LPs for cheap

[gearHed289]

Have you guys seen what Musician's Friend is selling Les Pauls for?  They're the low budget flat tops (my favorite actually), but $699.99 is a STEAL! I love my (shiny red) '94 LP Special. 

[gweimer]

Nice price.  I've got parts started for my next project.  It's going to be a Les Paul style bass.  Got a body and a neck.  Still thinking about what to do for pickups, bridge, etc.

[Dave W]

This is the same one I bought a year ago and then returned becuase of the horrible finish. The cutaway wasn't sanded at all, the rest of the edge was badly sanded and the top had been rounded in a couple of places due to bad sanding. The finish was slopped on in places. I would have just exchanged it if they had a way to inspect it first but they're all sealed in the factory boxes.

I paid $100 more last August. Still tempting. The balance and feel were just great.

[Barklessdog]

Uwe's was really a nice bass. I loved it. Did not have the issues Dave had. It sounded, played & looked great.

[Lightyear]

I still think for about $100 and some elbow grease you could have a killer bass in most any color you wanted.

Or maybe you buff the bejeezus out of it with 0000 steel wool and mineral oil to smooth it out some, advance the aging process and give it a bit of low level luster.

I'm tempted but I'm saving myself for the Decade

[Barklessdog]

With the faded your halfway to this-

[chromium]

Or maybe you buff the bejeezus out of it with 0000 steel wool and mineral oil to smooth it out some, advance the aging process and give it a bit of low level luster.

I did something like that - buffed by hand w/compound, followed by butchers wax.  If you are ok with the open/unfilled grain and the sometimes less-than-thorough finish sanding (mine has a rough spot right on the front by the controls), buffing one of these will bring out color depth and shine.

Here's my before and after:

[Barklessdog]

That made a big difference. You're never going to fill that grain all the way with oils.

[Dave W]

The unfilled grain doesn't bother me at all. The one I got was way too bad to be corrected by buffing out. Even if I could have repaired the finish, there were at least two sanded over areas where the operator hadn't kept the body perpendicular to the sanding drum and sort of curved it over into the top, and there was a big flat spot sanded into the rounded portion of the edge of the bass side lower bout.

The SG basses would seem to be less prone to this than the flattop LPs, since their edges are so much thinner.

[Barklessdog]

I know a guitarist who said he was told by a Gibson rep that Gibson put "newbie" employees on the faded line before they could ever touch the high dollar instruments.

[Dave W]

Yesterday I was near the GC in San Antonio so I popped in for a few minutes. They had a group of faded Gibson guitars on a stand near the entrance. The SGs were okay. The Les Pauls were better than the bass I got and returned, but all three of them were pretty much unsanded in the cutaway. On each of them it looked like the employee had just touched a sanding drum to the cutaway, hitting part of it, leaving most of it very rough.

That's just not acceptable quality at any price level.

They actually had an SG Reisue Bass in stock. I played it through a Markbass combo. It sounded good with both pickups on, better with the neck pickup alone. It was $1099 for their Labor Day weekend sale. But if I had a spare $1000 I'd buy hollowbody's 69 EB-0 instead.

Also played one of the faded SGs, really nice and the neck was just right for me. But I don't need another guitar.

[angrymatt]

Also played one of the faded SGs, really nice and the neck was just right for me. But I don't need another guitar.

The music store across town has a faded (one of the turd brown ones) SG that I feel about the same about.  But, like you, I really don't need another guitar.