Dear Outposters,
I want to pick your minds on the following:
As some of you may remember I own a Les Paul Prototype bass.
I scored it off Ebay long time ago. Back then it wasn't entirely clear what it was; a prototype or employee build. Maybe even a fake.
But I was intrigued by it and rather confident it was legit. So I put a bid on it. Uwe gracefully stepped aside and agreed to let me win the bid if it would stay under a limit we agreed upon. I ended up winning the bid. Thanx to Uwe!
A few years after that I saw a picture of this model in the Les Paul estate auction. Which confirmed mine is a legit Gibson prototype. Not an employee build or fake.
The Les Paul Bass in the auction was sold together with a six string version for a staggering amount of USD 40,265
The bass that I own does not have the celebrity certificate, nor does it come with the six-string sibling. But I do think it has a certain value. And that is certainly more than what I bought it for.
But, there are some issues...
The bass has had the neck joint broken off at a certain point. The fracture took parts of the surrounding body with it. It was (solidly) glued back together.
But the neck/body angle is completely wrong.
My theory is that the neck was originally set at a faulty angle. And maybe that was the reason why they broke it in two. And maybe an employee picked it out of the trash and decided to resurrect the bass? Who knows...
Because the neck angle is wrong, the original two point bridge (Evertilt) was way too high. Someone took out the bridge post inserts and routed a rectangle, about 4 mm deep into the body to fit a Badass bridge.
The action is perfect now and the bass is fully functional. I have gigged with it numerous times.
But that neck angle and the Badass bridge have been bothering me for a long time.
I am contemplating on bringing it back to it's original state.
Fill the rectangle with a matching piece of mahogany. Re-install a two point bridge.
Remove the neck and reset it at the correct angle.
This would involve a partial refin (with nitro).
And while I'm at it I would re-install period correct machine heads. The bass now has (black) Gotoh res-o-lite tuners. Which helps to fight the neck dive a bit. But not enough to fully cure it.
I have been building bass guitars for quite a while. And lately I feel I have built up enough confidence to take on such a project.
I would never have dared to do that ten years ago.
My question; Should I do it? Or should I leave it as is?
Would a faithful restoration raise the value? Or would it do more damage?
Show Posts
