Won this wounded Heritage H 140 on ebay



The headstock was broken and someone "repaired" it with auto bondo and screws...





It's stable and playable as is... but.. why, oh why? I repaired a broken headstock on a Gibson copy when I was 13 with just wood glue and belts for grips (it did me the favor of breaking right on the glue seam).

I'll take a pic of my repair guy's face when I bring it to him.

In spite of it's unfortunate condition it still sings beautifully unplugged, feels good and is still a looker. This guitar has soul... it will be a pleasure to have it restored.

And she's lucky to have you.

Drywall screws no less!! Well at least they didn't use a hex head machine bolt with a washer and hex nut on the front side.

ha...

A '72 Gibson LP Goldtop surfaced here recently at a Pawn Shop... a buddy has a relationship with them so they called him to have the first crack at it. Broken headstock, the repair was done by epoxying two flat metal bars across the headstock and tightening bolts in them... a permanent vice grip. They wanted $1500 for it... someone please keep the amateur shop dudes AWAY from guitars!!!

Let me search the computer for it but a '59 Les Paul double cutaway special turned up years ago with... okay, the neck came loose at the neck joint, so they took a piece of rebar and sunk it into the top side of the body of the guitar and then the neck and secured the holes with concrete, as well as coating the back of the neck joint with it. I sent the listing to my repair guy and his partner said he smashed a coffee mug in utter anger. The seller was a shop that said "let's see who wants this crime against humanity for whatever reason. We know, it hurts us, too."

Nice score! A "gold-top", right? Personally, if I had to choose, I'd rather have binding along the fretboard (as long as it had the "nibs" on the fret-ends) with an unbound top on the body, than the other way around as it is here. Still, most people proabably either wouldn't care or would think oppositely. It looks to be a cool guitar, and if you find that it has a good tone unplugged and "soul" and all, then it's a good one!

I like those pickup-bezels with the extra adjustment-screws; I'd put those to good work! I tend to prefer the neck-humbucker on a Les Paul styled axe to be tilted so that the screw-coil by the neck is closer to the strings, and the slug-coil is lowered further away from the strings.

Consider putting some locking Grovers on there!

Too bad they didn't have a clue what they were doing with that "repair", but as Lefty points out, it sure could've been worse! Glad you have it and recognize some "soul" in it; it's found a good home!

OTOH, if it still sounds good and is functional, you could keep it as is, as your personal analog of Willy Nelson's Trigger.

Couldn't find the pics I saved of the concrete rebar Les Paul disaster...

but if you can believe, dug up pics on the 'net of its abused sibling:





I physically feel a little hit looking at that...

The thing is, though, when a buddy owned a music store that I'd hang out in all the time people would bring in things they were in the process of destroying like that from time to time, usually that they'd inherited, and we couldn't talk them out of doing it, or into just selling or trading the guitar before they destroyed it... they'd say "It's an old Gibson, it's worth thousands of dollars... I'm gonna keep it and fix it..." He refused to rout an early 60's strat for a Floyd Rose and humbuckers once... we just hope all of the techs in town were as conscientious... he said "look, for what it's gonna cost to butcher this old guitar and lessen the value I'll sell you this MIJ HM strat with that stuff already on it so you can have both" and the guy said "I don't wanna play no Japanese guitar, I want American."

No justice in this universe.

Yeah... but I have a great repair guy... we'll see what he says...

Because of the pointed cutaway and the gold top I think I'm gonna put a Bigsby (the reason I was on the lookout for repaired guitars so the holes wouldn't be a big deal) and one of these



and have a kind of Mary Ford LP 295/ES 295 look...

locking Grovers will probably end up on it.

It's the thickness of an SG though single cutaway, so it has a little brighter of a sound than a Les Paul... which is good for me. I love the sounds Gary Louris of the Jayhawks gets out of his SG and with my THD Quintet pedal I can darken it up to LP territory if I want no problem.

I have a Les Paul Special, '59 style, and a '65 SG Special with the bound necks and unbound bodies... I guess I'm keeping it balanced.

Hmmmnn; maybe some TV Jones TV Classic or Power'Tron pickups might be just the thing for it... ?

Let me be the first to say "ooOOOOOOoooohhh!"

hell, if it plays and sounds great, maybe you should leave it as is for sheer mojo factor.....



















naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah~!

nice score!

I'll see that "ooOOOOOOoooohhh!" and raise you an "YEAH!"

I kind of want a parts Telecaster in black/tortoise with some filter trons and a Bigsby...

Probably mentally inspired by fellow Louisiana guy Gerard Melancon's Cajun Gentleman model.