of it. I had to lift the tape over the serial number to have a peek. Turns out it was just about right
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The moment of truth: a peek under the tape to see if we got the color correct.

Then the tape was removed from the body.

Last picture shows the guitar ready for scraping of the binding.
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I still wasn't happy with theh serial number area. I did not want that dark surrounding area. I was able to actually lift the layers of paint and then snip them off with fine scissors.

Very tedious....
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I was going to replace the maching heads, however, the 'new' contemporary Gibson machine heads have the mounting screw at a different location. After researching some of the 70s Les Pauls on e-bay, I concluded that these are the original tuners. They are in good shape.

I had a selecton of knobs and the guitar actually had one of the knobs that says 'tone' on it. From pictures of supposedly un-molested 70's Les Pauls, I think that this is an original knob.

Here are some pickups I have to play with. Mostly Dimarzios.
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Here it is with the binding all scraped and ready for clear coat. Again, scraping the binding was very, very tedious.

I used a combination of techniques. Sometimes I 'cut' a line right on the edge of the binding, as if I were trying to get the razor blade inbetween the binding and the wood. After cutting like this, I could scrape without it chipping at the edge.

Also, I used a 'chopping' action on most of the 'outside' curves.

I used actual 'scraping' of the binding on the edges of the finger board, and on some places on the body where the paint was still a little gooey.
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The clear coats on the body follow a rule of '3's. Three coats, with three hours between coats repeated every three days until you have about 9 -12 coats.

In the mean time here is a look at the case. It was pretty trashed and had someone's name painted on the front and then covered with 20 year old duct tape.

There were sections of tolex missing, the hinges were bent and loose. The lid would not stay up. The handle was held on with NUTS and BOLTS.

At first I was just going to get a new one from Gibson, however, the Gibson cases are very expensive, and they don't make this style any more.

The inside of this case still looked nice and cozy, so I thought about trying to restore this thing.
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I ground out the rivets on the hinges and was able to salvage them. I used pop rivets to put everything back together again.
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I think that after he did it once and had to strip it and start over he gave up and it just sat there all these years. I moved almost 750 miles away and it got forgotten.

 

There was some bizzare graphic on the back of the case. Again I used the Citristrip to get this paint off. The case is still a little ratty, however, some signs of use are acceptable. I found a new latch at Stewart Macdonald and I can get some new tolex also.
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I noticed that Dan Erlwine did a 'how to' on guitar painting on the Stewart Macdonald web site. He probably purposly makes some common mistakes, so he can demonstrate how to get out of trouble.

Here, I sanded into the finish on the back of the headstock. This left two lighter areas. I got out the airbrush to try and fix this. I had to put some clear coat on to actually see the damage. (of course I put my finger in the clear coat, near that lower hole, but this will be fixed with the next clear layers. The nitrocellulose melts the underlying layers as it goes on)
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I diluted the clear nitrocellulose 50:50 with thinner, then added three drops of the stain. I did some practice with the airbrush and then did the touchup. I also added some more color to the base of the neck.

More clear was added on top of these repairs.
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I chose these pickups. A DiMarzio PAF for the neck and a DiMarzio Super Distortion for the bridge. Both of these pickup designs were available in the 70s.

If I don't like the sound, I will spend the bucks and get some Gibson pickups with chrome covers.

I DO like the exposed cream colored pickup bobbins. Maybe this is an urban ledgend, but I read somewhere on the internet that Dimarzio had or has some exclusive rights to make double cream pickups. Gibson can only make the zebra ones and black ones. Sounds like something you WOULD read on the internet...so I don't know if it is true.
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Yes, that is right! So that thing about the double cream pickups and Gibson must just be BS.

 

Why would I need this thing.........?
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After removing the old paint from the lower portion of the case I was ready to fix the areas where the wood was cracked. I used some 5 min. epoxy, slightly diluted with alcohol, to seal this up. Then I used super glue to re-attach the tolex and painted over with flat enamel. I also touched up the logo.
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