Subway Guitars Les Paul copy

Not sure of the year. Probably late 70s or early 80s.

All the standard features of a Gibson Les Paul, except that it has a bolt-on neck, and no identifying serial numbers or logos anywhere. The bolt-on neck cover plate says "made in Japan" on it. It has the "open book" style headstock that Gibson sued various "lawsuit Les Paul" makers to stop using, back in the 1970s. Two humbuckers with no identifying information on them. Rosewood fretboard, black pick guard, gold hardware mostly worn to silver metal. Three-position switch. Nice Grover tuners appear to be an upgrade, since an older set of screw holes are visible beneath them.

Nice shiny laquered finish, sunburst color, nice binding. A little beat up with the years. The body is partially chambered, as you can see if you remove the pickups or switch plate and look inside. Body is made of laminated wooden blocks, not a solid piece of wood.

Several Harmony Central reviews of Univox Les Paul copies include descriptions of laminated body of several pieces of wood, and also of semi hollow body visible in well for neck pickup like mine.

Several Japanese companies made Les Paul copies back in the day until they were sued by Gibson to stop it. Univox, El Degas, Greco, Tokai, Burny, Hondo, and Fernandes are a few of the companies. Some of them made very high quality parts that rivaled the real Gibson products in quality at a lower price. Guys like Fat Dawg of Subway Guitars in Berkeley acquired parts from these companies when they went under and continued small scale assembly of these instruments under the radar of Gibson's legal department.

I bought this from a guy on Craigslist for $200. Some previous owner had tried painting the body hardware (originally gold) black with some cheap spraypaint. Paint was rubbing off and looked like hell. After an evening scrubbing and scraping all that crap off, the instrument cleaned up very nicely. I replaced the original metric tune-o-matic bridge (and the munged up low E bridge piece) with a new Gotoh for $25.

A local guitar repair guy guessed it might be a Hondo. I took it into Subway Guitars in Berkeley CA looking to trade in and upgrade the case. Fat Dawg took a quick look at it and said, "Oh yeah. That's one of mine." Hard to say with 100% confidence, but he seemed pretty sure. Certainly could be.

It feels good and sounds good, like a Les Paul should. Good sustain and resonance. Warm tone. Good, classic high gain humbucker sound. Sounds especially good with my Dallas Arbiter Fuzzface clone. Shorter scale length than a Strat (my normal frame of reference) means its' easier to play those big E and A form barre chord riffs on the first few frets. Shorter scale length also means strings are not so tightly stretched, so bending notes is easier. Stays in tune pretty well even when bending like crazy. Great guitar for the price.

Several things were goofed up on this guitar by dummy previous owners, but I set them all right. One pickup (and its bracket) was in backwards. Intonation needed a little adjustment. Action was set about where it should be- low but not much fret buzz. I might raise it just a tad and eliminate all buzz. I cleaned contacts on the switch. Probably ought to do that again (or maybe replace it), since it dropped out briefly during one practice.

Well, it's presumably about 30 years old now and should outlive me unless it dies by misadventure somehow. Live playing is clearly an option.

The gold has worn off of the tailpiece and the pickup covers from decades of picking and sweaty palms. I might replace them someday if I determine that I've got nothing better to do with $40. It's got a few good bonk-marks and some light buckle rash on the back, but altogether it's pretty darn solid, shiny, and gorgeous for a 30 year old guitar that's clearly been around the block a few times. Finish seems really durable and looks great for its age.

Strap buttons are solid snap-lock things that inspire confidence. It is certainly dependable, but I'd be crazy to gig without a backup for any instrument.

NA. Fat Dawg is generally friendly and helpful, but come on! It's several decades old. I'm on my own and that's fine.

I've been playing on and off for 40 years. I took a 20-year detour into purely acoustic guitar (bluegrass, folk, ethnic dance music) before coming back to electric guitar again last year. I also play a '79 Stratocaster (Japanese made), a Yamaha FG-180 acoustic guitar (Japanese), and a recently acquired Subway Guitars Rickenbacker 330 clone (marvelous instrument which I'll review in a year or so when I get a good impression of it). I occasionally bang on a banjo, and honk on an alto saxophone when no one's around.

If it were stolen, I'd buy another Les Paul copy of some sort. It is one of the classic rock n roll guitars and there's nothing quite like the sound of those humbucker pickups growling through a good tube amp. I suppose someday I might spring for a real Gibson Les Paul, but various copies seem like they are such good values that it would be hard to justify the high price of the Real McCoy. Ibanez copies are an obvious choice. Fat Dawg says he is getting ready to retire and will probably close out Subway Guitars within 5 years, so another one from him will not always be an option.

I was just at Subway Guitars for the first time in many years (I bought that Yamaha from him in 1980!). I also just read all the other reviews of Subway Guitars posted here. Sounds like folks have had variable experiences in getting good work and good customer service out of Fat Dawg. I think he's basically a good guy, but his act does seems a little haphazard. Though he clearly does very good work at times (check his website for lots of great accounts of various cool Frankenstein guitars), he has also apparently sent some pretty sloppy stuff out the door. I would definitely buy another guitar from him, but I think I would only do so if I could go to his shop and personally inspect the goods. I think he sells some very high quality stuff, but also pays the bills by moving a lot of other lower end stuff. There are a lot of cool, old instruments in his shop. He is definitely a great local cultural resource.

As an example of the haphazard, he told me he would order a certain guitar case for me by next week. When I came back next week, he said, "Sorry. I forgot. Um, when are you in the area again?" Oh well. Par for the course for a grumbly old hippie.