Welcome back to our project: rebuilding a 1979 Gibson Les Paul Standard. If you were with us for Part I of this project, you know that my old Les Paul Standard was feeling a bit tired. It had never been a stellar instrument — sort of dead compared to what I was looking for. I decided to refurbish the guitar with a new nut; new frets; a thorough cleaning; and brand-new pickups, electronics, and hardware, including a new bridge, tailpiece, and tuners. At the end of the last installment, the guitar had been to a tech who installed a new bone nut and put in medium-jumbo frets for me. Then, I brought the guitar home and stripped it of all hardware and electronics.

Let’s pick up the story this time around and see where we end up at the thrilling conclusion!

Cleaning and Restoring the Finish

The first step was to remove 30 years of accumulated gook and grunge. The tech had polished the guitar when the frets were installed, but the finish was deeply hazy, and there was a thick sludge built up in several places, such as the spot where my right forearm rests on the upper bout. There were also numerous pick scratches on the body, and there were worn places around the control knobs. I tried standard guitar polishes, and while these were great for taking off fingerprints and restoring the shine of the instrument, they didn’t take off the gunk, nor did they help with the scratches. I also tried a guitar restoration kit, and this helped a bit. But I wanted to return the guitar to its factory luster!

As a side note, when I purchased my handmade classical guitar, the luthier recommended using Meguiars car care products for finish maintenance — very gently on that instrument, as it has a French polish finish! I’ve also recently noticed that several guitar-cleaning products also come from Meguiars. So, off I went to the local auto parts superstore. I was immediately and completely confused by all the options — and a bit scared that I’d get the wrong thing and damage the finish.

Fortunately, one of the guys in the store worked in an auto refinishing shop. He was able to guide me to several products that I ended up using to turn back the clock on the finish. I ended up using three products for a 3-step process: Meguiars Diamond Cut Compound 2.0, Scratch X 2.0, and Swirl & Haze Remover. The reason for the multi-stage process is that the heavier buffing compound, Diamond Cut Compound 2.0, while taking off the gunk, actually leaves a haze of tiny scratches in the finish. I went over this with the Scratch X product, then restored the final shine with with Swirl & Haze Remover.

I used a variety of tools for this, including soft sponges used to buff auto finishes, clean cotton cloths (basically t-shirt material), and a Dremel rotary tool with a soft-cloth buffing attachment for getting into difficult spots.

I found the key was to apply the buffing compound lightly, gently rub that around until it sort of dries up (using light pressure), then wipe it off, and repeat. In some places, it took four or five applications of compound to get through the gunk, then several applications of less coarse compounds to clean up the finish. You could use a buffer or a buffing pad in a drill, but be very careful! You just want to clean off the gunk; you don’t want to burn through the finish. I chose to work by hand, just to be on the safe side. When I did use the Dremel polishing attachment, I kept the RPMs very low and used very light pressure.

It’s amazing how the finish was restored — it took a lot of elbow grease over several evenings (fortunately, a Ninja Warrior marathon was running), but it was worth it! Aside from dents and dings, the finish is almost 100% like new — in my opinion, it looks as good as a 30-year-old, well-played guitar could possibly look! Initially, I was just going to restore the top finish, but after seeing the results, I went ahead and did the sides, back, neck, and headstock as well, so the entire guitar looks new.

Tuners

The vintage tulip-style replacement tuners I had purchased dropped right into four of the headstock holes; the dual screw holes lined up perfectly with the original tuner screw holes, leaving the single screw hole used for the replacement tuners exposed, which I can live with.

Two of the tuner holes needed to be very slightly enlarged. I used a rotary tool to do this; a properly sized drill bit would have worked too. The tuners attach with threaded bushings on the front of the headstock and with two screws on the back.

Truss Rod Cover

The truss rod cover reattached with two small screws. First, I cleaned and polished it a bit.

Pickup Selector Switch

Since the pickup selector switch wasn’t completely removed during the disassembly, it was easy to reinstall. I just slipped the plastic surround ring back around the shaft of the switch, then tightened down the retaining nut for the switch. I’ll leave the knob off for now, so the switch doesn’t protrude as far. It will be one of the last things put on the guitar.

I flipped the guitar over to install the cover plate for the switch cavity on the guitar. Note that I left the shielding “can” in the switch cavity. It’s not hurting anything in there, and, of course, it is providing shielding around the switch. The plate installed easily with three tiny screws — which brings me to another tip: when you’re taking the hardware off of the guitar, keep everything organized so it will be easy to find the screws that go with each piece when you reinstall.

Strap Buttons

The original strap buttons were screwed back onto the guitar.

Pickups

Now it’s time to install the new pickups. I’ll be putting in a matched set of PRS 57/08 humbuckers, which are very similar to original PAF vintage pickups. I love these pickups; they have a full sound, with good articulation, open top end, and moderate output.

