Servicing a 1972 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Conversion
Everything needed to get it great again! We rebuild the electronics, do a full neck setup with truss-rod adjustment, cleaning the fretboard, setting the action, adjusting the hardware, set up the pickups up correctly including adjusting the hum-bucker pole-pieces. We’ll do detailed listening to it’s balance and try to get the best out of it. Servicing your guitar fun and no rocket science, as you’ll see. Let’s ROCK!
Conversion?
So it’s a conversion, because a Deluxe in the 1970s came originally with mini-humbuckers. There are some custom ordered ‘deluxes’ out there, that came with regular humbuckers on order. Those were not Gibson Les Paul standards, but deluxes that still had a Sunburst back, neck and a pancake body construction. The latter was common practice in that Norlin era.
video chapter links
Why take a vintage guitar apart?
If it was a fully original example, I wouldn’t have gone to these matters, electronics especially, out of respect for originality. However, this is definitely a player’s example with lots of original parts missing at sea somewhere, probably. Technically it’s started to perform less than it’s capable of and every now and then it’s just rewarding to take it back a step and then a bigger step up. It’s my daily driver and was important to get the potential in order again and put it back where it belongs, in the studio and on stage!
what makes these les pauls interesting?
Believe or not, the ‘cheaper’ body construction! Love it or hate it, it looks goofy for sure. But, that tiny maple layer between the 2 slabs of mahogany has sonic consequences IMHO, and in a positive way. What I feel and why I still have this guitar is that is very defined and snappy. It’s bright, clear and sits in a mix properly, where Les Pauls and a notorious typical muddiness that comes with them can get you into to some work there. Not with this one! It’s works beautifully and it’s also even capable to make twang.