Les Paul Modifications

My philosophy on modifying guitars is that of a doctors "Do no harm".

Meaning avoid drilling, cutting and things that can't be undone.
The Tobacco Les Paul has Gibson Reissiues installed. The Custom has a Bigsby installed and I was able to get a hole cap to cover the tunamatic bridge hole. I added the Bigsby because I felt it would add value, astetics and I wanted a wiggle stick. The Custom is tough I didn't want to do too much and wanted to keep it original. Note about Gibson the Tobacco LP I bought in '79 for $275.00 and the Custom I got new for $800 on 1987. They've both probably quadrupled in value.

The appreciation in value has happened to all Les Pauls across the board, the 50's and early 60's LP's make sense. The increased value of the late '60s, 70's and 80's may not be warranted based on a variety of reasons. First the construction of the late '60s & 70's were different in some key spots. Head angle was deceased, the volute was increased all to keep the headstock from cracking and breaking. This effected the tone. The book matched flame tops disappeared in favor of a 3 piece top. The components of the pick ups changed. Plus the wood itself, I've read that drier the wood the improved tone. This is way beyond the kiln drying that stabilizes the dimensions this is more about the long period of drying occuring in the warehouse prior to use. I surmize that the amount of kiln dried and 100 year old stored book matched maple may be of limited supply with the volume of LPs produced.

Well, these are a few Fender Bandmaster schematics.

This is last winters' project. After lugging a '66 -'67 Bandmaster around with me for the last 25 years or so. I finally decided to do a major overhaul this past winter. The over haul involved new tubes, cleaning potentiometers, switches and wiring in a couple of resistors* to 1) give blow out protection 2) help with biasing the amp. I also recovered the amp and cabinet with Beige Tolex and new fabric, oh yeah I installed a set of EV Force loud speakers.

As with any project involving 40 year old electronics research is key. I was able to find several Fender Schematics all of which are either from the Fender web site or in the public domain. A point of interest is that Leo Fender sold the business to CBS around this time ('65 to '66). So you can see the schematics go from loosely drawn,i.e. open to interpretation to more standardized drawings. Also, my cabinet dates to '66 and the amp dates to January '67 a lot of the components date back to the early 60's. During this time a lot of electronic components were produced for the military and put into inventory for years.

Here's my Band Master next to my Mesa/Boogie MkIIB. I relied on Groove Tubes for matched 6L6's power tubes and I chose to go with preamp tubes that gave a slightly over driven signal. Matching the power tubes should eliminate the need for biasing.

I relied heavily on the schematics to determine where and what each tube did. This allowed me to make a better selection of tubes.

Ok, so here's the damage:

Orginal amp and cabinet in the late 70's dollars $275.00

EV Force load speakers in mid 80's dollars $300.00

Tolex, Grill Fabric, new hardware $150.00

New Tubes $180.00

Total $ 805.00 I think it was worth it. I was considering a new Fender reissue which runs from $800 to $1200 and I got exactly what I wanted and learned alot.

Ok, here's my latest "thing". A strat hard tale (non-tremolo). Billy Gibbons off ZZ Top uses one on a few songs I love. So let's price this thang out, a real nice hard tale body from warmouth susposedly very resonant ($550). The neck is a SRV profile again from Warmouth ($300) but I'd be tempted to go with a Clapton neck either off ebay or from Warmouth, probably from warmouth (a lot more predictable). The electronics I haven't quite figured out as of yet. I figure this to be a '07 winter project with a finised cost of $1200 to $1300.