Legra Guitars Les Paul Standard Doubleneck

My own personal weapon of choice, custom made for me by Bob Johnson, the amazing one-man-band that is Legra Guitars in Leigh-On-Sea, UK. www.legraguitars.co.uk

This is the worlds first (we know.......we did a lot of digging on this one) Les Paul Standard Doubleneck. Gibson did make a Les Paul doubleneck once upon a time, but it was a very ugly Les Paul Special and was basically created by sticking two LP Specials together. This is an altogether more sophisticated shot at creating a doubleneck to look like the classic Les Paul, including the proper body width. This is no namby-pamby guitar!

Essentially I had owned an EDS-1275 before and hated it.....I only owned the thing for three weeks until some mug on eBay came to my rescue and brought it off me for what I had paid for it. Jimmy Page may have made one famous by playing it on stage for 'Stairway To Heaven' but it was a pig of a guitar to play. To start with you have an ungainly SG style body with two huge headstocks which just make the guitar nose-dive anytime you try to strap it on; then you have cutaways that are impossible to get your hand into if you have anything approaching normal sized hands, and it's then topped off with only 20 frets on each neck........no.......it just wouldn't do.

Then I picked up a cheap Chinese doubleneck from Riverside guitars (see my review - hopeless piece of enigineering from China....avoid at all costs) and thought I could use it as my base for creating my own doubleneck, and just re-wire it as a Gibson, whilst making some adjustments to it. That all came to a crashing halt when I found out that both truss rods in the necks were non-functional (that'll be those wonderful Chinese manufacturing standards again then!). This led me into the thought of getting two new necks made for it by a luthier, which then led me to think about selling one of my Gibsons to pay for my very own complete luthier made guitar........enter Bob Johnson.

After a meeting in a pub (perfect place to meet up and talk guitars) I decided that Bob was definitely the man for the project and the design was fleshed out. I already had brought a load of the parts myself for the Chinese doubleneck, and what we ended up with was :-
Solid body made of Brazillian Mahogany - chambered around the 12 string.
2 Mahogany/maple/walnut 5 part laminate bolt on necks.
18mm AAAAA flame maple cap (as per Gibson norm).
Bookmatched flame maple fingerboards with Paua inlays.
2 Gibson 57 Classic pickups for the 12 string neck.
Gibson Burstbucker #2 & #3 for the 6 string neck.
18 Gotoh tuners for their light weight and their stable tuning.
Gibson Nashville Tune-O-Matic 6 string bridge
ABM 12 saddle Tune-O-Matic bridge for the 12 string
2 Switchcraft switches (1 that was nigh on impossible to find, because it's anything but your standard Switchcraft toggle switch)
CTS pots, and mylar capacitors.

Finished in..........what else?........Sunburst!

Well........the sound it makes now is a wee bit different to what it was expected to be, due to one of the many changes that occurred during its build.

It was whilst setting up the bridges that Bob spotted that the string spacing on the 12 string was going to be that bit wider than the 6 string due to the extra width that the ABM 12 saddle bridge required. This fact took the strings outside of the polepieces of the Gibson 57 Classics assigned to the 12 string neck. Thankfully Bob gets on very well with Tim who owns and runs Bareknukle Pickups and a pair of 'Stormy Monday' humbuckers were readily ordered, with F-spacing, for the 12 string neck.

Boy does this guitar pack a punch?! You could strum this thing, leave it on the sofa, nip into the kitchen, make a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and the damn thing would still be vibrating when you got back. If Gibson thought they'd built a lot of sustain into their Les Paul, it's nothing compared to the sustain that this beastie has. That'll be the solid slab (well two slabs glued together inversely, with a thin maple/walnut/maple slice to mirror the necks running inbetween them) of Brazillian Mahogany doing its job then, aided and abbetted by the maple cap. It's got a fair weight behind it (15 pounds folks) but at 6'5" I'm big enough to carry it, and it rewards with every plectrum stroke.

The 12 string neck is positively philharmonic in its abilities with those 'Stormy Mondays' transmitting the vibes in their own special way to the amp, and is by far and away the best sounding 12 string I've ever heard. Every chord just sounds so much bigger on it, and those Bareknuckle pickups are picking every string out of the chord to build the sound through the amp, which incidentally is a little Marshall 60 watt valve........humbuckers and Marshalls.......a match made in Heaven.

The 6 string has the real grunt that the slightly more potent pair of Burstbuckers gives it. This enables the 6 string to really cut through when you switch from the 12 string (which really is properly suited to rhythm, chordal work) to lead licks on the 6 string.

