Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
- Thread starter Evan Skopp
- Start date
Evan Skopp
SDUGF Founder
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
Thanks Slash!
Thanks Slash!
ratherdashing
Kablamminator
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
I love seeing prototypes of things.
I love seeing prototypes of things.
Grenade
New member
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
And a semi-hollow body.
"He took the sides of a guitar, screwed them onto a huge 4×4 piece of timber, bolted a neck to that piece and started playing it."
Does that mean that the very first Les Paul EVER was a Bolt-On?
And a semi-hollow body.
Ashurbanipal
Well-known member
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
There are a number of pics floating around of various prototypes. Wonder what's the story with the neck pu here.
Looks to be the same one as MF is playing here.
Another with what looks like a Kauffmann style vibrola.
There's also this one, which was a GT proto but Les, the eternal tinkerer, thought nothing of it to mod with low impedance pups and looper. Note the dug out maple top for the bridge, to compensate for the low neck angle in the early days.
The single piece top one in the blog has been restored to the way it's thought to have been. Here's a 70s incarnation of it with humbuckers and stoptail. Check out the neck joint - two additional screws in the heel.
There are a number of pics floating around of various prototypes. Wonder what's the story with the neck pu here.
Looks to be the same one as MF is playing here.
Another with what looks like a Kauffmann style vibrola.
There's also this one, which was a GT proto but Les, the eternal tinkerer, thought nothing of it to mod with low impedance pups and looper. Note the dug out maple top for the bridge, to compensate for the low neck angle in the early days.
The single piece top one in the blog has been restored to the way it's thought to have been. Here's a 70s incarnation of it with humbuckers and stoptail. Check out the neck joint - two additional screws in the heel.
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Laughing Kookaburra
Active member
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
Good read, thanks!
Good read, thanks!
Ashurbanipal
Well-known member
Re: Blog: How the Les Paul Came to Be
Fair enough. Don't think you could find the specs to those; Les is no longer with us, and Gibson didn't keep records for these things, they probably bandsawed some protos when they were no longer useful, being only materializations of preliminary ideas - they weren't fetishists about the 'first' of something back them! So no hesitation in modding either.
No doubt, Les was having slightly different guitars made for him while the production models were being rolled out already. There's that pic of him and Mary with their SG Customs that have different scratchplates and pups closer to the neck and bridge respectively, which might've been made alongside the production guitars, rather than before.
Yeah, they're out of some book on LPs.
Fair enough. Don't think you could find the specs to those; Les is no longer with us, and Gibson didn't keep records for these things, they probably bandsawed some protos when they were no longer useful, being only materializations of preliminary ideas - they weren't fetishists about the 'first' of something back them! So no hesitation in modding either.
No doubt, Les was having slightly different guitars made for him while the production models were being rolled out already. There's that pic of him and Mary with their SG Customs that have different scratchplates and pups closer to the neck and bridge respectively, which might've been made alongside the production guitars, rather than before.
Yeah, they're out of some book on LPs.
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