pimping and repairing an epiphone custom ebony by arnold dikstaal and thomas schmidt

- Do It Yourself Project -

Pimping and Repairing an Epiphone Custom Ebony

- a true dutch project by Arnold Dikstaal and Thomas Schmidt -

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I think every guitarist reaches a point in his musical life where he wants to change the sound of his guitar. What starts out as the search for

the holy grail in amps and effects will at some point jump over to the guitar itself. I myself started to play at an older age than most players,

but I love it no less than the teenage guitar heros. I got my first acoustic guitar at the age of 18 and only truly started to play seriously in a

band at the age of 30. In the meantime I collected some guitars (in order of acquisition):

1996 Jackson performer.

The guitar that started it all, it's got a Floyd Rose bridge. This one is still in stock condition.

2001 Ibanez s520 with piezo.

I brought it to the shop to replace the V1 and V2 by Seymour Duncan and a 4 cable dimarzio (can't recall the type, the shop selected

it for me). This guitar sounds great, but I hate the Floyd Rose. It detunes the other strings when bending the strings.

1996 Epiphone Les Paul Standard.

This is a Korean build. I brought it to the shop to replace the pickups for Gibson classic 57's. The sound improved 10 fold! I decided to

replace the elements instead of buying a real Gibson because I love the way the guitar plays. And offcourse it is a lot cheaper than

buying a Gibson. I recently also replaced the bridge with a Gotoh GE-103B-T and totally rewired it. Now using 2 CTS 500K Audio pots

as volume.

-update- I replaced the pickups with a Seymour Duncan SH-1 '59 neck and a SH-14 Custom 5 Bridge. Sounds great! I replaced the

tonepots with push/pull and left the CTS volume pots. Also added TAD paper in oil caps (0,01 neck and 0,022 bridge).

2004 Gibson Standard Faded Tobacco Sunburst (60's neck).

This baby Rocks!! I love the standard zebra BurstBuckers (#1 and #2), although I still prefer the classic 57's sound. It is a AA class

Maple top, Mahogany body and neck with a rosewood fretboard. I replaced the bridge with a lockable Tonepros with Graphtech

saddles.

-update- I replaced the Burstbuckers with the Classic '57 I pulled out of my 1996 Epiphone Les Paul Standard. Roarhhhh....

2005 Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute.

This is a Japan build guitar with monster sound. Comes with a ready built in pair of authentic Gibson USA '57 Classic humbucking

pickups. Only replaced the bridge with a Gotoh GE-103B-T. One day I'll rip out the specially made 4 conductor Classic '57 and put

these with sone triple shots in my Gibson.

1999 Epiphone Les Paul Custom Ebony.

Also a Korean build and the coming victim of our project. Rosewood fretboard.

-update- I riped out the SH-1 neck and put it in the 1996 Epi. I replaced it with a Burstbucker I ripped out of my Gibson. Nice combo,

never knew I would try this combo.

I noticed that I will never become a guitar god but I love playing and learning more about what makes the sound. So I started on the quest

for the "ultimate sound". I went through all the multi effect units you can imagine (Boss, line 6, zoom etc.). Then I went through my

"ultimate amp" phase (mesa 50/50,4x12 Engl with Celestion vintage 30, Marshall TSL602 etc.). All I learned from these quests is that there

is no ultimate sound and that it is really up to you what you love in a sound.

Now my preferred performance gear is an Egnater Renegade 212 (retubed it myself with Sung Tol EL-34 and JJ's 6L6) which gives me the

opportunity to mix EL-34 and 6L6 on the fly with my Gibson and my 2005 Epiphone 1960 tribute. My effects chain is relatively simple:

Boss TU-2

Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah

Blackstar boost

Electro Harmonix micro POG

Dunlop MXR M117R Flanger

Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble

Maxon AD9 analogue delay

Boss DD-7 Digital Delay

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The Start Of The Project

Now the interesting part starts. I bought a 1999 Epiphone Les Paul Custom a couple of weeks ago for a reasonable price and it had some

pretty rusty screws in it. OK, I thought that's no problem, I'll just replace them. Then I had a closer look on the pickups. Hmmmm, let's

replace them too. Then I noticed some body wear and tear...

