Les Paul Custom '62

Rick, my 61 SG LP Special came with the wrap tail, but had been de-tremolo'd, and the wraptail had been changed to a Badass. The Badass dug into my palm while resting my hand there for solos, so I had Dr. Scumbag fill the holes for the trem and the wraptail, then redrill it for an ABR-1 and stop bar (with retaining wire, nickel plated for both parts) .

Now it intonates perfectly, sustains better... and well, basically works!

Your Titan is being a great dust collector... just kidding. The 18 watt prototype head has been using it as a base... I'll bet that's going to spark a bunch of private emails from you...huh?:lol2

I started a thread about this guitar somewhere here at the Forum, and promised to be back. Well, now I'm back, but I don't know where I posted it. I thought is was the "Other Gibson" place. Then, I did post part of it here too, thinking that I was hogging-space.

SOOOOO..... I will keep the remainder of it here.

Somebody here that's smarter than me (Mofinco for one) will know where it started (lots of tremolo work, plugging old stop bar holes, returning to original specs, bought a second tremolo just to get one part, etc.).

Right now the guitar looks like this . . . it's waiting for the trem cover plate and a new string claw (the vintage replacement I bought and sent out to have gold-plated). I spent a great deal of time setting up the tremolo so that the down-pressure on the bridge is just right and the strings are centered on the bridge – splaying-out toward the outside E-strings equally.



Once I found the perfect setup, I measured all the open spaces and trimmed off brass tubing on the lathe to within +- .001". All movement is frozen now, and the springs are removed. (My customer only wants the trem for looks and to hold the strings . . . he doesn't want it to move — and now it doesn't).



One thing I like about the Tone-Pros AVR-II bridge is that although it looks much like an ABR-1, in design it is far different. The saddle adjust screws are much lower in the body, and there is complete clearance above the screw-head. The bridge you are looking at is for the Les Paul Custom here which has a fretboard radius of 7" — very arched. It was pretty easy for me to carve up the bridge saddles to match the arch in this case thanks to the AVR-II. All the saddles (the D&G barely) have been deep-slotted for strings, re-shaped, de-burred, and buffed. The radius is perfect, and there are no strings touching nothing no-how.



Pretty sweet TonePros! (I suspect that might not have been part of the reason for the design, but it's a good sales feature).

Soon I will have my gold-plated parts back and get the guitar back to a fellow Forumite — the good doctor G.

dan

Here's the thread.

http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40089

THANKS, RONNY!

(How embarrassing). The thread was more-detailed than I remembered. Even Tonefien's Pelham Blue Guitar. THAT is what brought me back to "real-life".

Now, how can I combine the two threads together, and bring them here to the shop, so that they are in one place?

Should I ask Lily?

(I have tried to hire Lily as my personal consultant, but she's way to busy).

dan

Dan, I would love to be your personal consultant.
But I must warn you, I can be very bossy.

TWO!

TWO!

TWO threads in one!!!!

Dan!!!! That '62 is lookin' fabulous! Can't wait to see it with all the parts on it! The owner is a lucky gun slinger! :dude

FYI - my '61 is all boxed up and will be on its way to you tomorrow... yahoo!

That's what spose said . . .

Lily said:

Dan, I would love to be your personal consultant.
But I must warn you, I can be very bossy.

Click to expand...

(Just kidding). Thanks for finding the post. I will try to keep the shop cleaner from now on.

Incidentally, LILY, you are a great website maker and bosser. This is the best-looking and easiest to use website I know of. (I like StewMac's too).

Why thank you Mr. Dano

And I agree. StewMac's site is very easy to navigate now.

Re: Why thank you Mr. Dano

Lily said:

And I agree. StewMac's site is very easy to navigate now.

Click to expand...

I just navigated to StewMac to order Dan's book no setting up my guitar.

I can't wait!

Jesse

Don't get too exxxcited . . .

. . . jessee. It's only a book (not that many exciting pictures . . . although there are alot of pictures).

How lucky can you be? (Segovia). You will be a great player!

dan

Re: Don't get too exxxcited . . .

