Fire!
This is an Epiphone Les Paul that a customer brought for me to restore after it had been in a fire.  According to the owner, it was so bad the case had to be peeled away from the instrument!  The plastic parts (pickup rings, switch plate, pickguard) had to be replaced, but the finish needed amazingly little attention, just a little bubbling to fix along the bass edge of the fingerboard.  The toughest part was cleaning the gunk off of the metal parts (I went through 3 toothbrushes!).
It turned out quite nice, I think.
Ta-daaa!
1