OK, let's cut this short and come to the point. I want to pimp this guitar and I want to do it with the help of my best friend Thomas. No

guitarshop needed. Thomas is besides being a good friend, a true magician when it comes to bodywork and painting. He is a graduate from

Antwerpen Arts Academy.

By choosing to do it yourself you'll have to accept the possibility of failure. The extra risk also lies in the fact that I have two left hands and

am not a luthier. Once you accepted this possibility of catastrophic failure the fun can begin. We'll try to do all the work by searching the

internet, reading a book or two and the use of common sense.

I want to make the Epiphone a "road worn" Les Paul with a "Fenderlike" armrest. This means I do not want the body to be perfectly

repainted, but want to keep the raw look that comes with sanding down the guitar mixed with a custom paintjob.

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Step 0 - Stripping the Guitar

First line of business is stripping down the guitar and ough.. I busted the body while removing a rusted pickup ring screw:

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Step 0 - Stripping The Guitar

Step 1 - The TO DO List

Step 2 - The Shopping Cart

Step 3 - Sanding An Armrest

Step 4 - Repair The Body

Step 5 - Add Shielding

Step 6 - Custom Paintjob

Step 7 - Bridge, Ground, Tuners

Step 8 - Wiring And Pickups

Step 9 - Tremolo And Strings

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Last update: 18-08-2010

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Pimping and Repairing an Epiphone Custom Ebony by Arnold Dikstaal ... http://epicustom.guitarmodwiki.com/

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Picture 1- Ough I "screwed" up

Stripping a guitar is very simple. You'll only need to cut or desolder three wires and the for the rest you need a small crosshead screwdriver

and an 11 mm wrench. Just follow these ten simple steps:

Remove the strings.1.

Remove the bridge and saddle and screws.2.

Remove the tuners. To do this you'll need to find an 11mm wrench and remove the nut on top of the tuner. Once you removed this

you can remove the screw on the back of the tuner with the crosshead screwdriver.

3.

Remove the truss rod cover by unscrewing the three screw.4.

Remove the backplates at the back of the guitar with the crosshead screwdriver.5.

Now you can desolder the ground cable (black one going into the body) and the two pickup cables (black one is the neck and the gray

one is the bridge pickup both soldered on the volume pots). For removing the pickups you'll need to unscrew the 4 screws on each

corner of the the pickup ring. Now you can lift them out of the body.

6.

Remove the knobs on the volume and tone pots. Usually this is very easy by gently pulling them off. Do not use a screwdriver as you

will damage the body. Once removed you can see the nut on the pot which can be screwed off with the 11mm wrench. Hold down the

pot through the back of the body so you won't twits the pot and actually makes unscrewing a lot easier.

7.

Remove the 4 screws on the input jack plate and also (with the 11mm wrench) the nut on the input. You can pull the input jack in to

the body through the opened control cavity.

8.

Unscrew the pickup selector by removing the nut on the body. Now you can remove the pickup selector by first uncoupling the

connector you find in the control cavity and then pull the selector out of the body. See picture 4 to know what connector you'll be

looking for.

9.

Remove the switch washer ring (the plastic ring with Rhythm and Treble on it) by pulling it off the body. Again don't use a

screwdriver for it, just have patience. It is taped to the body.

10.

In the second picture you still see the stud holders for the bridge and saddle in the body. To remove these we screwed in the holders and

pulled them out. We did this mainly so we can paint the body without having to tape of the hardware. Second reason is that we need to

make a new ground connection and this is usually made by a wire attached to the saddle

I did not desolder as the pickups are to be replaced by new ones and I am not planning on keeping any of the electronics.

Picture 2 - A fully stripped Epiphone Custom Ebony

Remember to keep all the parts you removed. You'll never know when you'll need them again.

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Picture 3 - Backside of the stripped Epiphone

Picture 4 - Close Up Hardware

Picture 5 - Close Up Hardware - continued

The stripping of the guitar and labeling everything takes about 1 hour.

