Probably already a thread somewhere, but just thought I'd throw up a new topic anyway. I always wanted a Gibson Les Paul; but, found Gibson's pricing a little outrageous; so, I had this vision in my head of a Black Beauty with a twist, and decided to design and put one together from parts I choose. This is a carved-top Warmoth Les Paul body with mahogany back and maple top. The neck is unfinished indian rosewood with a macassar ebony fretboard, and standard thin contour. It is a Warmoth Pro Construction 25-1/2" scale compound radius neck with 1-11/16" width at the bone nut. Frets are 6105. Pearloid block inlays and neck binding. Tuners are Sperzel lockers. The pickups were hand-wound by Jeff at HighOrder pickups to Antiquity specs, NECK: 7.8K A-3, symmetrical wind, and BRIDGE: 8.3K A-2, asymmetrical wind. The rest of the hardware, I ordered from various places. The wiring and pots are from RS Guitarworks, and it includes Hovland tone caps (.015/.022), and RS/CTS 500K smooth taper super pots. The bridge is a locking TonePros TPFP/T1Z setup. The pick guard is machine-turned aluminum from Sharp Concepts, and I topped it off with chrome knobs with ebony caps from Q-Parts. The truss rod cover is custom-made ebony with my initials in red abalone. The body also has the natural lip over binding. This guitar plays like butter.
My amp is a GDS Amplification 18 watt TMB head. It is basically a clone of the Marshall 18 watt TMB circuit. Runs on a pair of EL-84's, a trio of NOS Mullard 12AX7's, and a tube rectifier. The cabinet is custom built to emulate a Marshall vintage tall straight bottom cab. It's loaded with a mixture of of Celestions from '69 thru about 71. 2 G12M25 Greenbacks and 2 G12H30's. I've had various Marshalls over the years that I dearly miss. Had to sell the most recent in some bad financial times....I miss that amp. IT was an original 1969 JMP 50 Plexi.
