Final Finish & DEMO! - 1953 Les Paul Restore

[@dookieday1]

The most extensive vintage les paul restoration we have seen, you have managed to reserect this historical instrument.... Lucky owner ....

[@DFox-ud3gx]

53 got a brand new heart beat of America ,MERRY Christmas. Very nice work

[@nickdryad]

I loved this series. An ordinary workshop most people are familiar with and, in the end, extraordinary results.

[@bigdguitars]

the killer tool is that pin router!

[@Cobra-ky9bt]

Looks and sounds beautiful. I'm doing my first build in 2022 and your vids are answering a lot of questions I have. Thanks.

[@Goomer]

Can't believe it's done. Great Job. That was a ton of labor.

[@waltergottardi7223]

I followed all the restoration phases. really a great job. Well done

[@jwandhistools]

You're not kidding about gold exposing everything. Used the exact same stewmac white sealer and antique gold on a strat. Fantastic shade of gold, but fought me every step of the way. Was nice to see I am not the only one that level sands along the way. Makes a massive difference, especially with finicky colors like gold. Wish I had that buffer. I just put a pad on my drill press. I think I use the press for buffing, more than I do for drilling. Actually, I know I do. Great job, man.

[@pascalgalipeau1796]

This is such a nice project. It’s beautiful.

[@oldguy5381]

Brought back from the dead. Merry Christmas

[@vayabroder729]

I had been waiting for this for a long time. This resto has been nothing short of a miracle. It’s awesome how you brought it back; it was so abused. Very impressed with your skills. Thanks for sharing.

[@georgew.morrowiii118]

I think the restoration turned out great ... you did a good job.

[@rapidrhinoplumbing-monrovi3269]

You are so patient man! Well done Lad. Well done. Learned a lot.DD

[@ZacWilkersonMusic]

Incredible work! What a journey!

[@benwallwork8940]

Been waiting forever for this build to be finished. Looks amazing!

[@thestrum71]

What an amazing job!! If only I would live closer, I'ld bring you my guitars to play around with!!

[@dfhomemadestudio]

Magic hands! Congratulations 👏👏👏

[@SteveResor]

Wow.. that thing was so messed up when You got it ! It turned out looking Amazing.. Awesome Job !!!

[@richard66754]

You do amazing work! I imagine this sort of repair isn’t so easy on the wallet, but saving an antique is worth whatever it costs.

[@sefton1972]

Top work. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this series of videos. Thank you.

[@magnumardent]

Perfect restoration, considering the condition it was in...thanks for this uploads, really worth waiting for!

[@santiagocolina]

I wish i could do that type of work for a living...I’m tired of being a Mr.Nobody waiter. Such frustration ohhhghh. Anyhow, great work!!

[@tremikimolo9704]

Really enjoyed seeing this one come together. Super good job man, you've got crazy skills and patience. Respect from Alberta.

[@dalgguitars]

Thank you so much for your videos. Such fantastic work!

[@kennigrimmelmann4364]

Very very fat nice good Sound. And Rock and blues you Play.

[@sfields4]

Well worth the wait. You do amazing work. Cheers!

[@rodeamaster]

Awesome. Keep on working, man.

[@lonapopoki1181]

Masterful. Attention to detail shows love/respect of craftsmanship yours & original luthiers Killer sound 🎵

[@74dartman13]

Nice work! It looks great!👍😎🎸🎶

[@jimfromoh8944]

Gorgeous, fantastic work. Much more difficult to restore than to build from new. Great job on this.

[@davetenney5800]

Awesome! Been waiting for this for a while...

[@SkyscraperGuitars]

WOW! I know that was a ton of work, but it was worth every second of time. What a stunner! And the sound of those old soap bar pups!!! Now you've got me curious about the value of that baby. Congrats!!!

[@myke104uk]

Awesome! I have been following your progress for some time with this and I'm very impressed with the end result! You should be really proud :)

[@PhoenixGuitars]

I got a restored and refinished 53 recently (converted to 56 specs) myself. Really love your videos and craftsmanship. I'm just a few hours south of you. Cheers and keep up the great work!

[@granbraffo4306]

The brown color you mixed for the back is glorious.

[@jjulch]

Nice job! Looking forward to this video for some time now.

[@Ian_sheridanuk]

Amazing restoration

[@mark64tanner]

Great job Buddy. 👍✌😎

[@larsarcher8675]

Fantastic Job! Been looking forward to this last part! 🙂

[@MrTimThunder]

Yeah man! I’ve been looking forward to this. You did a lot of work and it looks like it was worth it.

[@yourdrummer2034]

I love gold tops. Nice work!

[@JonRaffety]

WOW! AWESOME! nice jazz at the end!

[@TyRoxYaMan]

Awesome job been looking forward to this been watching all summer!

