Black Beauty Les Paul with Black Hardware?

[SausageofPower]

So, I came into possession of a Les Paul Black Beauty here recently (just an Epiphone). It's the Custom 3 with gold hardware. Body is in good shape, but it's gonna need a little work. Frets (I don't dig the fretless wonder feel), new nut, and the plating on the hardware is worn off in a lot of places. For the price I got it for, no worries.

For the hardware, I'm thinking of going all black. I don't get into gold hardware too much, and it'd be different from my other guitars. I got the idea from the limited edition they did awhile back, but that was a flamed maple veneer with black hardware.

Opinions? (I'm not asking you guys to make up my mind for me, but it'll probably be a bit before I start buying parts so I've got time to weigh my options).

[plon]

Chrome looks good too. Here's an old Edwards of mine that I swapped the gold out for chrome. sorry, no wgits available
DSC00124.jpgDSC00126.jpg

[markD]

black would look pretty wicked. chrome is classy. gold is....hmm, gold is.....hmmm.....the proper adjective slips my mind. if you went black, you would change the pickups too, correct? also, IMO, if you went black you'd almost have to go with dome knobs in order for it to look "black" enough....

[Larz]

And some DR Black Beauty strings to top it off.

Love to see how it turns out whenever it gets done.

[SausageofPower]

Chrome is the other contender. That Edwards looks great. Thing is, I've already got a black PRS Tremonti SE with chrome hardware, so while I wouldn't mind having two singlecuts with that scheme (it's a classic look) I was exploring something different just for the hell of it.

Mark, pickups would definitely be changed out. As for tuners, I was going to go with Grover Rotogrips, so I wouldn't have to fill/drill any new holes.

Either way it's gonna be a great guitar, there isn't really a bad choice here.

Edit: D'oh, I misread Mark's post. Dome knobs, eh? That might be a possibility. I could always swap them from another guitar of mine and see if it looks right to me.

[sully]

Do it! It'd look killer with the binding. I blacked out a studio, as you can see below:



sully

[SausageofPower]

Damn, that looks sweet. What kind of pickups are those?

[Twitch]

Damn, that looks sweet. What kind of pickups are those?

P-Rails Also theres piezo pickups in the saddles.

[canadian bacon]

Complete blackout treatment with a rosewood fretboard is like almost crossing the finish line IMO.

[DalyTek]

Complete blackout treatment with a rosewood fretboard is like almost crossing the finish line IMO.

Agreed. Need to Fiebing's Oil Dye that fretboard to finish the look!

[SARJ]

BLACK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!For sure!

[SausageofPower]

I'd be open to doing a dyed fretboard (I love the look of ebony fretboards), but how does that stand up over time? Do you just have to touch it up from time to time?

[DrDestruction]

The blacked-out look looks totally cool.

I've got a LP Gothic Series that's almost totally black... except for a silkscreened picture of Orville Gilbson on the back of the headstock. Cool stuff.

[SARJ]

Black, white, red and even natural finishes look good with black hardware. I like zebra pickups in this combo too. I got a Dean ML set up with the black and zebra combo.