Bringing an old Les Paul back from the dead for Judas Priest

Malkav

Hey all,

Feline Guitars just posted this pictorial of a really cool restoration job they did on an old Les Paul for one of the guitarists of Judas Priest.

I figured someone on here may enjoy the read ?

http://felineguitars.com/media/spotlight/judastpriestguitar.html

Keira-WitherKay

great read thanks for posting.............

have Gibson ever resolved a better way to construct necks to avoid breakage...seems every 2nd les paul that gigs hard has had this fix sometime or another ... the graphite rods were a great fix.. mybe Gibson should do this too in the factory ? or do they??

charleshaupt

Interesting article , thanks

babbalute

Keira WitherKay wrote: great read thanks for posting.............

have Gibson ever resolved a better way to construct necks to avoid breakage...seems every 2nd les paul that gigs hard has had this fix sometime or another ... the graphite rods were a great fix.. mybe Gibson should do this too in the factory ? or do they??

At 40K+ for the least expensive Gibson LP in SA you should think twice about taking it gigging. Rather put in a display cabinet and enjoy it that way.

warrenpridgeon

babbalute wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote: great read thanks for posting.............

have Gibson ever resolved a better way to construct necks to avoid breakage...seems every 2nd les paul that gigs hard has had this fix sometime or another ... the graphite rods were a great fix.. mybe Gibson should do this too in the factory ? or do they??
At 40K+ for the least expensive Gibson LP in SA you should think twice about taking it gigging. Rather put in a display cabinet and enjoy it that way.

are you talking about a specific Gibson LP model or cheapest Gibson lp full stop? I've seen studios for under 20k...But that's not really a les paul les paul cos it's a studio. Lol. guitar pricing in sa sucks ja.

babbalute

warrenpridgeon wrote:
babbalute wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote: great read thanks for posting.............

have Gibson ever resolved a better way to construct necks to avoid breakage...seems every 2nd les paul that gigs hard has had this fix sometime or another ... the graphite rods were a great fix.. mybe Gibson should do this too in the factory ? or do they??
At 40K+ for the least expensive Gibson LP in SA you should think twice about taking it gigging. Rather put in a display cabinet and enjoy it that way.
are you talking about a specific Gibson LP model or cheapest Gibson lp full stop? I've seen studios for under 20k...But that's not really a les paul les paul cos it's a studio. Lol. guitar pricing in sa sucks ja.

Brand new real stuff, we discussed it on Saturday with an importer.

Chocklit_Thunda

Keira WitherKay wrote: have Gibson ever resolved a better way to construct necks to avoid breakage...

Those volutes they used to do on some models, i think it was back in the 70s, worked quite well to add enough meat on the headstock transition to prevent them from breaking at that spot. You can even see on this guitar that the break didn't happen on the volute.
Gibson also cut their necks as one solid unit instead of using a scarf joint like Epiphone do. (I think LapDawg's build thread uses this method) This has the grain running at a funny angle to the angled headstock and makes it weaker as opposed to the parallel running grain on scarf joints. And much as Gibson purists complain about Gibson, they'd literally soil themselves in anger if Gibson went the scarf joint route.

Gil Yaron also drips CYA glue into the wood at the joint to strengthen the wood there.

babbalute wrote: Rather put in a display cabinet and enjoy it that way.

Guitars are meant to be played though... I'd never spend anywhere near 40K on anything that I'd leave in a display cabinet! Although I hope to Dog that no one spends Any K on the overpriced garbage the big G are trying to pass off as their 2015 lineup :-\

singemonkey

Great link. Thanks Chad.

Gibson's flagship guitars used to have 3 piece maple necks that, I'm sure, seldom suffer from this problem. The one piece all-mahogany necks are always going to be weak unfortunately. You just can't treat a Les Paul like a Strat or a Tele. Simple as that. You get very used to watching the headstock whenever you move the guitar to avoid it banging into anything. I'm not even sure that the volutes helped that much. I think this guitar had a volute.

For a while in the '70s they made Les Pauls with maple necks like their old top-of-the-line jazz-boxes. But we don't like no changes in our Les Pauls ☹

Yeah Gibson's price increases. Not quite sure what they're thinking. Nice for us who already own 'em because the 2nd hand prices must necessarily increase due to the bigger demand from the many who will balk at paying the new prices. It's not like they were cheap to start with.

And I will most definitely be taking mine onto the stage this summer. I have no interest in keeping it in a display case.

chris77

singemonkey wrote:
For a while in the '70s they made Les Pauls with maple necks like their old top-of-the-line jazz-boxes. But we don't like no changes in our Les Pauls ☹

He-he, true... ? The modern Big G however are taking it to new levels. I see the 2015 Standard comes with a self tuning system, a zero fret adjustable nut (Patent Applied For nogals...) and a Les Paul hologram - whatever the hell that is -, as well as a Les Paul 100th birthday signature (even though I am pretty sure the great man passed away at 94 ??? )

It's like adding a spoiler and some lightning decals to your Jag to make it attractive to a new target market...

singemonkey

chris77 wrote: It's like adding a spoiler and some lightning decals to your Jag to make it attractive to a new target market...

Good simile. The current management has demonstrated an increasing lack of taste over the past ten years. I think even hardcore fans of the company are beginning to wish someone else could take over.