[@danandratis]

Beautiful restore!

[@steveroberts]

Fantastic work as always.

[@Emanual0607]

Absolutely Fabulous!!!!!!!

[@JMnyJohns]

Nice job D! Jeez, what a project. Must feel good to have it done. Merry Xmas.

[@markprentice1961]

Good Job! A lot of blood, sweat and tears in that thing.

[@31415926535ism]

Brilliant resto. Well done.

[@buckhorncortez]

If you're having problems with the finish blushing using a spray gun, you have too much water in the air supply. You either need a dryer on the compressor or a coalescing filter and water trap. I'm guessing if you're in Chicago, you can get 90+ percent humidity on a lot of days. That's a lot of humidity to get out of a compressor system.

[@edwardsn3670]

Old but gold😎

[@jerrymcgeorge4117]

Beautiful work! My first Les Paul, purchased for $75 in 1968, was a ‘56 some wanker had sprayed white with a rattle can. In the process they’d ruined the neck pickup coil. We had a great luthier in NW Indiana at the time, Milan Opacich, who did the finish after I’d done the strip & wood prep. For health risk reasons he refused to spray the gold so after some deliberation we settled on …. walnut! Hey, it was the 60s! I played it for about a year but needed cash for a jazz archtop purchase. Sold it to a guy in Boston summer ‘69. It’s still out there somewhere with people going”who the h3ll did THIS?”

[@sandroisca3688]

Wonderful journey, thanks! Much respect!

[@JONNIE_ROCKER]

👍👍 Beutiful guitar. Awesome job

[@matthewwilson3673]

amazing work

[@hugomejia593]

Beautiful gold top color

[@bobq7910]

Thanks to share with us this info.very useful for me

[@emmettmarrujo5075]

Well thank you so much that was amazing hard to believe it’s the same guitar!

[@geemac7267]

Nice work!

[@angusmackay7281]

You can buy anti-bloom nitro thinners to mitigate the problem you describe with the clear coat process. I use the one that Rothko and Frost sell in the UK and I've never had any trouble since I started using it.

[@Terry3Gs]

Very nice job Derek !!! I actually kinda dig how it looks now.

[@yohanonshine4664]

At first I didn't like the stain but last coat did it. Front looks great also. Nice polishing wheel omg.

[@hkguitar1984]

Great job Sir. Lots of small and large challenges to overcome with this restoration. I'm really very impressed with how the "Les Paul Model" script turned out, good job. You would expect a large manufacturer like Gibson to have a jig/template for the silkscreen logo/script, however those early examples as well as through the years see the placement all over the place.

[@danmartin633]

Been waiting for this one.

[@blagheur]

Good job!!

[@MichaelSeanHarrell]

Looks great !!

[@avielkharrat5788]

I'm sure the vid dosen't do it justice. This thing looks magnificant !! When it came to your shop it was complete waste. And now it became THIS ! What a fantastic talent you got, D! BTW, getting close to 100... Slowly but surely!

[@Furtheronmusic]

Terrific job. I love p90 gold tops

[@SunnyKlein-vr7eh]

I would have used every bit of the old guitar that’s possible even on the electronics and then go from there if something is not working you can just change out maybe one thing and YOU DID AN INCREDIBLE JOB but I would have had it sent off to, well there are a few cats who can make it look like it should and I wouldn’t have fixed every part because that’s part of the mojo cause now it’s really just a new guitar but again absolutely beautiful work

[@kenzuercher7497]

I only watched this video so far but the guitar looks great! However the sound! All the snarl and bloom from the fabled Beano album is there!

[@motoramps]

Great work, I like how you dont edit the mistakes or mishaps, that really is useful for others to learn. I tried my luck into spraying stewmac and reranch gold on a korina V, only sealer no primer, but never was satisfied. I kept seeing patches over the body were the gold was more or less even, or fuzzies that I scuff sanded and applied another coat, but never was even in color. When I finally got how to spray it dry, the clear made some darker spots to appear. After sanding and repainting like 3 times I was done and did a tv yellow instead. So much easier than gold. Please share some tips on how to do it right. Thanks!

[@gibsondrummer]

Its sweet , but was really hoping for an all gold finish

[@sneifert1968]

It took a while, but worth it. Well done. May I suggest a better amp set up for your sound demos.😉

[@georgefrench1907]

Better than new. 👍

[@briandietrich1373]

Impressive restoration! I have a late 53, early 54 I inherited from my dad. Great guitar. The VOS R4'S are darn good too, in fact, I prefer the R4 to the original. Only question I have is why you went with the dark back.. Not judging, just asking,.. Love your videos...

[@guitarsbyatomixcustomguita2789]

lookin' good!

