PRS Guitar Re-Topping

It's a pity no one will ever know the wizards at Ed Roman Guitars are the magicians who transform these plain looking guitars into the beautiful masterpieces they are today.
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.

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 for the inlay. 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 is our most common retop.

1990 PRS Retop

We retopped this back in 1997

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 always strive to beat the teacher"

Look at the Quicksilver & Centurion Models   "You be the Judge"