dsgb

Build guitars, modify guitars, collect guitars, play guitars

Tag: PAF humbucker

Westfield Mini Gibson Les Paul Upgrade

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The last of my five planned guitar build and modification projects covers the upgrade of a Westfield Mini Gibson Les Paul guitar I bought from U.K. eBay in January 2014. This lovely little 18.5″ scale, solid body instrument is an easily playable travel guitar for an adult or introductory electric guitar for a child. It sat unloved in its gig bag in my attic for around seven years and deserved to be improved to the best possible specification.

https://dsgb.net/projects/minilespaul/

Amongst other minor cosmetic upgrades to gold hardware, the modified specification includes:

  • Tonerider AC2 Alnico II PAF humbucker pickup AC2B-GD
  • Gibson OEM strap buttons (brass)
  • Gotoh Nashville GE103B-T Tune-o-Matic bridge with large posts
  • Gibson style speed knobs (gold)
  • Bourns PDB181-GTR01-504 potentiometers
  • Optima Gold 2028M string set (0.011, 0.014, 0.018, 0.030, 0.038, 0.050)

Attic Find: Westfield Mini Les Paul

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I bought this Westfield mini Les Paul guitar in January 2014 from an eBay seller who was Head of Stage on the London WWRY production for six years. He got Brian May to sign it back stage as a gift for his daughter but I decided to remove the silver Sharpie signature from the rear of the guitar body because it seemed inappropriate.

It has a solid wood body with an attractive grain structure and the neck and headstock are set at similar angles to a full size Gibson Les Paul. I checked the frets with a StewMac straight edge and was pleased to find that they are perfectly uniform so there is no reason why this shouldn’t look great and play well. I think it would make a fun display with my 3/4 scale Brian May Red Special. The guitar sat in its gig bag in my attic for seven years until I finally completed the project to upgrade all the hardware in March 2021. You can read about the details here:

https://dsgb.net/projects/minilespaul/