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Examples of our work - GIBSON
RESTORATIONS
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versions
(Latest additions always at the top) 2012 Scratch Burst - Cherryburst Here is a new scratch built burst I made for myself. It has a slip matched top of Eastern maple and a one piece Honduras Mahogany body. Nice medium light weight at 8 pounds and 7 ounces. Faded cherryburst finish leaning towards iced tea. All parts are original 50s Gibson with the exception of the M69 rings (Montreux) and the bridge pickup (Sheptone).      Paul Stanley Firebird V Here is one of two custom shop Firebird Vs we recently redid. This one belongs to Paul Stanley of Kiss. Paul wanted aged Golden Mist poly with a small amount of lacquer checking. We also replaced the board and inlays on this guitar. I love this color!       Paul Stanley Custom Shop LP Burst Here is a custom shop Les Paul that we just redid for Paul Stanley of Kiss. Paul is a great guy and I look forward to doing lots of work with him in the future. He specified a light teaburst finish with lots of fading and wear in the forearm area. This guitar features all Montreux plastic parts and we also changed over the inlays for him. One of the more striking tops I've ever seen.          2011 Scratch Burst Here is another new scratch built burst I made for myself. It features an old growth one piece Honduras mahogany body and neck and a beautiful quartersawn old growth Brazilian board with authentic nitrocelluloid inlays. The top is finished in aged honeyburst with a touch of green. It is lightweight at 8 pounds, 2 ounces and features all authentic 50s parts including a 5-latch burst case.          1954 Les Paul Custom Here is a 1954 Les Paul custom I bought last year. It was totally stripped with the exception of the sides, but all parts were original including the case. The early customs sound great with their alnico and P90 pickups and this is one of my favorite guitars nowadays.         Les Paul Junior >> TV Special This guitar started out as a stripped LP junior. I find specials to be more useful so I decided to do a conversion. All the appropriate changes were made including new headstock overlay, royalite neck binding, and neck pickup and control cavity routing. All parts are original 50s and it sports an aged TV yellow finish with the lighter "wheat" finish peeking out in the worn areas.        Kerry Green Firebird V This is a new custom shop Firebird V that I recently acquired. I decided to make it as period correct as possible, so we replaced the board with an old growth quartersawn Brazilian board with correct celluloid inlays and royalite binding. All the parts were hand aged and Monster Relic supplied the beautiful worn guard. I finished it in aged Kerry green with lots of checking.       1957 Gibson Darkback Goldtop Here is a great looking darkback 57 goldtop we just completed. This one has less checking than we normally do and an appropriate yellow stamped serial number.       Blonde dot-neck ES-335 with Custom Made Neck Here is a dot neck 335 project I recently completed.I got this from my good friend Bill Stapleton. Gibson made some great flamey ES 335s back in the 1980s when they first reissued the dotnecks. This one was hard to play because it was missing it's neck! We made a replacement out of a straight grained piece of Honduras mahogany and attached a wonderfully grained Brazilian rosewood board featuring original material dot markers and correct color binding.It features a proper holly headstock overlay with period correct pearl inlays. I've always dug 335s with bigsbys and custom made plaques , so I decided to pimp this one out.The plaque is from Montreux and the bigsby B7 is a new one that I aged to match the overall vibe of the guitar.Most of the parts are original late 50s ( knobs, tuners, M69 rings, truss rod cover,strap buttons,switch tip) and the pickups are Sheptone PAF tributes. I'm having a lot of fun with this one.... Cherry Red ES-335 Here is an ES 335 I just finished for my friend Bill Stapleton. Bill wanted something close to Clapton's Cream 335. Red 335s look so great with ambered and worn binding! Three ES Style Gibsons On a Deck Here's three ES style guitars enjoying a sunny winter afternoon in Victoria. The blonde and cherry ones were recently painted by GM vintage...the original finish sunburst 1960 ES 330 is just there to complete the family picture....   Faded Ice-Tea Burst Les Paul Here is a burst we did for a customer from Japan, similar to the finish on the famous Peter Green guitar. A very faded ice tea with an orangey-red back and moderate checking and wear.       Gibson ES-335 - Maple Flame Top Here is an ES-335 we did for a great customer from Hawaii. This 335 sports a gorgeous flame top and back and real double white PAFs.I really liked this one...       Gibson 1952 Les Paul Conversion Here is a 52 conversion we did for a customer. This guitar had a new maple top and binding installed and then we did a faded ice tea burst.      1963 Gibson Firebird III This is a 1963 Firebird 3 that needed some serious route repair before it got a aged Polaris White nitro finish.     