Dan Erlewine said:

. . . jessee. It's only a book (not that many exciting pictures . . . although there are alot of pictures).

How lucky can you be? (Segovia). You will be a great player!

dan

Click to expand...

The book was shipped today, so hopefully I'll get it Saturday, although early next week is more realistic. I've got some work to do - intonation issues on my Les Paul Custom (see avatar), I just picked up my PRS after playing nothing but the Custom for the past three weeks and I realized the PRS action is as low as paper! Plus I'm also going to get my ES-335 back into action.

'Got to clean and polish up these bad boys - they're there for me so I'd better take care of them, right?

And at age 41, I'm not sure how much better a player I'm ever going to get.

Jesse

Dan,
Looks great! I can't wait to see it! You are THE MAN!!

Re: Project '61 SG/Les Paul? Help and opinions?

Got Mofinco's Les Paul today: Wow! You have a good one here, mofie!

This is a very cool guitar. It seems to have been made from something like Cuban Mahogany - curly mahogany grain. Nothing is WRONG with it!.

It is 1961 - a Les Paul (SG-transition) for sure).What surprises me is that the neck is SO THIN in width. It is not like what I would have expected from that
date. It just shows that Gibson was experimenting with "modern," thinner, neck widths and profiles, and I think you do have a real early one (279 serial number).

This is, however, not a REAL skinny neck like around 1966 and on - it's quite nice in the hand.

The peghead shape PROVES the vintage - there is no way to fake that shape and look.

Good score man!

I will tell you more soon.

dan

mofinco said:

Hi - I've got a chance to pick up a '61 SG/Les Paul from a friend. He's not the first owner, but he has owned it for a while. He's a good enough friend that he let me bring it home for inspection. He hasn't played it in years himself and it shows... it's kinda grubby. But here's the piece...

As soon as I opened the case, I could see that it's not 100% original. It has exposed T-top pickups. It also had a vibrola on it at one point, which has been removed, and a stop tail put on. The stop tail and retaining-wire ABR-1 are chrome versus nickel, and the chrome bridge is pretty pitted. The tail piece is heavy.

Here are pics of this piece. There are several so let them load.

The body with strings and tail piece removed:

The lower bout with the controls removed. This was probably the first time they've been out of the guitar:

The controls. All of the solder joints look untouched besides the pickup connections. I didn't disturb any solder joint that hadn't already been disturbed. The pots date to the 43rd week of 1960:

The pickups happen to be Patent Sticker T-tops. They obviously weren't from this guitar. As you can see from the pics, both them had their leads cut short and an extension tacked on each one. The neck pickup measures out at 7.34k. The bridge pickup is dead, unfortunately. I haven't had time to investigate to see if it's just a bad lead. The pickup rings are not M69... but I don't know if '61s used M69 rings?

The fretboard and inlays are in good shape. The frets are pretty worn, and are original:

Now for the mysterious stuff....

The headstock is fine - never broken, etc. The nut is okay, but needs some restoration on the low E and A strings. The Grovers are ancient. BUT... the funny stuff starts with the serial number. You can barely make out the "279". That's it. This doesn't appear to be a refin, or a reneck...

On to the pickup routes...

You can see the neck tenon in the pickup cavity, and the basic route looks okay, but look at the route where the pickup mounting legs go... they almost look hand-done. The ones for the bridge pickup are similarly "hand-shaped". "Hand-shaped" is just my guess, because I've never seen another '61 disassembled.

So here's my guess... I admit I'm putting one and one together and it may not add up to two...

Given the pot dates, the funky serial number and the "hand-worked" appearance of the inside of the pickup routes, I've got a theory that this is one of a string of pre-production prototypes. I'm probably off-base, but that's my guess. I have no idea if Gibson did such stuff, but you have to imagine that they ran off a bunch of these during development of the model.

I'm guessing that the PAFs disappeared when a previous owner had it in a shop for the removal of the vibrola.

