Re: Any pancake body LP owners out there?
What about using that Mirabella guy in NY State if you are shipping it to have the work done.... if he rebuilt a smashed Townshend Les Paul Goldtop from the 70's and repainted LP's from the 50's i'm sure your LP Custom would not be a a problem for that guy.... I don't have the site handy....
Maybe the site is
www.mirabellaguitars.com
My 76 Les Paul Deluxe with the Pancake body has been to hell and back too... The neck has been completely rebuilt.... The guy i used for the job did great work and at the time it was pretty cheap concidering how much blood sweat and tears he put into it... The neck had big problems and was warping all the time.... The neck joint was done baddly and the fingerboard was popping up off the face of the guitar near the joints on the E string sides.... So he removed the fingerboard, corrected the neck joint, made a new bound fingerboard by hand for the neck, and resprayed it all to a seam-less finnish... The neck was repaired 13 years ago or so and still makes the guitar feel like new.....
The downsides to this repair job, and things i would of done different, 1-the neck is extremely fat.... so fat i have a hard time with my wrists on it and if i could go back i would of had the neck reshaped and a slightly thinner board.... 2-the inlay marterials were hard to find at the time..... No one including Gibson would not sell the repairman precut LP Standard/Deluxe inlays... At least that was the story i was told... Anyways the inlays were done with Pearloid plastic, pickguard material. The repair guy did an exellent job of hand making the Gibson style inlays and that side i'm extremely happy with..... but they do not look 100% right.... Now Stewmac carries the inlays precut and in stock....
all the pain in the butt of having a lemon of a Les Paul, and putting up with years in repair shops, the cost of repairs, and finally having an LP that i find extremely hard on my wrists to play for any extented periods of time is kind of funny in a way... I almost needed wrist surgery after using this LP for too many hours day after day...
It sounds great! I have a Duncan mini in the neck and a full sized JB Trembucker in the bridge.... Because of the thick fingerboard the bridge/strings are up higher, and i was able to just sit the metal base plate bottom of the JB on top of the MINI's rout.... i didn't rout it out any wood at all... I used a Trembucker as the baseplate seems to be slightly more narrow... I have new Gibson LP Deluxe pickups sitting in my dresser but have not installed them.... I don't think i will now as i like the way it is....
I should of never bought this LP, i should of sold it, but i still hang onto it.... it sounds great!