1958 Gibson Les Paul Junior This is a 1958 double cut TV junior that turned out nicely.       Colin Cripps Burst Here is a burst I painted for my good friend Colin Cripps of Toronto. Colin wanted a finish that was a strong cherry sunburst turning towards Ice tea.... it is quite a striking looking finish.      Shirakuma-san's Custom Shop LP This is a Gibson custom shop LP I repainted for my good buddy Yuichiro Shirakuma from Japan. Yuichiro owns Montreux Guitar parts and plays in a Led Zep tribute band in Tokyo. He wanted something reminiscent of the Peter Green look with more color.      Custom Ordered L5 About 90% of my business is the big three ( Les Pauls, strats and teles) so it's always fun when something different shows up. This is a custom ordered L5 that I just finished for Dave D... a great customer from California. We added a mixture of original vintage parts along with Montreux parts. I didn't want to send this one back to the owner!       Two Different Bursts... ...waiting for aging and assembly.   1961 SG/LP Here is an early 1961 SG/LP Custom in aged Polaris white with moderate checking.      Scratch-Built GM Vintage Burst Here is another scratch-built burst I just finished. This one is a faded ice tea/greenburst with a faded red back.One piece Honduras mahogany back with Brazilian rosewood board. This is one of the lighter bursts I've seen... fully dressed it weighs 7 pounds, 10 ounces. With the exception of the M69 rings, every part on the guitar is original from the 50s, including the PAF pickups. Currently my main squeeze!         Gold Top Here are a few pics of another goldtop finish we did.     1959 Les Paul Conversion Here is a 59 Les Paul conversion I did in a faded cherry sunburst for Brian Virts. Brian sent me his favourite picture from the Toneman book and this is what I duplicated. It turned out quite nicely...    Old Black A customer from Vancouver comissioned me to do a replica of Neil Young's famous 50s Les Paul "Old Black". This was originally a humbucking guitar that had to be filled in to accept P90s... therefore it was not possible to do the exact same wear pattern between the pickups. As Neil would say, "Long may you grunge!"    GM Vintage Scratch Burst Here
is the latest GM Vintage project... a burst built totally from scratch.
We started with a lightweight one-piece Honduras mahogany body and mated it to a top of beautifully flamed maple. Great pains were taken to get this as close as possible... including period correct routes and long neck tenon, correct color bindings, Brazilian rosewood board with original 50's inlays and holly headstock overlay. All facets of production were done in-house, including pearl inlay and silkscreened logo. Many of the parts are original 50s ...including tuners, nut, truss rod cover, knobs, switch tip, pickguard, wiring harness and case. It's loaded with Sheptone PAF tribute pickups and they sound great. Very thin nitro faded cherryburst/ teaburst finish with realistic lacquer checking. The back and neck are done in a faded cherry finish utilizing the correct pore filler to capture the proper look. I
built this guitar to show that a) GM Vintage can handle any facet of
Les Paul restoration and b) because I've always wanted a cool
burst-style guitar...sorry, but we are not able to make Gibson-style
guitars for customers. I hope you like it!
      59 Les Paul Conversion This is a LP conversion that I just
finished for John Heuring of New York state. John is a great guy
who specified a finish close to the "Thelma burst" ...a 59 owned by Tom
Keifer of Cinderella. It's a cool look... a faded Ice tea burst with a
fair bit of green in the upper part. The back is a faded cherry with darker red pore filler
that nails the original look. John has all original parts including
double white PAFs in this baby.... he says when it's played through his
Marshall plexi stack it will give you a " facial peel"!!
      1952/59 Gibson Les Paul Conversion Here is a 52-59
conversion we did for my friend Bill Pandolfi of Florida. Bill wanted a
very faded teaburst similar to the Peter Green burst. What looks to be a once piece top is
actually a very well matched off centre seam. This one was a lot of fun
to do and the finished product plays and sounds like a dream!
     1955 Gibson Les Paul Here is a
beautiful 1955 tuneamatic / stop Les Paul we restored for my good buddy
Tom Benson. Tom has great taste in guitars and motorcycles ( he
restores old Indians). This one turned out real purty and is a killer
player!
      1954 era Gold Top Replica Here is a '54 era Les Paul goldtop we built totally from
scratch. Sorry, we can't build a Les Paul for you... I've posted these
pictures to show you that we are capable of building necks or bodies
for authentic Gibson restorations, and well as doing inlay work,
silkscreening and headstock overlays / repairs.
  This beauty started out as a lightweight one piece slab
of honduras mahogany. All the parts are from the 1950's, the
fingerboard is Brazilian rosewood and the bindings and inlays are
period correct in colour and pattern. It's about as close as you can
get to the real thing, and it's satisfied my lust for owning a 50's
goldtop!