Install the neck pickup first; this makes it easier to route the wires back to the control cavity. The first step is the hardest of the entire process: get the height-adjust screws for the pickup through the pickup surround, then slide on the pickup springs, which help keep the pickup stable and at the desired height. The hard part: depressing the springs while simultaneously screwing the pickup mounting screw into the bracket on the bottom of the pickup! I did pretty well; I only shot the spring across the room twice…

The wires for the pickup are routed through the tunnels in the body back to the control cavity, where they will be soldered to the volume controls. In this photo, I’ve threaded the wires from the neck pickup into the tunnel in the neck pickup cavity. It emerges in the bridge pickup cavity, then gets routed into a small hole (upper right) that leads to the control cavity. The grey wire you see in the guitar runs from the control cavity back to the pickup selector switch.

Once the wires are routed back, the pickup can be screwed down to the body of the guitar, using four small screws, which go through the pickup surround. If the pickup surround is angled, the taller side goes toward the bridge and the shorter side toward the fingerboard. On the neck pickup, the adjustable polepieces go toward the fingerboard.

Repeat the process for the bridge pickup. Once again, the taller side of the surround goes toward the bridge, the shorter side toward the fingerboard. This time, the pole pieces go toward the bridge.

Which surround is which? The taller one goes with the bridge pickup, while the lower height surround goes with the neck pickup.

Output Jack/Jack Plate

As with the pickup selector switch, I decided to reuse the output jack with its too-cool shielding “can.” The plate for the jack simply attaches to the body with four small screws. The can and its attached wire protrude into the guitar’s control cavity. If you’re installing a new jack, it may be easier to solder lengths of wire onto the jack before you mount it in the body, so you don’t have to pull the jack back out to connect the wires.

Control Assembly

I purchased a pre-wired volume/tone control assembly, which came from the vendor with the pots connected and the tone capacitors wired; everything was ready for the pickups and the pickup selector switch to be attached. While I could have used all separate components and soldered them together myself, I saved time this way. And with the premium components I selected, the price for the pre-wired version was only marginally more than getting the separate pieces and doing it myself.

The assembly is a thing of beauty, with neat solder joints. It came mounted to a piece of plastic; it was a simple matter to remove the nuts from the pots and release it from the plastic. It slipped right into the control holes in the guitar. I soldered the pickup wires on before hard-mounting it into the guitar.

Once the controls were in the guitar and the nuts were fastened to the pots on the front of the guitar, I connected the wires from the selector switch and from the jack. The shields for the pickup wires, the selector switch, and the output jack all connect to the back of the pots. In this photo, everything has been soldered into place; you can see the three shielded wires (the shiny braided metal wires: two running from the pickups and one coming from the output jack). You can also see the thick grey wire, which carries the signals to and from the pickup selector switch on the upper bout of the guitar.

At this point, I plugged the guitar into an amp and lightly touched a metal screwdriver to each pickup while manipulating the controls. Everything worked as it should!

Unplugging the guitar, I fastened the control cavity cover plate down with its four small screws.

Bridge/Tailpiece

Flipping the guitar onto its back, I screwed in the mounting studs for the new bridge and the new tailpiece. The new aluminum (vintage-style) tailpiece weighs NOTHING! It can’t be even 1/4 as heavy as the original tailpiece. The new bridge is the correct Gibson Tune-o-matic model.

Final Touches

With the bridge and the tailpiece on their studs, it’s time to string up the guitar and give it a try to make sure everything works properly!

Once I was satisfied that nothing else needed to be done to the guitar (aside from setup and intonation), I proceeded to the last step, which was to screw the knob onto the pickup selector switch and to slide on the volume and tone control knobs.

If you read the last installment, then you know that, unfortunately, one of the volume knobs broke during disassembly. I took this opportunity to replace the speed knobs (not sure if they were original or not) with four new top-hat knobs.

The Result

So, was it worth it? You better believe it! It’s a different guitar. The entire thing now rings and resonates. The new pickups are clear and warm, with good bottom-end chunk, the guitar sustains better, and, overall, it’s just a much-superior sounding, playing, and feeling instrument.

Sum Total of Changes

• Complete finish cleaning and restoration
• New bone nut
• New medium-jumbo frets
• New pickups
• New Tune-o-matic bridge and studs
• New lightweight tailpiece and studs
• New vintage-style tuners
• New control harness
• New volume and tone knobs

Tools Used

• Large Philips screwdriver (strap buttons)
• Small Philips screwdriver (all other screws)
• 1/2″ nutdriver (jacks/pots)
• 7/16″ nutdriver (tuner bushings)
• Needle-nose pliers
• Wire stripper
• Wire cutters
• Soldering station
• Dremel rotary tool with soft polishing attachment and grinding attachment
• Meguiars Diamond Cut Compound 2.0
• Meguiars Scratch X 2.0
• Meguiars Swirl & Haze Remover
• Lizard Spit guitar polish
• Clean white cotton cloths
• Automotive foam polishing pads