First, I knew I was buying a risky axe. Total price paid: $310 USD, including shipping and a brown hard case with Gibson Custom logo on it.
Received that guitar from China less than 10 days after I ordered it.
Let's start with the case. Does'nt look near a real Gibson case. The Gibson logo is Brilliant Gold paint and the word custom is in red. The handle is cheap brown hard rubber. No way Gibson would sell a case like this. It's a good case to protect a guitar, but certainly not the Canadian quality cases Gibson are providing with their Les Paul.
The model I ordered is an Ebony black Les Paul standard. Solid color shows less of the imitation I think.
The guitar looked very nice...but not playable as it was out of the case. Buzzing from everywhere on the fret board, very high action and out of tune. I plugged it in my Marshall. Sounds horrible...dead pickups. I checked out what were the pickups...It's written EPIPHONE on them... They must be pickups that Epiphone rejected for their guitars as they were very weak and horrible sounding. The Kluson imitation tuners...horrible too...would'nt keep a guitar in tune for more than 5 minutes. The nut was so bad, I tought they cutted it with a knife. the 5th (B) and 6th (E) strings got stuck in the nut making it very hard to tune. The only things working almost normally were the pots, responding quite well.
So I started to make a set up...adjusting the truss rod ( Yes it's adjustable and worked well ), lower the action, adjust the intonations and harmonics, playing a lot with the saddles and bridge. I finally decided to change the nut for a tusc nut... I bought new Kluson deluxe...Changed the pickups for GFS vintage 59, and all the pots for real Gibson's. All of those parts bought on ebay. The Kluson's arrived...did'nt fit...I had to enlarge the holes with a drill...Risky job, but did it ok. I received the pots... Holes are to small...pots won't fit...have to enlarge the holes with a drill again...less risky but still... Received the pickups and installed them...Have to take off the pickguard...won't fit no more with the pickups rings...
Ok...now it's a month I have that guitar and I finished all the mods yesterday... Now, the guitar sounds very good with those GFS, the pots are working perfectly, the action is good ( not very good ) and playable, the Kluson's are doing the job very well... The guitar looks now awesome...hanging on the wall....It will never replace My Epi Les Paul Ultra or my Standard Telecaster for playing. I won't even carry it as a back up for gigging.
It's a nice decoration on my wall. To be an average guitar, it would need a frets levelling job. As I can't do it myself, I'm not sure I will do it. I have now invested at least $500 ( including the $310 for it ) in that guitar and it still a very
low class axe...not even near an Epiphone. I know you will say I would have been better putting my money on something else, but I was really curious about those Fake Gibson. Don't worry, I will never try to sell it to anybody..it's now an art object on my wall and it will stay there till I will feel to take all the parts off and do a good show during a gig, breaking it on the floor...lolll
In conclusion, stay away from those guitars... They are cheap axes with a very nice looking, but not playable if you are not investing another few hundred bucks...and even that, it will still a cheap guitar. By the way, the weight is 8.8 pounds.