   Restored Gibson SG/LP Here is an SG/ LP that we restored for Helmuth Sultanow of Edmonton. Why didn't I take before pictures ?!? ...the whole body was dipped in a burgundy fibreglass resin (including part of the fingerboard) and every original part had been robbed off the guitar except for the pickguard. The fibreglass was removed over many many hours using a small scraper blade...no chemicals would touch it. The finish is aged cherry using the correct red pore filler. We sourced all the needed parts and the guitar is now back to 100% original. Definitely a contender for the most improved award.     1953 to 1956 Gibson Les Paul Conversion Doing a Les Paul conversion is one of the more challenging jobs a restoration shop gets challenged with...it separates the boys from the men, as they say !! The following 10 pictures document a conversion we did for my now good friend Doug Capener of Seattle, Washington. Getting a conversion done is stressful business...Doug has kindly offered to act as a reference for GM Vintage. His contact info is in the customer comments section...give him a call !! #1 - Here's the guitar as it looked when Doug bought it, refinished in cherry red by Gibson back in the 70's.While the neck angle may look okay in this picture...it wasn't! The pickup cavities had been deepened considerably and the bridge had been totally ground down. Eagle eyed viewers will also note that the stop tailpiece was positioned too far back on the body #2 - Here's the body with the neck removed and the pickup cavities filled with new mahogany and maple.The finish has already been stripped in this photo...that red stain is right in the maple . Oh well...I love a challenge. Even though this guitar originally had a trapeze tailpiece, at some point it was also drilled for a wrap tailpeice. ( The holes were hidden by the bridge in picture #1) #3 - Here's the body with all the red stain removed, all the extra holes dowelled and the pickup cavities restored. Now it's time to paint!! #4 - Here's a top view of the finished project showing detail of the lacquer checking and all the original parts Doug chased down. What a cool guitar!! #5 - Looking straight down onto the top. All the guitar's previous boo-boos are totally invisible! #6 - This picture shows the new neck angle and string height in relation to the pickups and bridge...just where you want it!    #7 - Another side view of the top showing neck angle #8 - I didn't want to give this guitar back!! #9 - Detail of headstock restoration and lacquer checking  #10 - Proud father Doug Capener holds his new main squeeze!! Gibson 1954 Les Paul Reissue     Here's a Gibson custom shop '54 reissue that we aged for a customer. While it was a nice guitar, it just didn't have the vibe. The lacquer checking on top is an EXACT reproduction of a well used real 54 goldtop, including the forearm wear. We also dyed the fingerboard darker, aged the inlays, truss rod cover, and all metal parts, and added a conservative amount of belt buckle rash. This guitar has major mojo now ! 1955 Gibson ES-295    I'm a fan of Rock-A-Billy, so I've always loved ES-295s. I scored this guitar pretty cheap off ebay because it was refinished and the headstock had been broken. The neck was replaced with a late 60's ES-175 neck... unfortunately, whoever did the job in England set the neck at much too steep of an angle... the bridge was almost 2 inches off the top! Since the neck had to come off anyway, we decided to reshape the headstock to 50's contours and remove the ugly volute. We dowelled the tuner holes, redrilled to 1950's spacing and reshot the headstock in black lacquer. You can't tell it was done. The body was stripped of its poly finish and reshot in the nitro lacquer using the correct bronzing powder to produce an authentic aged 50's goldtop look. I sourced an original tailpiece and tuners... now she's back to 100%. Pretty cool, huh? 1958 Gibson Les Paul Special This guitar was another ebay bargain... mostly non-original parts and a cherry sunburst polyurethane finish. Yuck! Gibson's TV finish is a hard one to do... it's a challenge to get the proper look to the grain and to capture that distinctive green/yellow/brown hue. Many people have told me that I really nailed it with this one. This guitar sports some very authentic-looking wear and lacquer checking, and the parts are back to 100% original. You gotta love P-90 Les Pauls! 1955 Les Paul Junior Project Guitar   About a year ago, I was poking around a local music store and found an early 50's Gibson neck lying behind the counter. It had a huge rounded profile, Brazilian rosewood board with pearloid dots, and gold silkscreened logo. It was screaming to be made into a Junior. There was just one problem: a Junior has 22 frets and this neck only had 18. We actually grafted a new long-tenon heel on the end of the neck and fitted a Brazilian rosewood extension onto the end of the existing fingerboard. The job was pretty much undetectable (see photo). We then built a beautiful Junior body out of single lightweight piece of Honduras mahogony and glued the neck on as per 1950's specs. The body was finished in a thin nitro lacquer Junior burst, with the new finish blending in with the original neck finish. All parts are original 1950's and the guitar weighs 6 1/2 pounds. With a screaming 8.7K P-90, this guitar has all the sound and vibe of any real Junior. Gordon L5CTS "George Gobel" Project Guitar   Here's an interesting one. A few years back, I picked up a homemade archtop at a garage sale. The neck was crap but the body was really good. I've always been intrigued by the thin-bodied L5 George Gobel model... this started my most ambitious project to date! I removed the back of the guitar and cut down the sides to the new narrower dimensions. After putting in proper kerfing, I reinstalled the back and bound the top and back with 7-ply black and white binding. I had to make a new neck so I decided to go whole hog and do a proper L5. This was my first experience with pearl inlay and multiple-bound headstocks and I'm pretty happy with the results. The headstock logo is a tongue-in-cheek nod to Gibson, I obviously borrowed their font but if you look closely you'll see that it is actually my name. The spruce top is finished in ultra-thin cherry nitro lacquer with ambered bindings. I added a gold Bigsby to satisfy the rocker in me. This was a huge project I won't be repeating anytime too soon! |