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After we stripped the guitar it is now time to make up a plan on how we are going to execute our project.

Sand the body down to make a Fender like armrest.1.

Repair the body by filling the holes and sanding it down.2.

Shield the switch cavity and control cavity.3.

Give it a custom paintjob.4.

Insert the new bridge and saddle including a new ground wire.5.

Replace all wires and pots with Gibson quality electronics. Also replace the standard jack input with a Neutrik jack input.6.

Replace pickups. Since I don't know the outcome of the project I will first replace it with new Epiphone Alnico's, but when it is7.

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successful I will replace them with Gibson Classic 57's.

Build a tremolo on it. I prefer a stetsbar, but you can consider a cheaper Bowen handle alternative. If the project fails I can still

screw the stetsbar on my other Epiphone or even my Gibson.

8.

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There is much to be found on the internet in means of replacement parts. At first I shopped around the world on Ebay, but on closer

inspection I found some shops nearby (Holland) that had the same parts as on Ebay for the same cost (if not cheaper since I could pick

them up myself so no shipping costs). See the links section for more links to all the shops and other interesting stuff.

2x Pickup rings. These need to be for a curved body.

Here I learned my first lesson. There are more sizes of Gibson humbucker rings. Measure this and only buy them if you are sure

they are the exact same size. A ring costs about €2,50 to €3,00 a piece. A stock Epiphone Custom Ebony comes with all black

pickup rings. I want to change this to a cream colored neck pickup ring and a standard black pickup ring for the bridge. You'll need

the 92x46 mm ones. I got mine through guitar supplies here in Holland.

Cost: €6,00 per set

Tuners.

Not to be underestimated. I got some nice golden Grovers with carbon knobs from Ebay

Cost: €21,00 per set

Bridge and Saddle

I want to keep part of the feel of the stock guitar so I chose to get an original golden bridge. On Ebay you can find these through a

seller named goodbuy711.

Cost: 30,00

Seymour Duncan SH-1N 2C '59 Zebra Pickup (Neck position)

I took my time searching for pickups. Got some great Classic '57 on my guitars, but this one is going to be special! From

Duncan:

"Late-'50s, vintage-correct, humbucker sound. Warm and crystalline clean tones. Full and bright distorted tones. Smooth sustain.

Classic appointments include plain enamel wire, long legged bottom plate, vintage single conductor cable and no logo. Compared to

the SH-55 Seth Lover, the '59 has slightly more scooped mids and is vacuum wax potted for squeal-free performance."

Cost: €77,00

DIMARZIO DP161 F WH F-Spaced Pickup (Bridge pickup)

Special wound with more accent to the low and high frequencies and less on the mids. Great for soloing! From Dimarzio:

"Steve's Special™ is a non-traditional approach to high-output bridge humbucking pickup design. Hot humbuckers usually

concentrate most of the pickup's power in a narrow frequency bandwidth for maximum impact. Using our patented dual-resonance

design, Steve's Special™ takes the opposite path, spreading the sound over a broad range. Bass and treble frequencies are boosted

while the mids are pulled back, so the pickup's power doesn't kick a high-gain amp into overdrive as easily. This makes Steve's

Special™ a good choice for both fast soloing and clean chords, because individual notes won't smear together with heavy overdrive,

and clean sounds have an almost hi-fi quality."

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Cost: €77,00

8x Humbuck ring Screws.

Off course we will need some nice new golden screws (€0,25 a piece). Bought them through Stew Mac.

Cost: €2,00

4x Pickup Height screws.

Again bought them in gold from Stew Mac (€0,50 a piece).

Cost: 2,00

Super Glue.

A vital part of the project. I got mine from Stew Mac. You can get it in 3 kinds of thickness depending on the task you need it for.

They are approximately €4,50 per bottle. The neat thing is that you can also buy it in black (for €6,50), which we need for our

project. We use it to repair the cracks and damage on the body as well as filling up a few screw holes.

Cost: €6,50

Sanding paper.

An essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to body repair. You can get this at any hardware store. Make sure you get

400sandingpaper

Cost: €3,00

Truss Rod cover.

