- Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Kit
- Used Gibson Les Pauls For Sale
- Gibson Les Paul For Sale
- Gibson Les Paul Standard
- Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Isaac
- Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Kit
The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that was first sold by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1952. The Les Paul was designed by Gibson president Ted McCarty, factory manager John Huis and their team with input from and endorsement by guitarist Les Paul.Its typical design features a solid mahogany body with a carved maple top and a single cutaway, a mahogany set-in neck with a. Body and neck binding is also cracked in places The gold plating on pickups, bridge, and tailpiece shows wear Front pickup ring is broken Original plastic pickguard was replaced with brass Legendary Gibson tone and sustain in a beautiful almost 30 YEAR OLD made in Nashville Les Paul Except the after market pickguard, this guitar is original stock. For example, the scratch on this gorgeous Les Paul’s birdseye maple top. Time for an emergency lacquer repair! While reinstalling this pickup mounting ring, a stubborn screw “made” the screwdriver jump onto the top. This made a nasty scratch/dent combo right where it shows. Instead of freaking out, I calmly said. Apr 04, 2015 Only problem is that along the fretboard binding I have small cracks perpendicular to each fret. Almost every fret has a crack to some degree. They do seem to only go as deep as the lacquer and not actually damage the celluloid material. I understand that many say this part of a Les Paul due to the factory fret work and to just live with it. A few people have asked about this. I just had at it today. Worked out great. I'm very pleased:-).
A very well written short history of the Gibson Les Paul can be found at Guitar Master Class. The first few paragaphs are provided here. Check out the link for the whole article!
'The Gibson Les Paul was first produced early in 1952, the Les Paul was the very first solid body guitar to be produced by the Gibson Company, and was created due to the fact that Leo Fender had proven the viability of such a product with the Fender Telecaster.
With Ted McCarthy at the helm, the Gibson Company wanted to make sure they acquired a share of the solid body market, and came up with the concept of approaching a well known musician, Les Paul, to design a range of solid body electric guitars. Interestingly, Les Paul had already approached Gibson in 1945 with some designs and ideas for an electric solid body guitar, and had been ridiculed by Gibson.
There is some ambiguity over just who designed which parts of the original Les Paul, with Les Paul himself telling a very different story to the Gibson employees at the time. In the Gibson version of the story, the company had already completed the design of the 1952 Les Paul before Les was approached to endorse it, the only modifications he made to the design were bridge and the name itself. The story told by Les himself is a little different, he tells that he already had the ideas for the Gold Top and the Black Custom, and Gibson gave him the final say in every part of the design process.
The original Les Paul design later came to be known as the Gold Top, due to the actual finish of the guitar. Most Les Paul guitars produced in this period came with a maple top that was gold coloured, with the back left natural. Hence gold on top, or Gold Top. The actual finish of the guitar was accomplished using a bronze powder, and over time, this took on a greenish due, resulting in the unmistakable vintage Gold Top look.
Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Kit
A matter of contention was the original Trapeze tailpiece, which was implemented incorrectly by Gibson according to Les Paul. Les had intended for the strings to wrap over the tailpiece, not under as the production models came out. This made playing using right hand dampening techniques virtually impossible. In 1953 Gibson finally decided that Les was right, and changed the tailpiece, as well as the angle that the neck joined the body. This resulted in a vastly improved playing experience. Although these changes worked to a degree, the design still had problems with intonation, and a year later the design was changed again to incorporate the tune-o-matic bridge we find on every Les Paul model, except those with a tremolo fitted, up to this day.'
Refretting a 1959 Gibson Les Paul “Burst”
This 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, AKA “Burst” was in need of a refret and a good setup. I photographed the process as I went along. It had been refretted before at some point but the remaining frets were low, flat and not seated well. The fretboard also suffered from unlevelness and a rounded off, uneven radius. Also, with the truss rod fully tightened, there was too much relief in the neck. It would never play well without a refret and correction of the fretboard.
The nut had been shimmed up with various plastics and glue. I’ll give it a solid shim later if the nut is too low after the new frets are in. I adjusted the truss rod so there is room to loosen or tighten it once the refret is complete.
Some loose binding was in need of glue.
With heat from a soldering iron, the frets are freed from old glue and pulled out with minimal chipping.
All the frets are removed, now for the fun part.
Used Gibson Les Pauls For Sale
Fret slots are “fortified” with ultra low viscosity cyanoacrylate glue(super glue), taking care to glue any chips back in place.
Time to sand! Sanding is done with a machine level sanding bar and adhesive back 120 grit sandpaper. Finer grits will be used later. The bar is run lengthwise along the string line, to insure levelness along each string and to correct the radius at the same time. I’m aiming to maintain a 10 inch radius at the the upper register of the board and a 9 inch radius at the nut. 10 inch radius will accommodate the bridge radius and 9 inches at the nut will give comfort as well as take care of the fretboard roll-off in that area. You can see here there was a deep dip in the board just up from the body joint that was causing a lot of playability issues. You can also see some of the roll-off.
Filling a chip with a teflon dam along the way.
Almost there! I use the little wooden boat sander(seen at the right) to dial in small corrections in radius between sanding with the bar.
The owner decided to go with fret wire of similar dimensions to Gibson factory fretwire from the late 50′s. This wire is .103″ in width.
All fret slots are cleared of glue and debris to an adequate depth and width to receive the new frets. A dremel tool with an adjustable depth setting is great for this task.
A small bevel is given to each slot to help frets sit better and prevent future chipping.
Fretboard is leveled and radiused and fret slots are prepped.
New frets are trimmed and tapped in. Once frets are completely flush and properly seated, a small bead of ultra thin viscosity cyanoacrylate glue is wicked into one side. This is done to prevent future fret “pop out” due to changes in humidity and temperature. I use a swab of vaseline prior to glueing to direct the glue into the fret slot.
All the frets are in!
Frets are trimmed to the edge of the binding and beveled with a hand file, then cleaned up with 600 and 1000 grit sandpaper.
Frets are then leveled with the sanding bar and 220 grit adhesive back paper to chase out any minor discrepancies to insure everything is as level as possible.
Gibson Les Paul For Sale
Checking the level.
Gibson Les Paul Standard
Fretboard is lightly scraped with a razor blade.
Sanding, cleaning and polishing.
Frets are done, time for the setup!
Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Isaac
Here you can see the original red lacquer under the pickguard.
A new shim was needed to achieve the right nut slot height while preserving the original nut.
Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Kit
Setup complete, ready to play!