I recently put a faded ebony 3 pup Gibson V on layaway at Rainbow music here in tucson. Had the same feel as the Cherry ones, but I really love ebony, black, whatever you want to call it on guitars! So I figure that once I get it, Ill have a normal black pickguard made, and try and order a voodoo V truss rod cover. But Im probably going to go with some Seymour Duncans. The SH-13 Dimebucker for the bridge, and a '59 for the neck.
Once that is done, Im on a mission to find a well used black Gibson Explorer, then have it heavily customized. I want to delete the pickguard, route the wood under the pickguard out and have a new solid piece glue in. Then I wan to have the controls reconfigured like the designer series Explorers from gibson from '84; exactly like the controls found the original Gibson Explorer that Mr Hetfield had. Then Ill have the whole thing painted black, but I want to leave the neck raw and stained like the faded ebony. Oh, and I want a red Gibson logo applied to the head stock! .... yeah that guitar will be alot of money, BUT Gibson wont make one like that so I gotta do what I gotta do!
I had a GC in Illinois a few years ago try and get a price quote from Gibson's Custom Shop for this exact guitar I have described. lol, the CS guys rejected it because it altered the Explorer too much. I guess they are still mad about the success that ESP had with their Explorer copy!