1979 Les Paul Custom
 

I purchased this used in 1985 from a starving artist for about $400.  That was a lot of money for a high school student - I washed a lot of dishes for that.  However, it has been hard to come up with the green for any other guitars, so I'm glad I got it.  The guy who owned it had sweat that literally ate the gold plating off of this thing. The tune-o-matic bridge and pickup screws were green (gross!). 

Modifications:

  • Replaced the tailpiece with an aluminum product.  This really opened up the sound of the guitar from dark to more airy and lifelike. (Whatever that means, I am trying to write like a magazine or catalog.)
  • Replaced the 490-T and 490-R pickups with Seymour Duncan SH-55 Seth Lover model pickups.  The magnet in the neck pickup has been changed from AlNiCo-2 to AlNiCo-5.  These things are sweet, if slightly microphonic.
  • Replaced the tune-o-matic bridge with Schaller roller setup.  This might have been unnecessary, it's not like I have a Bigsby trem on it or anything.  I think I will get a TonePros bridge to replace this, back to something a little more original.
  • Had a new bone nut made.  This was done by Leo Posch, a luthier in NE Kansas.  He is brilliant.  Anyone within 100 miles of Kansas City should only have work done by this guy.
  • Leo also removed the frets and the fret binding.  Before refretting, he planed down the fretboard.  The neck had some typical Gibson issues, like a hump and a 16th-fret spatula.  He resolved all of this and lowered the action to a perfect level.  He said he needed to remove some of the mother-of-pearl inlays because so much of the fretboard had to be planed off!  (If he didn't he would have made them so thin they would be translucent, or cracked.)  So, before replacing, he had to route out the inlays again.  Seriously, this is the kind of luthier you want in your life.
  • I replaced both volume controls with 500k-ohm pots.  I have no idea why they only used 300k, but this also opens up the sound.  I replaced the pots for the tone controls at the same time.  These came from RSGuitarWorks.  I think the volume controls are now their SuperPots, whatever that means.
  • Finally, I changed out those chincy ceramic capacitors in the tone controls for some serious Hovland Musicaps.  These were also purchased from RSGuitarWorks.

 I like pictures like this, it looks like it has a face!

 

 

This thing really wails.  This is the new case I bought for it.

Most Les Paul's have a mahogany neck.  This one has a 5-piece maple neck, which contrasts well with the mahogany body.  I am also glad that this has an ebony fretboard - because I have seen some 1970s natural Les Pauls with a maple fretboard, which looks gauche.

 

Even more than the serial number, I think these markings in the control cavity identify this guitar.  The date says Jan 9, 1978.  The controls that I took out of it have Fall 19798 dates on them.  The serial number for the guitar indicates that it was built on January 11, 1979 - a year after some of the markings here!

 

Here is the wiring of the jack.  I learned something today, my guitar jack is in a shielded can!  I posted this here because of an online discussion, helping someone figure out what this is supposed to look like.