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Hello
again and welcome to another installment of Luthier's Corner.
This month, I'd like to discuss one of the coolest aspects
of owning a guitar or bass- the fact that you can personalize
your guitar in ways that just can’t be done with
any other instruments, be they horns, keyboards, etc. Whether
you want to simply change its appearance by adding a pickguard,
or alter its tone by changing the pickups, or adding more
pickups, etc, the limits to what can be done to improve
an instrument are really only those of your imagination.
A prime example is the guitar I’m actually going
to feature in this article.
Epiphone Les Paul Special (Click on links
to view photos)
This is my recently completed Epiphone
Les Paul Special triple P90 project. When I bought it,
it was a great playing, great sounding guitar, albeit a
little plain looking, and only had 2 P90 pickups, as seen
in Picture A.
I thought she could use some more
personality, as well as more tonal options. So the first
thing I did was cut out a replica 50’s Les Paul
Special pickguard to install, as seen in Picture
B.
Then it was time to rout out a middle P90
pickup cavity, as seen in Picture
C.
After that, I installed a new set
of P90 pickups, well a pair of older Gibson P90’s
in the neck and bridge position, and moved the original
Epiphone bridge P90 to the middle position, because it
is reverse wound/reverse polarity, which makes it humbucking
when used with either of the other 2 pickups. I wired
the new set of Gibson neck and bridge P-90 pickups to
the main 3 way toggle switch, which I relocated to the
upper bout area which is the typical Les Paul switch
location. That required routing a new cavity, and cutting
a switch cavity cover, and enlarging the existing control
cavity and cutting a new cover for it as well. Then I
wired the reverse wound/reverse polarity Epiphone P90
in the middle to an on/off/on phase switch and series/parallel
switch, new chrome jack plate to replace the plastic one,
and Switchcraft jack to replace the cheap Chinese one.
Take a look at Picture
D, Picture
E, Picture
F, and Picture
G.
I then swapped the stock covered tuners
with a set of vintage Grover Deluxe, split shaft tuners,
which just look much better, and work very nicely, see
Picture H and Picture
I.
I was going to change the bridge
for a "higher end" intonatable
wraparound, but found the intonation to be perfect as is!!
So I did the setup with the stock bridge! That bridge is
a keeper. Finally I set her up with my preferred 11's,
with that action at 1/16". The neck is slick and fast.
She sounds and plays wicked. And she looks cool as hell!
And of course, I had to give her a matching yellow leopard
print guitar strap.
And if you look at Picture J, you see the completed Special.
Ain’t she a beaut?
a little imagination, and some confidence
So as you can see, with a little imagination, and some
confidence, you can take a guitar that perhaps is lacking
something you want and make it happen. Of course, as always
remember, if you are unsure of your own abilities, especially
with using tools such as routers, bandsaws, etc, take your
guitar to a qualified luthier or guitar tech, such as myself.
Better to pay someone to make your guitar dream a reality
than potentially creating a pretty piece of firewood.
Well, I hope you found this month’s
article informative and enlightening. Once again, thanks
for reading my column and remember no task worth accomplishing
is ever achieved if not pursued with fierce dedication.
Believe in yourself, and make happen that glorious noise
called music! Until next time, remember, there is nothing
you can't do if you set your mind to it! Cheers!! |