Since this is going to be a real custom job, I decided to replace the truss rod cover with a "custom" one. Bought it on Ebay

Cost:€5,00

Switch washer.

Got these also through Ebay

Cost: €1,00

Pickup Switch

Cost: €3,95

Neutrik jack input female chassis part.

You can buy this almost anywhere (also on Ebay). I had one lying around.

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Cost: €6,00

Volume and tone knobs

Standard knobs on the stock model are black. Let's add some gold ones too. Bought them on Ebay

Cost: 8,50 per set of 4

2 x Dimarzio EP1201PP

See the wiring section on why I got these (from Thomann)

Cost: €31,50 for 2

2 x CTS 500K Logarithmic (audio) pots

These are known to be one of the better type of pots. Got them at Guitar Supplies

Cost: €10,30

2x 22nf capacitors

For keeping a good tone regulator I chose two 22nF capacitors.

Cost: €1,00 for 2

Shielded lead wire

Although it is included in the kit I wanted some better shielding so I bought some extra wire at Guitar Supplies.

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Cost: €1,25 per meter (got 5 meter to be sure)

Black cloth cable

This is very handy, just push it back and solder and it creeps back in place. I used it for the groundcable to the saddle nut.

Bought it from Guitar Supplies

Cost: €1,55 per meter

Shielding tape.

3M copper tape 3 cm wide. You can buy it on a role or as in my case per meter. I got it through Marktplaats.

Cost: €2,50 per meter.

Shielding paint.

This is very hard to get here in Holland. So I ordered 2 bottles with 60 ml paint via Ebay

Cost: €11,00 per bottle.

If we add it all up the total project costs come to €313.05.

But you'll have to pay more since there are always additional shipping costs. Then again if you take your time and do even more

research you'll be able to cut some more costs. As I am learning along the way the costs were a lot higher. I bought extra paint that I

don't need, made a mistake or two on ordering the wrong parts etc. But that is the price you pay when doing it yourself.

<-- Top -->


OK, now the real work starts. Since I have two left hands, I asked Thomas to do the honours. We started by slowly sanding down the

top of the body to make the "Fenderlike" armrest:

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Picture 6 - Thomas doing the sanding for the armrest

Picture 7 - The first results

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Picture 8 - We need more... sanding

After the sanding we thought it would be a good idea to sink the Neutrik chassis connector further into the body. So bring out your

Dremel. For those who do not know what a Dremel is... don't try this project.

Picture 9 - Bring out the Dremel (are you getting grey there my old friend?)

Now the Neutrik will sit a lot better in the body. And look... it's black!

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Picture 10 - The Neutrik fits beautifully in the body.

Picture 11 - Close-up on the Armrest, you can clearly see the different layers of wood and paint.

The sanding and Dremeling takes about 3 hours.

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After some destructive force it is now time to patch up some holes and cracks. Since I drove a screwdriver through the body, I will

need to fill up the hole with my magical black super glue. Also I will need to fill up two screw holes from the scratch plate since I do

not intend to put this one back. To make matters worse some pickup ring holes were also damaged so we'll need to patch them too.

I would advise to first fill screw holes with a tooth pick (or a good old dutch sateh prikker) before adding the glue. If you only fill it up

with glue you will need to fill it up multiple times and you run the risk of not filling it up the hole entirely. Below you see the holes

filled up and sanded down again. We will repeat this till we have an even fill.

Before doing anything, clean up the whole body with turpentine but not the neck! Do not forget all the cavities as there may be still some

wood chips and sorts in there. This will make painting later on a lot simpler.

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Picture 12 - Holes filled up.

Picture 13 - Close-up on the filled holes. There is still some sanding to do that we will do during the shielding.

Repairing takes about 1/2 hour of work, but you'll need to let the glue dry out so it will take about 2-4 days to finish it.

<-- Top -->


No we start the fun of adding shielding to the control cavity and pickup switch cavity. I read a lot about this subject on the Les Paul

forum and there is in my opinion not one real conclusion on how en why you should shield the cavities. So I decided to mix it all

together. My goal is to reduce any "hum" as much as possible.