[@GrovesGuitars]

As a vintage enthusiast, full time builder and and collector, I’m actually bewildered by this resto. Love your work Big D, and I’ve borrowed some of your jig ideas, but this one clearly shows you know squat about old Les Pauls. This should have been an “all gold” refin at least, which would have been correct for the period. Personally , I’d have done a reneck with original fretboard and logo. Replacing original parts? Putty? Rattle can paint job? Gibson never did Dark back in 53. Hopefully not too far down the track, this old girl will get the resto she deserves. Curious if the owner had any input? Love ya, but this one was not good…

[@bairalex1]

Hi! Where did you buy this decal?

[@guitarcohen2224]

Awesome

[@geoarthur6593]

I own a few gibson Les Pauls, and nothing shows the contours even remotely close to what the gold top does, along side the others including a very heavily flamed maple sunburst, the others just don't show the contours of that lovely carve, I never noticed it until I owned the gold top, now of course I see it in every good top .. even in vids lol 😂 fantastic job btw, well done 👍🍺🍻

[@serapiopereziii3741]

At what point did the tune-o-matic bridge get added, as the 53 didn't have one? I know because to correct the lack of intonation on mine, I had to add a Leo Quan badass bridge.

[@camilo1455]

Think he said in the 90s. Might be first stated in the part 1 video. Here he mentions it when he talks about the NOS caps.

[@frankborger3898]

Did you put an extra clear coat over the les paul logo rub on?

[@riadmiah3342]

Looks great. Where does the ground wire from the bridge connect to? The pot or braided wire?

[@bigdguitars]

Back of pot

[@riadmiah3342]

@@bigdguitars thank you

[@gregbrown4136]

Nice

[@riadmiah3342]

Again I think your video are one of the most helpful. Im in the process of finishing with the Stew Mac clear coat. Ive got 10 coats on there. Do you recommend level sanding before a final coat?

[@bigdguitars]

10 coats of clear or gold? you need to seal the gold before you do anything.

[@riadmiah3342]

@@bigdguitars 10 coats of clear over a gold. The mapel top was already sealed

[@2011k]

Thanks for sharing the last video of the series. Did you take pictures and if so where could we see them?

[@bigdguitars]

I will have another vid on thursday. Waiting for some sound clips from the owner.

[@balltic7]

Hi, thanks for the video, where can I get the Les Paul sticker? 11:00

[@bigdguitars]

www.guitar-decals.com/les-paul/les-paul-model-gold-leaf-effect.html

[@balltic7]

@@bigdguitars thanks!

[@RussellStClair-cy1vu]

Thinner is for viscosity only. What you need is lacquer retarder/butyl cel. Approx. 1/2 oz. Per. Qt. This slows down the dry time allowing moisture that your spray gun has captured in the air to rise and escape from the lacquer . For a smooth top coat spray a nite while it's cool NOT cold . Shot it, walk away for 24 hours. That's the hard part.

[@bigdguitars]

I use the Fuji system that dries the air. That’s what killed me. I had a little dryer in there

[@frankmusiol6871]

Sehr schön, was ist wonderfill? Hast Du einen Link? So etwas gibt es in Deutschland nicht. Und hast Du einen link zu dem Sandingball? Danke👍

[@nikolaradakovic5432]

Great job.....but what is 1953 in this....

[@TomHorler]

Should have done it all gold!!! Great job anyway 👍🏼

[@bigdguitars]

man we would have seen every crack on the sides.

[@Murphy_R9]

BigDguitars is a true master at what he does! His work on this beat to death 53 Les Paul was all i needed to witness to know the man is extremely skilled and detailed! If the name Lazarus was not already taken by Joe B's 59 flame top i would call this 53 that. This LP was in a lot worse shape than Joe's 59 IMHO

[@user-qv4rj3fo9b]

Nice work but is it really still a 1953?

[@geoffisaac3511]

I would love to now the total cost Labour and materials

[@ScottMedinaX]

What’s the approximate cost for a rebuild like this? So I buy a $15 guitar and put $25k into it? Great work!

[@bigdguitars]

Haha. This is a piece of history so that goes into consideration.

[@juliansuarez3849]

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@D.Guitar]

This Really looks Pro. Like brand new better than the 50's reissue ones

[@skylineXpert]

chocolate backed gold coin It looks okay

[@5thgenZLE]

Great guitar, great job, not a huge fan of the new parts though

[@bigdguitars]

I know what you mean

[@5thgenZLE]

@@bigdguitars restore the original tuners. Find some old pots, and a old bridge. Resistor etc. But great job. Seriously you saved a important piece of guitar history.

[@cheapdirt07]

That was alot work... and then after all the guitar sounded crap

[@moosey62]

Love to know how much the client paid. I woulda charged 10k at least.