Page 111 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

VINTAGE BENCH TEST

VINTAGE BENCH TEST

THAT OLD

BLACK MAGIC

In 1953, Les Paul asked for a guitar that maple cap and Gibson attempted to streamline the
“looked like a tuxedo”, but by the late 60s, production process.
the Custom had built its own legend. During the 1950s, Gibson routed the wiring
We check out a strummer from ’69… channels into the mahogany back, then glued a
mahogany cap on top before routing the control
WORDS HUW PRICE PHOTOGRAPHY ELEANOR JANE
cavity. The top arch was a complicating factor – the
base of the control rout had to be angled so that the
cap depth was sufficiently thin enough for the control
pot shafts to pass through the holes.
he luxurious Les Paul Custom evolved In 1968, Gibson began routing the wire channels
throughout the second half of the 1950s and and the control cavity into the mahogany back before
continued to do so following its reintroduction gluing the cap on. According to guitarhq.com, this
T in 1968. Until 1963, all single- and double- changed in February 1969, when Gibson reverted
cutaway Custom bodies were made purely from to 1950s practice and the control cavity has a maple
mahogany. When the Les Paul Standard acquired ‘step’ near the bottom where the depth was altered
two PAF humbuckers in 1957, the Custom got three. after gluing the cap.
Its fingerboard was always ebony, to match the black Shortly afterwards, Gibson introduced the
lacquer finish. ‘pancake’ body with a two-layer mahogany back
For its ’68 comeback, the Les Paul Custom sandwiching a thin layer of maple. By mid ’69,
reverted to two humbuckers – and by this point, headstocks acquired ‘made in USA’ markings
Patent Number units were de rigeur in Kalamazoo and a volute.
– and the headstock angle was altered from 17 to Assuming all this information is accurate, it helps
14 degrees. The model’s body also finally acquired a to pin the manufacturing date of this Les Paul

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