Guitar Restoration Part 1: Machine Heads

This was my first proper guitar. It’s a (relatively) cheapo Les Paul copy but for the price it was quite a decent guitar. It means a lot to me and I’ll proabaly never get rid of it, but since the arrival of my Epiphone Explorer a few years ago, and the more recent Fender Jazzmaster it has been mostly neglected and has fallen into disrepair. Finally I decided to fix it up and get it going again.

The first step is to replace the machine heads. The old ones were a bit rubbish, probably because they were old. I ordered Wilkinson Deluxe tuners from the good people at Axesrus. I’m sure there are better ones on the market but despite the guitars sentimental value, it’s not really worth spending too much money on it.
Because they are ‘vintage style’ they had to have reducers so that thay would fit the holes in the headstock.

I decided to stick with the black and gold because thats what the guitar was like originally. Hopefully the gold colour will calm down a bit soon.
Again because they’re ‘vintage style’ the new tuning keys also have different fixing holes than the old ones, so I had to drill new ones. I just did it by eye, but I think they lined up pretty well.

Next up is a complete re-wire, including new pickups.