This thing is solid enough that, if I buy it, I'll take my time looking for period-correct pickups/rings/tail piece/bridge, and have Dan Erlewine do a fret job and nut repair and go out and rock with it.

SO..... my question to you experts - cus I'm not - based on what you see, what's this thing worth????????????

:dude

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Re: Re: Project '61 SG/Les Paul? Help and opinions?

Dan Erlewine said:

Got Mofinco's Les Paul today: Wow! You have a good one here, mofie!

This is a very cool guitar. It seems to have been made from something like Cuban Mahogany - curly mahogany grain. Nothing is WRONG with it!.

It is 1961 - a Les Paul (SG-transition) for sure).What surprises me is that the neck is SO THIN in width. It is not like what I would have expected from that
date. It just shows that Gibson was experimenting with "modern," thinner, neck widths and profiles, and I think you do have a real early one (279 serial number).

This is, however, not a REAL skinny neck like around 1966 and on - it's quite nice in the hand.

The peghead shape PROVES the vintage - there is no way to fake that shape and look.

Good score man!

I will tell you more soon.

dan

Click to expand...

Thanks, Dan! (I got your email too, by the way)

It's nice to get that feedback. I mean, I was certain it was a '61, and that it hadn't been broken, and I thought it was a nice score, but what the hell do I know?? :lol2 It's a real relief to hear an expert say "Good score"!

I thought the wood looked a little more figured than what I'm used to seeing, but Cuban mahogany???? How cool is that?

I can't wait to get it back after your magic gets applied!!!!!!!!!! Take your time... Take your time!!!! :dude

It seems . . .

like what I have seen as Cuban mahogany. I doubt it is. It's just sworly and curly and very rich.

I have seen a couple pieces of Cuban mahogany though. I had a piece given to me and built a sewing chest from it for my wife. Maybe I'll take a picture of that and show you what I mean in the color and grain.

Also, I doubt that all Cuban mahogany is quilted or curly. Heck, I don't even know if mahogany grows in Cuba.

nice score

dan

Re: It seems . . .

Dan Erlewine said:

like what I have seen as Cuban mahogany. I doubt it is. It's just sworly and curly and very rich.

I have seen a couple pieces of Cuban mahogany though. I had a piece given to me and built a sewing chest from it for my wife. Maybe I'll take a picture of that and show you what I mean in the color and grain.

Also, I doubt that all Cuban mahogany is quilted or curly. Heck, I don't even know if mahogany grows in Cuba.

nice score

dan

Click to expand...

Well, whatever it is, I'm happy to have it.

Mahogany has been virtually extinct from Cuba since the 30s or 40s. It's not cuban.
Genuine mahogany can be figured. The good stuff all goes to the veneer mill though.

I looks like Cuban . . .

. . . that's all. I'll take a pic of some Cuban. The guitar looks much different in person than in the pics.

Got that SG buffed out yet?

dan

Dan I'd like to see an acoustic made from Cuban.
The only place I have heard of it being widely used was on boats. I am sure they veneered it as well.
I knew a guy who had some 10 years ago and wanted $50 a board foot!

The SG is low priority right now in favor of some other projects. Besides building for me is all the fun, and that is done witht he exception of shooting the head black, and sanding and polishing it out.

You going to be in Healdsburg this year? Been thinking of heading up to check it out.

Healdsburg . . .

Tonefiend said:

Dan I'd like to see an acoustic made from Cuban.
The only place I have heard of it being widely used was on boats. I am sure they veneered it as well.
I knew a guy who had some 10 years ago and wanted $50 a board foot!

The SG is low priority right now in favor of some other projects. Besides building for me is all the fun, and that is done witht he exception of shooting the head black, and sanding and polishing it out.

You going to be in Healdsburg this year? Been thinking of heading up to check it out.

Click to expand...

What are the Healdsburg dates? We have the ASIA SYMPOSIUM IN JUNE (4-8), but I might "get" to go from StewMac. But then I probably wouldn't get to go to Namm in Nasville – I've got lots of repair buddies there to visit. I'd be hard-pressed to choose between the two shows.

dan