Fix-up Project From Ebay

[JohnnyG]

ok after a bit of a hiatus from anything guitar building-wise (i know it begs the question why i was hanging around here but stfu ) i have bought myself off of ebay for the princeley sum of £80 a battered les paul copy.

no Pups, about half the needed electronics tho it does have the origional jackplate and humbucker mounting rings. its drilled for a TOM bridge and it has a bolt on neck.

so the current plan is to refinish it and have a play about with it lol. get some big fat humbucker for the bridge and have a sustainiac sustainer in the neck position

only this is i think im gonna have to do some major work on it to the extent of stripping off current grimey finish, redoing binding around body and fret board and headstock as well as probablly redoing inlays since they look hella grubby.

heres a few pics to give you some idea so any opinions would be welcomed

incidentlly its a "carved" top lol in that the body is some sort of ply wood and the top is sort of steamed into shape so the inside seems to be sort of chambered. you'll see what i mean in the pics of the Pup routs. you can see the gap between the top and the middle of the body

LP Side

here you can see how the nasty ply wood actually gives quite a nice pattern on the outside lol.

LP Neack Inlay

here's the inlay up by the headstock. you can see what i mean by grubby, its also not very well done. i dunno if you can also see but the binding is grubby and cracked and also not very good.

LP Front

here's the front of the beast. you can see where its been drilled for everything. the pillars for the TOM bridge are still there but nothing for the tail piece.

LP Top

and here's one showing the Pup routs and where youcan see the gap between the body etc

cheers for anything you guys have to say

JG

[LukeR]

Hi man,

I have heard about those steamed tops!

A few years ago, I bought an accoustic fior $15, and the neck was in the same condition.

What I did was cleaned all of the inlays with cotton wool buds and furniture polish (My inlays were plastic, and i used a furniture polish that specifically listed plastic as one of its intended uses).

I then VERY gently scrapped the board with a razorblade/scraper (VERY gently- just enough to remove the dirt- not the wood).

I then gave the board several applcations/polishes with Dr Stringfellow lem-oil.

I dont know if this is the correct way of doing things, but the board (and the inlays) came up wonderfully.

Hope thats a help- please guys, dont hesitate to say if this is the wrong thing to do.

Good luck with it,

Luke