Les Paul Jnr Copy

Some projects are straight forward but most are not. Here is a very good example of that; a guitar that was home made by someone and looked like it could be good. However there are so many hidden issues that only become apparent ones the work is started. On this copy the original plan wad to install a Wilkinson Bridge and give it a re-fret as the fret job was terrible.

Once the frets were out I levelled the board, which was all over the place and re-fretted the guitar with stainless steel frets of a similar size. it should have been a straight forward job then to install the new bridge but once it was on and the guitar was strung up it was clear that the action would be very high. I then noticed the original bridge had been sunk into the body as there was hardly any angle on the neck.

Not one to be beaten the owner came back to me with a mustang bridge which would go much lower. He also asked for a new scratch plate to be made and the pickup to be swapped from a dog ear to a soapbar style.

The tremolo install was straight forward enough as was the scratch plate but changing the pickup needed a new bass plate and keeper bar as the original didn’t have the holes to accommodate the mounting screws.

All done this guitar has turned out much better than I expected, mainly due to the owners vision.