Light Weight Les Paul?

I’ve been trying to find a decent Les Paul for ages. I’ve owned 3, two 70’s Deluxes with the Mini humbuckers and a 1990 Standard, but really being a Fender guy I’ve always found them way to heavy. So what did I find the other day? A brand new custom shop chambered Gibson Les Paul. With chambering they actually carve out much of the mass of the mahogany body, thus reliving the excess weight and giving it a little more hollow body ‘air’ in the tone. It played beautifully, sounded amazing and weighed a lot less than my Telecaster (7lbs!). The only problem? Here in the UK they cost between £2500-£3000 new. Ouch!!

So what do I do? Well, it seems that Gibson have been chambering a few of their other cheaper models recently, notably some of the 2007 Faded Les Paul Standards seem to have had some kind of weight reliving, but not in the same way and its not as light as the custom shop models and the Les Paul Supreme has chambering but I don’t want to look like Liberace after a visit to a half price jewellery sale.

I could try to find a used one on Ebay, but you never really know what its like until you play it. So does anyone have any other suggestions? I don’t want a double cut model as I think they look strange and many of the PRS’s look a bit bling. I basically want a proper Les Paul that weighs under 7.5 lbs. Not too much to ask you think?