I had a 1969 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (sandwich body) for restoration. My customer thought, that he made a great deal buying a vintage instrument… But I have to say: this was one of the complicated restorations I ever made. I took a while to get this done, about 9 months.
It was born as a gold top, then equipped with a Bigsby (maybe, but who knows), then chiseled (ouch) for humbucker. The nightmare doesn’t stop here. The gold was scraped away, and the top was painted with a brush. After that, somebody started to fill the chiseled gaps with clay(???).
The customer wanted to restore the instrument in its original form, as close as possible. What makes this complicated is the sandwich body… a small layer of maple sheet is laying in the pickup cavity.
I rerouted the cavities to get clean gluing surfaces. I sandwiched mahogany/maple/maple with matching grain pattern and glued it to play.
I had access to a 1968 small headstock LP Goldtop, to match the color. I mixed different gold powders to match it 95% close to the original color.
Overall: it turned out great. There are no signs of restoration.
