I bought a cock-dragon! Well, in fairness, I bought a cock-dragon in December last year and then sent it to Lee at GMW for a restoration / refin. As you can see from this headstock pic, it was kind of 'tired':
But the price was right and Bob was happy to send it direct to Lee at GMW so off it went. I'll start by saying that I told Lee right up front that I was in no hurry, and that initially I wasn't sure what my plan was. Because the headstock binding was fucked which meant the head would be getting paint, I knew I wanted to replace the nut/string lock with a Floyd nut. But beyond that I wasn't sure. After a while I decided that I needed a neck pickup because my single hum guitars (and string thrus) don't get much play time, so while the single hum looked cool, it wasn't practical for me. And fuck it, it's not SD and it's getting a refin anyway so why not make it the way I actually want? I forget now if Bob told me the trem posts should be replaced, or that was from Lee, but whatever, that got done. Plus, Lee added a wood insert in the oversize pickup rout to tidy that up:
I asked Lee to strip all the paint off because I didn't want to end up with a guitar with 20 layers of paint on it with the resonance of a piece of concrete:
The back and neck were originally black, but I did wonder about getting it done in a full red snakeskin (without the cock dragon!), but in the end it was something of a toss-up between a Nagel and a Paint splatter, and splatter got the best of me! And it kind of fits with the late 80's vibe of the guitar because that was the era that they did a few paint splatters. The basecoat is white, then it has urethane over the top to keep the 'white' pure and prevent the yellowing that comes with poly. I've ordered 5 or 6 GMW guitars from Lee, plus I've got a few used and they're great guitars. This is the first refin he's done for me and I'm really really happy with it. The attention to detail he has is way beyond the call - just look at the floyd nut install:
But whatever, here's the finished thing:
Oh, and a quick shout out to Brooks for helping me reduce some exchange rate related unpleasantness. Thanks so much man!
But the price was right and Bob was happy to send it direct to Lee at GMW so off it went. I'll start by saying that I told Lee right up front that I was in no hurry, and that initially I wasn't sure what my plan was. Because the headstock binding was fucked which meant the head would be getting paint, I knew I wanted to replace the nut/string lock with a Floyd nut. But beyond that I wasn't sure. After a while I decided that I needed a neck pickup because my single hum guitars (and string thrus) don't get much play time, so while the single hum looked cool, it wasn't practical for me. And fuck it, it's not SD and it's getting a refin anyway so why not make it the way I actually want? I forget now if Bob told me the trem posts should be replaced, or that was from Lee, but whatever, that got done. Plus, Lee added a wood insert in the oversize pickup rout to tidy that up:
I asked Lee to strip all the paint off because I didn't want to end up with a guitar with 20 layers of paint on it with the resonance of a piece of concrete:
The back and neck were originally black, but I did wonder about getting it done in a full red snakeskin (without the cock dragon!), but in the end it was something of a toss-up between a Nagel and a Paint splatter, and splatter got the best of me! And it kind of fits with the late 80's vibe of the guitar because that was the era that they did a few paint splatters. The basecoat is white, then it has urethane over the top to keep the 'white' pure and prevent the yellowing that comes with poly. I've ordered 5 or 6 GMW guitars from Lee, plus I've got a few used and they're great guitars. This is the first refin he's done for me and I'm really really happy with it. The attention to detail he has is way beyond the call - just look at the floyd nut install:
But whatever, here's the finished thing:
Oh, and a quick shout out to Brooks for helping me reduce some exchange rate related unpleasantness. Thanks so much man!
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