PRS Guitar Re-topping

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It's a Pity

It's a pity no one will ever know Ed Roman is the magician who transformed these originally plain looking guitars into the beautiful masterpieces they are now. Yes it's a pity that the PRS company will benefit greatly from this work. Over the years thousands of people will see these guitars and wrongfully assume that PRS did this beautiful work. Many of Ed's customers request that we do not show their guitars on these pages because they feel that it might in some way decrease the resale value of their guitars. The next time you are looking at a particularly beautiful PRS you might stop and wonder if it's real or if it's Ed Roman..

 

You might say to yourself, I could just buy a Quicksilver or a Viking or an Abstract, The tops on those guitars are always so beautiful that no one in his right mind would want to redo the top.

Incidentally Ed Roman has retopped 14 Dragons, Approximately 20 Signatures, and a number of first editions. Paul Reed Smith in their ultimate wisdom has made many good numbered limited edition guitars with very plain tops. The sunburst top that came on PRS Artist Ltd #001 was almost disgraceful looking. In fact Ed has not retopped it. whoever has it these days is the proud owner of a very plain looking yet expensive guitar. at this writing the number of PRS retops surpasses the 200 mark.

For some more interesting Information look at Ed's rant entitled Ghostbuilders.

 

Typical Example of one of our PRS Retop Jobs

We can make a PRS look as good as a Quicksilver or a Viking

This guitar is bound in abalone all around the body & headstock.

 

 

This is a PRS that we retopped and refinished. We also inlaid purfling around the entire body. I would have liked to redo the fingerboard with ebony and do some really nice inlay work to it.

Rosewood is such a blah wood, it doesn't do much cosmetically for the inlays. In fact rosewood camouflages the abalone and tends to make even the prettiest abalone look blah....

We also inlaid an eagle on the headstock of this one. This particular guitar was the 100th PRS we retopped. It was done for Winn Wilson of Connecticut in 2001.

Ed Roman retops about 35 PRS guitars a year. in 2003 there were actually more PRS retops than Gibsons.

Which traditionally was our most common retop.

 

 

 

 

PRS Custom Retop

This guitar was a particularly plain looking PRS with a real nothing top.

When we finished with it it looked as nice as one of our lower cost Gledura or Jaros Guitars

Green Quilt PRS Retop

This Guitar is actually available for Purchase,  (Please call)

We have retopped it and sent it to Paul Reed Smith for a signature.

Paul signed it and re numbered it and here it is.

 

I have had this guitar 10 or 11 years, I originally got it from Gibson Haynes of the Butthole Surfers. Originally the guitar was a Dark Blue and you could just barely see the beautifully quilted top. Please call for information if you are interested.

PS.

Paul would never sign a guitar nowadays. He did this as a personal favor to me back in the good old days when I was still pushing PRS guitars as the best guitars I carried.

Back in the 80's and early 90's nothing even came close to PRS guitars. PRS was the undisputed King and no body except the diehard Gibson heads would argue about that fact. Ed Roman learned more from Paul Reed Smith than any other builder in the world. Ed Roman strives to build a better guitar, "The student must try to beat the teacher"

 

 

 

Whale Blue Flame PRS Retop

Another one of the many we have done. There is absolutely no way anyone could tell this guitar wasn't 100% stock. Ed Roman guarantees that no one will be able to tell this retop has been done.

The letter below is one Ed Roman's personal favorites

Getting a letter like this one makes all the BS ones worthwhile

Ed

Wait till you hear this one.  I recently bought a used PRS from my local Guitar Center in Dallas. The salesman told me it was the best sounding and playing PRS he had ever had in the store. It had a Tone Pros Tunamatic bridge on it and the body was slightly slimmer than usual. The salesman at GC told me (I think his name was Harry) said that the guitar was no ordinary PRS, Supposedly it was made for someone in Creed  blah blah blah (I found out later that was an outright lie). Several other salespeople all agreed that this guitar had the PRS magic and it was the reason why PRS had such a good reputation.

I played the guitar and it truly did feel great, The neck was rock solid and was incredibly highly figured. The body has a beautiful blue flame top and a natural back. I sat there and tried about 12 PRS guitars, The salesman was right, none of them came close. The guitar had almost twice the sustain of any of the other ones and the neck was smoother and faster.

Anyway I could not resist buying the guitar, In fact I had to borrow most of the money from my bass player. They sold it to me for only $800.00. The reason it was so cheap is there was no serial number on the guitar and the PRS logo was not on the headstock. There were no bird inlays but that was cool !  I was a little worried about buying a guitar with no serial number and no logo but they gave me a fully paid receipt so I figured it had to be OK.

The suited guy at the counter remarked that this guitar held tune better than any other guitar he had ever played. He told me that I made a very wise purchase and reassured me that I had made a good move.     (He didn't know how right he was)

I took the guitar home and I used it that weekend on a gig, It performed superbly and I was one happy guy to say the least.

About a week after I got the guitar I discovered there was a push pull pot on it and that it slit the coils on the pickups. What a great surprise. further fiddling around with it I noticed that the pickups were bolted down solid instead of floating on springs like all the other PRS guitars. I unscrewed the pickup and removed it and lo and behold there was the inscription.

"Ed Roman Was Here".  Everything I had read on your website came tumbling back at me like a ton of bricks.

This guitar appeared to have had a custom body not a PRS body, It had the step route pickups like on your site and the neck has that 1500G system that I read about on your site. The neck appears to be an original PRS but I see now the modifications you made to the heel and the tongue where the pickup bolts directly to it like a Quicksilver. That accounts for the extra sustain! I am assuming there is a Buzz Feiten System on this guitar because of the tuning stability.

I could probably sue Guitar Center for falsely representing this guitar. But I am thanking them from the bottom of my heart because I have one of the most awe inspiring guitars I have ever owned or for that matter even played.

Whoever this guitar was originally built for might have misrepresented it to Guitar Center but I an the luckiest guy in the world.

I was going to buy a PRS decal off that store in Cleveland that sells them but now I would rather it said nothing.

Long Live Ed Roman

Pete Posintini

Plano TX

 

Note From Ed Roman

Hello Pete

Glad to see you like that guitar, I originally rebuilt that PRS for a NYC police detective by the name of Manny Poole, As I remember he lived somewhere in Jersey. The last time I talked with him had been injured in the line of duty and was partially paralyzed.  So he must have sold it, I'm surprised it ended up in Texas. I did a number of cool PRS rebuilds for Manny.

Several other things that you missed.

The guitar has a Korina Body and Seymour Duncan Pickups, There were also 2 small stainless steel barrels inserted in the tongue of the neck to add mass and stability.

The original PRS fingerboard had been removed and a new ebony one was been installed.  look carefully at the frets you will notice you can't see the fret tangs on the side. look at a regular PRS and you will see the tangs are completely visible.

I usually sign the PRS mod's in the pickup cavity and I usually Jokingly print " Ed Roman was here"   Ala Kilroy was here... Just a little private joke between myself and someone who will remain anonymous right now.

If you want a letter or perhaps a copy of the original invoice for the work please let me know.

Ed Roman
guitars