1954 Gibson Les Paul Junior (Modded) Electric Guitar

This perplexing guitar appears to be a '54 Les Paul Junior that has had a lot of odd things done to it. I had originally thought that the neck pickup's addition might be factory work as it was fit so nicely, but on closer inspection I'm now pretty sure that this was modded in the late '60s to its two-pickup configuration. It sports a pair of clear-bobbin P90s (these are late-'60s pickups), a later wiring harness (with out-of-phase switch for the middle position), and (as far as I can tell) no original hardware.

The story is that my friend Wayne picked it up in the early '70s when it still had checked white finish on it and the two pickups fit. A friend of his '70s-ized it by stripping the finish, converting it into a stop-tail and ABR bridge setup (using heavy brass aftermarket hardware), fitting a new wiring harness, and big old Grover tuners. He also fixed a damaged headstock. That was how it arrived here -- sporting a couple pounds of extra weight just in hardware!

Our mission was to give it some more of its originality back. I plugged-up several iterations of bridge posts, refit the (original) studs in the "right spot" so I could fit a MojoAxe aged compensated aluminum bridge, fit some freebie old Klusons to the headstock, adjusted the wiring (it had some bad solder joints and I replaced some junk caps with Orange Drops), left the brass nut (it's cool), replaced the strap buttons with Gibson-a-likes, and set it up. Ancel gave it a level/dress and helped break it down prior to other work.

The resulting guitar is a joy to play, to be honest, and fairly lightweight. I love how going back to the aluminum wraparound bridges gives these guitars their clear, singing voice back. It's one of my favorite electric bridge designs...

Ready for some inside shots?