PRS Guitar Restoration
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Dragon Inlay The Problem Otherwise this guitar was in dead mint condition. If you look closely you can see the enlarged tremolo cavity. |
PRS Guitar Restoration
See PRS Guitars | See Quicksilver Guitars
|
Dragon Inlay The Problem Otherwise this guitar was in dead mint condition. If you look closely you can see the enlarged tremolo cavity. |
More Problems
Where was I going to get the decal to restore to the headstock. PRS uses a
completely different decal today.
This guitar had dot inlays and no birds.
I decided that I wanted the top to look as good as a
JET or a Quicksilver
I wanted it to sound fabulous.
The Solution
Completely remove the original PRS neck from the body. Rebuild an exact replica body.
Use a piece of 275 year old Mahogany and a gorgeous 5A Quilt Maple top.
As far as the decal is concerned, I went to a philatelic dealer friend of mine who deals in rare postage stamps, valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (These stamps have to be removed from letters).
He told me that he was working with a Swiss company in developing a chemical that would also remove original water transfer decals. As long as they were less than 50 years old. In 98% percent of the cases the decal was completely reusable. This news solves a lot of problems that restoration people have had for years.
The average cost of having decals made is about $800.00. It simply doesn't pay to make a PRS or a Mosrite or Hamer decal. There simply isn't enough work to justify the cash outlay.
I will be offering this service at $100.00 retail price for anyone interested. Dealer Inquiries Invited.
Notice: The Seafoam green paint in the truss rod cavity. I left this on purpose.
However if I ever decide to sell this it would be relatively simple for some unscrupulous person to remove the seafoam green paint and of course pass it off as an original.
A little anecdote for your reading pleasure
Once there was a man who cursed me because I did these restorations to old
guitars. He even spoke badly of me for doing it.
(He felt things should never be changed).
Until one day his girlfriend tripped on the cable of his original 1958 Flying Vee splitting the body and extracting a huge chunk of wood from the face of the guitar.
Then this same man (Who has paid me well for his anonymity) was knocking on my door to repair his $75,000.00 guitar.
I guess when the shoe was on the other foot, he didn't seem to mind that I could fix his guitar so that not even he could tell it was repaired. Believe me he tried to find the repair.
It took him several years to sell the guitar.
Just wanted to thank you on the retop job you guys did on my prs custom (tigers eye with red tint )
thank you,
Derek Cooper
First rough draft of the Dragon Inlay
I am redoing the blue wings with turquoise.
Of course, now that I have decided to do a Dragon Inlay on the guitar, it would be relatively easy for someone to tell that the guitar is not original. I really don't care about originality. I fully expect this guitar to play and sound better than most PRS guitars so I will probably be keeping it for myself.
Finished version ready for frets
Ready for Final Paint Job
The Poor Man's Dragon
Finished and Ready to Rock
Ok, so this guitar isn't built by a group of low paid factory workers, Ok, so the inlay isn't done on a CNC machine. Ok, this guitar isn't technically "Original".
I guarantee this guitar will play circles around a stock PRS Dragon, I guarantee the neck to be faster, the frets smoother and tighter, I guarantee the pickups to sound better and the overall tone of the guitar to be far more versatile than a stock PRS. I guarantee the top to be as beautiful as any PRS private stock guitar and the workmanship is unparalleled in the industry.
I am not producing these guitars, I don't have the time, I built this one for myself as an experiment to see what it would cost.
Oh Yeah, the other reason I built it was because I wanted a
24 fret guitar, PRS doesn't do 24 fret Dragons.
I knew there was a better reason than the first one
Ed Roman
NEW Dragon
First the Dragon is Designed with colored pencils
After the customer approves the drawing
it becomes a reality
The Dragon Inlays are all done one by one by hand
no two are alike.