#8 - Early 70's Japanese Les Paul Special Restoration

[Rossc0]

Facebook market can be an interesting place. For the princely sum of $20, just picked up a Early 70.s Pre-Lawsuit, judging by the shape of the head stock, Les Paul Special copy. Body with attached neck and plastics, no electronics. Put some pics up later.

Plan at the moment is to strip it back, do it in TV Yellow Nitro, and try my hand at some relic-ing. Has a few dings as you would expect of a 45+ year old guitar, so no use trying to make it pristine.

Looking forward to trying something with P90's

[McCreed]

Nice score!
I never have that kind of luck! Can't wait to see the before & afters.

I did up a Epi LP Special II (MII, 2009) that I got for a hundred bucks off Gumtree. More than I really wanted to pay, but it was worth it to me in the end, and technically everything worked.
I'll find a photo later too.

[Rossc0]

So this is what you get for $20.

Cimar is an Ibanez brand that came out of the same Factory in Japan. You can see them in old Ibanez catalogues. Cant really see in the picture but headstock is full on Gibson open book shape.

Neck looks straight, fingerboard is nice, probably need a refret. Pickup covers are broken, but I'll get the multi meter on them and see if they are salvageable.

The sticker on the back of the neck is Theos music Perth WA. it closed June last year after 53 years in operation, going to try and save that on the rebuild as a piece of history.





Onto sanding, everyone's fav pastime....

[Rossc0]

Whole thing came apart really easily, which was a surprise. Hand written serial number on the neck heal which I'll have to try and track down.

[Rossc0]

Bridge bushings out. Good to go, fire up the orbital sander.

[FrankenWashie]

Noice Rossco, Noice.

[Rossc0]

Came off ok, think the edges by hand are going to be a pain.

[Rossc0]

So with the finish off the front and back, not nearly as dinged up as it previously looked. Could do an as new finish I think, so conflicted, New or Relic.......

[Woltz]

It was a real shame about Theo's, I think everyone involved in music in W.A. knew their name. On the actual topic of the thread, looks like a nice score there mate. Should come up nice. In regards to new or relic, your guitar = your call. Personally I'm not really a fan of most of the relic stuff.

[king casey]

A shame indeed.
Got my first decent saxophone from there in the late 70's.

I'm with Wolz. If it's a decent player it will become naturally reliced.

cheers, Mark.