........and yes.....it does work beautifully on 'Stairway To Heaven'!

It's been just over a week since I drove down to Leigh-On-Sea to collect this beauty. Since then it's had a 2 and a half hour car journey home, a gig on the first Saturday night, and been carted off all over the place so that everyone who's known about its construction can see it...........I still haven't had to tune it! That's how well put together it is, and testament to the quality of those Gotoh tuners.

The action is amazing. My shredder mate can't believe that I have a doubleneck, on which even the 12 string has a lower action than his Ibanez! He's most impressed, as am I. The flame maple fretboards look amazing, and just feel beautiful under my fingers as I work through my scales and licks. How Bob set it up this well I'll never know.

The finish is the one area of the guitar that Bob no longer specialises in. For this the guitar was packed up and sent off to Sims Customs for a paint job that is simply breath taking. Not only have they done the most perfect job of masking out the edge of the maple cap to act as a false binding (a la PRS - but not with the slight incursions you'll spot when you look at a PRS closely. They're good, but not as good as this!), but they've also done the most perfect job masking out the maple/walnut/maple strips in both necks and in the body. These have been left natural, and all the mahogany around them has been stained a deep rosewood colour (Gibson refer to it as Cherry, but it's darker than that). The flame top has been done perfectly by Sims Customs, and can probably be best explained as being close to the famous Brock/Dapra burst (all you Les Paul fans will know what I'm on about!)

This thing brought my friends gig to a standstill when they asked me to get up and do a few numbers with them and I pulled it out of the case.........even the non-guitarists wanted a look!

How reliable do you want?
I've already said I haven't even needed to tune it yet!
It's built solidily and it's built well, so there's no reason to expect that this thing won't still be playing just as well in another 30 years time (it was my 30th Birthday present, as my wife chipped in a portion to pay for it), and Bob says that any problems he'll sort out for as long as he's still on the planet. You can't say fairer than that.
There's no crackling from any of the electrics and they're all top quality, so I have no reason at all to think that this'll give me anything other than years and years of happy playing.

Get a problem with a Legra Guitar?
Take it back to Bob and he'll sort it for you.

Bob is one of the nicest people to deal with, and even when you can be as infuriating as I can be (there were quite a number of changes as I mentioned!) he's always listening, and always pleasant.

He's the owner, designer, master carpenter, electrican, and tech all in one. He has more pride over his product than you'll ever get from even one of the smaller guitar manufacturers, let alone the global ones. If customer support is something that matters to you, then this is the man you need to make your guitar.

Sorry for being such a nuiscance over the last 5+ months Bob ;-)

I've been strumming guitars (badly!) for 13 years now, and thanks to a combination of not bad rhythm technique and my huge singing voice, I've managed to get a few gigs, and I've managed to earn a few pennies, all of which I use to go towards my guitar habit (I would say hobby, but my wife refers to it as a habit to our firends).

These hands of mine have seen many a Fender, Lord knows how many Gibsons, PRS's, Epiphones, Jacksons, Ibanez's etc etc etc, and they normally end up getting moved on as I get bored or something else turns up.

The only guitars in my arsenal that are safe from sale are my 2002 Gibson Historic 59 Les Paul which is too much of the perfect Les Paul to ever sell, and my 1967 Shaftesbury Les Paul. It only cost ??30 and isn't worth selling after the money I spent doing it up (it's also got an indefineable mojo that I love!).

This Legra has now entered the hallowed territory of the unsaleable guitar.

Imagine having a suit made for you by a bespoke tailor........it would only fit you......it would be perfect for you. This guitar for me is that suit. It's everything I wanted it be, and so much more that I'll never be able to explain in mere words on this website.

I pray to God that it never gets stolen, because it is a one-off, and it is truly unique to me. Maybe Bob will get orders for more, but I got there first guys.......mine is the first. Actually I hope Bob does make more, because I'd love more of you to know what I've been rabbitting on about.

If you have a strong back, and you want something that'll just make your audience stop and stare, then this is the guitar for you. This is what Gibson should have done with the EDS-1275 (no one I know likes that damn guitar!), but will never do because the EDS-1275 still sells to Jimmy Page fans wanting to roll in the nostalgia. Sod Nostalgia, sod Nashville, and sod Gibson........this is what doubleneck guitarists have been crying out for, but you're not going to get it in the States.......little Leigh-On-Sea is obviously the place to go for that something a bit special.