This was a long Job! I got his guitar way back in summer and the owner had big plans. I think this guitar started life as what was called the Les Paul BFG, they had chisel marks left in the front carve, I always thought this was a way to shift unfinished guitars but I think it was actually one of Gibson’s crazy design ideas. The plan was to make it look like a single humbucker Gold Top, with a wrap around bridge, my part in this was to get it into a state to be painted.
This guitar itself was in a bit of a state, the previous owner had installed an odd nut which needed to be removed plus I had to add some of the fretboard that was missing as a result. They had also tried to install some kind of string guiding device which had left holes all over the headstock.
First I needed to plug the P90 pickup route, the bridge and tail piece holes and the volume and tone pot holes. Then I got to work on the nut and fingerboard. After that I plugged the holes on the headstock so that I could add a new thin headstock veneer. The plugs at the back of the headstock didn’t need to be invisible as the owner was going to paint the back of the headstock black, so I didn’t need to match the grain or anything like that.
After the headstock veneer was glued and shaped I added a Gibson logo decal and there front was lacquered with clear gloss. I then added a nut blank and installed the new wrap around bridge. After a lot of sanding this guitar is ready too be finished. There’s still a long way to go and I look forward to seeing the results.
