Hello, I'm Joel with Figjam Custom Guitars.

The other day I had a customer come in with an old Grimshaw Park GS30 (Les Paul copy) that they wanted refurbished. New frets, fretboard re-radius, new pickups, tune-o-matic bridge, new electronics and a wine red paint job are in order.

On taking the guitar apart I noticed quite a few things.

• The headstock had been broken (an incident with a "fan") and repaired with glue and 4 screws. The job was done quite well so I won't be re-breaking and gluing it, just covering over the screws and join so they can't be seen.
• Under the neck plate lurked another screw smack in the middle, the owner not knowing why this was done.
• The body is solid with a plywood arched top - there are 3-4 wood blocks on the centre of the guitar to help curve the plywood.
• The neck pocket is terrible - I'll need to make a wood shim to help keep the pocket tight
• The neck angle is huge, around 15 degrees I estimate!

With the guitar apart, it's on to stripping the paint off. I'll be using a heat gun and paint scrappers followed by sanding.

Stay tuned for more!