Building Mom a Les Paul Custom Replica

Inspector #20

Ambassador of Tone
Fallen Star
Country flag
Ok...new thread for this recent direction change. During a recent visit, Mom commented on how easy it was to hold Barre chords, and fret notes in general, on my Gibson SG. Mom has some arthritis and its hard for her to play her Dreadnauts and the archaic Silvertone. She jokingly remarked, "Well if I had a guitar that easy to fret I would play all the time..."

Mom has always liked the 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom, but its too heavy for her. So, I decided to fit out this Les Paul Custom Replica just for her.

Originally, I planned on using the new GFS VEH Alinco V pickups, but, because the Epiphone Probuckers are so darn quiet, I made a trade with Alex to keep the pickups. I don't thing the hot VEH's would suit Mom's playing, so I went with the quieter option.

I decided not to use the bumblebee harness and instead build my own harness from parts on hand, throw in a 220k treble cut and a pair of .033uf/.015uf K40Y tone capacitors I had laying around from an old project.

Already installed are the gold speed knobs and gold pointers and the last shipment arrived yesterday.

Now i have the correct LPC Grover gold keystone tuners, along with a gold plated brass poker chip, Pinnacle 14" radius roller brass bridge, gold plated aluminum Gotoh tailpiece, Faber gold plated steel studs, gold Switchcraft switch with gold plated brass tip, gold plated brass metric bridge studs and gold plated Dunlop straplocks.

These parts allow me to return all the loaner hardware (minus the Probuckers) and produce a really nicely outfitted instrument.

The quality of the gold plating on the Gotoh, Grover and Faber parts really are impressive.

Now just need a little time to finish it up before Mother's Day.... :-)

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I'm working on getting a pic of Mom with a 1952 Epiphone Casino/Sheraton (?) taken about 1956, digitized and uploaded...
 
One of these is a $5,000 original...

One is Mom's hand-built SoCal replica...

While sharp eyes can spot the difference, its a very well made replica....

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I think Bocc69 may be on the right track, a Zephyr variant, of which there were several. Here's a Zephyr RegentC__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_p1_uewkmquza_ss.jpg
And a Regent DeluxeC__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_imagesSRPZ4YHA.jpg
There was also a Zephyr Regent Emperor & the Zephyr Blues Deluxe, both 3 pickup jobs, the Emperor had humbuckers I think, the Blues Deluxe had 3 dogear P90 types, how cool would that be. There may also be other Zephyr variansts, that's just what a quick google search revealed. Cheers
 
I think Bocc69 may be on the right track, a Zephyr variant, of which there were several. Here's a Zephyr RegentView attachment 4633
And a Regent DeluxeView attachment 4634
There was also a Zephyr Regent Emperor & the Zephyr Blues Deluxe, both 3 pickup jobs, the Emperor had humbuckers I think, the Blues Deluxe had 3 dogear P90 types, how cool would that be. Cheers

Different looking pickup and placement in Mom's vintage Epiphone...Pickup could have been added...Mom doesn't remember those details... :-)
 
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