GH III: Les Paul Low-Tech Neck Fix

[Beacon]

As some people are noticing not all of the Les Pauls are made equal. Some come out of the box perfect with no problems at all - others suffer the ill-fitting neck that causes one or more of the fret buttons to stop working. The problem, of course lies in the union between the neck connector plate and the pins in the body.

This fix should help 95% of those with these button problems. If you're one of the other 5% that this doesn't help let me know and I'll see about doing a more substantial fix write, for now though, because it's cheap and quick let's keep it simple!

First run down to your CVS/People's/"drugstore". You need 3 things:

Rubber Bands (about $1.50 for a bag of... a lot.)
Alcohol Prep Pad (or just a bit of alcohol on a piece of gauze/tissue)
3M Utility (Key) Hook (about $3 for a pack of 3-6, smallest ones they have, I found them in clear and white)



Let's go!

Wipe down the space on the body between the edge and the locking lever.



Line up the little hook with the strap peg, you want the pointy side of the hook facing away from the strap peg. Press it into place.



The 3M variety I used says to wait for an hour for it to set. After that take a medium sized rubber band, twist it to double it up and hook one end on the 3M hook - the other on the strap peg. You're done. It doesn't take a ton of force to hold the neck completely flush so you shouldn't go nuts and break out levers to get the rubber band on just enough that it holds it snug is all ya need.

[tranemiles]

Beacon does it again! Nice walkthrough.

[I am Canadian]

That's so simple yet so smart. Good stuff Beacon! I just need a guitar now to try it on.

[Beacon]

Well don't gather the stuff 'til ya open your bundle IaC. I've had three bundles, first one from TRU, the blue button was just dead, exchanged it at a different TRU for the second one which you can see above, needed the fix. Third one came from the RedOctane store and was perfect. I actually checked to be sure there weren't two models again, lol.

[Bud Man 01]

Nice job Beacon!

[Raven GTO]

My Guitar also has the same problem. I thought it was just me but i guess there are others with the same issue.

[Beacon]

Yep, these are design defects. The degree that they effect your LP may vary but I'd say that eventually everyone with the current version of LP will at one point or another have a problem with notes dropping. I have two LPs, one that needed this right out of the box and another that was "perfect". The "perfect" one eventually developed the same issues the one you see above had so I recently made the connections permanent on both of them and couldn't be happier (how-to is forth coming).

[David Akers]

I thought, for the longest time, that my note dropping was just me. But after a while I figured out that I was better than my playing seemed. I switched back to a wired Explorer and my playing got dramatically better.

To fix it, I got a bunch of long rubberbands and run them from guitar nub to guitar nub to hold the neck on to the body. They weren't enough, so I got a couple more to increase the holding power. Seemed to be working well enough, but I'm interested in the permanent fix Beacon keeps taunting us with.

-David