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Epiphone Les Paul refinish


budget bassist
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If the front comes out anything like the back... Nice... Me? Satin...

Watching with interest...

 

My Epi.. Had the pickguard off, got some cheap flat metal pickup surrounds from the bay £3 as the epi is flat body flat neck and doesnt need the slanted surrounds... flat met truss rod cover £2... got a bit of wood for the trem cavity to block the bridge, ans leave the 3 springs in for the 'Angels Voices'... was looking at the Telecaster Humbucker all-in-one bridge... but the measurements are out, between the pickup and bridge bits presumably scale length Gibo 24 3/4 to Fend 25 1/2... so just the minor mods n plat it, Humbuckers 650 n 700 are meant to be US voiced and great,  anything else is gonna be more than a quarter of the purchase cost...

Edited by PaulThePlug
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Well flip. Final application of stain and the veneer started to lift at the bottom edge. Not sure what to do now. Sand the top and stain again hoping it doesn’t lift again or just oil it and enjoy it knowing that I’ve made a few mistakes and it has very little monetary value anyway… maybe if I’m feeling adventurous later on I could attempt to remove the veneer and put a new one on.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Maude said:

Before anything I'd try ironing it back down. 

The stain has probably dissolved the glue but there might be enough left under the veneer to reheat and stick down. 

 

I think this might be the ticket. It’s settled down a bit now so isn’t nearly as bad. At this point I just want to play the damn thing so I think I’ll just crack on and see how it goes.

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I decided to glue down the small sections at the bottom with super glue. Looks okay, not amazing.

 

Got a few coats of oil on now, I’ve learned some hard lessons about sanding - I wet sanded the guitar with a fine grit of sandpaper and it took the stain back just a bit in a few places. I guess I’m going for the ‘roadworn’ look!

After that I tried fine steel wool and that seems to have worked a little better.

 

Thinking about trying wax after the oil as I’m not sure I’ll quite achieve the satin sheen I’m looking for on the top. I really like the way the neck has come out however.

 

Note that in the below photos the back is wet and the front is dry. I really like the wet look. Any ideas if wax will help me achieve a similar look?

 

 

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Edited by budget bassist
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Short side project, I found an Epiphone G310 SG on marketplace tonight for $60 - bad photo and the ad said it needed stings and a knob might be broken.

 

I chanced it and snagged it. After getting home I found that it was filthy. I mean FILTHY. I had to scrape the gunk off the fretboard with a blade. Frets polished, board cleaned and oiled, body cleaned. I swapped the bridge from my les Paul so I could put the chrome bridge on the LP (it’s also in better shape).

 

Tightened the nut on one pot, new strings, set up and it looks way better, plays and sounds good. I’m going to use it until my les Paul is finished and then flip this for a profit - I’d hope to get $150-$200 for it.

 

 

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A little more work on the LP. Let the oil dry for a week or so and finally scuffed the top to 2000 grit then buffed using a drill mounted buffing set. It’s definitely better than it was and has a nice sheen but there are some slightly dull spots so I’m not 100% happy but for now I’m just going to build it and play it. I might try to buff it a bit more later on when the oil has had more of a chance to cure properly. Here’s how it looked last night.

 

 

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Well, I finally got it all together, strung it up and played it. It needs some work as far as setup and intonation go, but so far it feels good and it makes nice sounds. In my haste I realized I fitted the bridge pickup upside down and so it’s slanted the wrong way and thus very quiet… oops 😅 

 

One other thing I’m thinking of doing is fitting some dot inlays on the fretboard, mostly because I like the look of them over a blank fretboard.

 

I’ll try to get some nice photos of it when I have some decent daylight, but these will do for now 

 

 

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Edited by budget bassist
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Finally got this properly set up, wiring finished and playing nicely. Ran into some electrical gremlins which the local shop took care of for me after I was ready to tear my hair out. Just need to get the intonation dialed in and the fret markers once they show up and I was waiting to sell the tuners to buy some nickel ones but I might just do it on my next pay check.
 

 

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Some mother of pearl dots showed up today, test fitted one into a scrap piece of wood and was halfway through removing it before I thought I should take a photo. 
 

Much easier than I thought though this was a piece of soft wood. I used a piece of painters tape around the bit as a depth stop. I think I’ll try to make a neck rest out of some scrap wood before I try to do the real thing.

 

edit: will try to get the photo in focus next time…

 

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Edited by budget bassist
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Today I fitted the dot inlays. Little bit of a nerve wracking job, got a couple of them wrong where I drilled a tiny bit too deep and had to drill them out and redo them. The third fret marker looks a bit hairy but I’m otherwise pretty happy. I think the mother of pearl contrasts and complements the dark look of the guitar nicely.

 

 

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