Les Paul-style guitar refurb

[PaperyAlloy]

Hello all!

I've managed to get hold of a Les Paul style guitar from a friend of mine, but I'm not sure of it's history at all. It seems someone wanted to refinish it and took some general purpose paint stripper to it - a fate no guitar should meet!
The result of that can be seen below. It's not a fantastic looking thing, but I figured it's an opportunity to refurbish/refinish it into something nice and playable, while giving myself my first experience of the world of luthiery!
Now, the reason I've come here is not to catalogue the process (although if I get round to doing some work on it I'm sure I'll be able to if there's enough interest ) but to hopefully get some inspiration from the experienced luthiers here at SS, of which I'm sure there are lots!
In a perfect world I'd love to convert it to a 7, but it seems to me that the logistics of that are just ridiculous and I'd be better off focusing my efforts elsewhere.

Other photos can be taken on request

Any ideas anyone has would be lovely and very helpful!

Cheers,

D

 

[jbg]

Sand it & stain it black & hit it with some flat/satin clear, replace the nut, dress/polish the frets (unless they're completely destroyed & worn), add some nice tuners, hardware & a set of Arcane Inc humbuckers and you're on your way!

Actually, I would start by checking the neck to see if it's warped or bowed before doing anything. Pull that truss rod cover & see if there is room to tighten/loosen the rod for any future adjustments. Then check the conditions of the frets (flat spots, nicks, etc). If you can string it up & check relief of the neck that'd be good, too. Once all that looks good, see first paragraph & have at it!

 

[BlackMastodon]

I think the above post is pretty damn good advice on where to start with that thing. Shame someone did that to the poor guitar but it is a good opportunity for you to refinish it. Whatever colour you choose to stain/paint it and what pickups you want is up to you, but yeah converting it to a 7 would seem out of the question unless you want to build a new neck for it and make the pickup and bridge routes bigger.

As for cataloging the process: there is always interest on the luthiery forum here.

 

[PaperyAlloy]

Cheers for the responses guys! Sounds like the beginnings of a plan! Time permitting I should be able to start this up relatively soon - perhaps within the month or even in the next week or so
Neck looks good - did a quick once-over and everything seems fine.