We'll use the conductive paint on the cavities and also try to connect the cavities via the paint. The pickup cavities will not be

painted as the elements are in nature shielded by the cover and ground cable coming out of it. We will administer 3 coats of

paint.

1.

We'll tape the backplates with conductive tape.2.

We'll tape the connecting cavity to ensure conduction between the two cavities. Edit: We did not have to do this as we had a3.

Don't get scared when you get a white haze around your glue points. Let the glue dry out over 24 hours and just remove it with a wet cloth.

After that sand it down again.

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good conduction between the cavities after the second coat.

Picture 14 - The first coat of paint on the control cavity

Picture 15 - The first cot of paint on the switch cavity

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Picture 16 - The first coat is done

Picture 17 - Still unshielded backplates.

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Picture 18 - Shielding the switch backplate

Picture 19 - Shielding the control backplate

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Picture 20 - After the second coat of shielding (nice job Thomas!)

Picture 21 - Eureka... we have conduction all the way through after 2 coats.

Painting and taping takes about 2 hours, but since we need to let the 3 coatings dry 24 hours per coating it will take up at least

3 days to finish it.

UPDATE:

We broke the connection between the two cavities. There is a risk of groundloop which we want to avoid at any cost:

Remember to let the strips of conductive copper tape overlap to keep the conductivity.

Also paint the top of the cavities so the backplate will keep contact with the cavity.

Measure the paint on all possible points with a multimeter to make sure that the conductivity is guaranteed.

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Picture 22 - We broke the connection with a dremel to prevent a groundloop.

<-- Top -->


The most creative part of the project has begun. After spinning of some ideas, Thomas came up with an excelent design. Since

I'm no artist at all I think it is important that he has a free hand in the design. But I'm still a controlfreak and can't help myself

bouncing off some ideas of my own (they all kicked the bucket btw). I play in a Tribute band Jack's On Five and from there he

took the idea of painting a 5.

Here's the first sketch Thomas made, awesome...

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Picture 23 - The first sketch

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Picture 24 - Sketch in the detail

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Picture 25 - Look at the great skull in detail

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Picture 26 - With the help of some householdfoil we can start the process of painting

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Picture 27 - Base layer so the sketch can be transfered to the body

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Picture 28 - And now add some color... How about some Van Dyke brown "Happy paintings en God bless"

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Picture 29 - Look at the detail... awesome

Picture 30 - Now add some lacker and varnish.

As you can see in the pictures above... Thomas is a formidable artist!

<-- Top -->

Step 7 - Bridge And Ground

Now that the paint and varnish dried out it is time to put the hardware back. We start of by reinserting the bridge and

saddle bushings (or nuts whatever)in the body. Do not forget that the ground wire must be connected to a saddle nut!

The proces is very simple. Get the bushing, align it so it is set straight on the body and whack it in. It might be wise to use

a piece of cardboard on the nut so you do not accidentaly whack a new hole in the body. They fitted very easaly... I'll get

back on that with the tremolo.

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Picture 31 - The black cloth wire is the new groundwire we put in.

Next we will reinstall the tuners. These are new Grovers and as faith wants it the original screwholes do not fit so we will

have to drill some new ones.

The installation is simple as is the drilling. Just attach all the tuners and fasten them with a 10 mm hex wrench. Make sure

they are all straight and now you can use a 2mm drill in your dremel and use the grover screwholes as guidline to drill the

holes.

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Picture 32 - New tuners attached and ready for drilling the new screwholes.

<-- Top -->


Now that all the hardware has been fixed we will start of with rewiring the guitar. I got some extra shielded cable and

noticed that the wiring of the switch is the most complicated since it needs to be put in a tight space. When using this

kind of switchcraft switches remember to keep the output cable long enough since it has got to go over the switch to the

other side. Also we will be building in a real neutrik connector so keep the cable extra long so you can solder it outside

the body.

Picture 33 - Connecting the switch(craft)

As you can see in these pictures I use color coding for the cables so I can easily retrace the wires without having to

measure it at the end. I just used a water proof marker to color code it.

Red = Treble (Bridge pickup)

Green = Output to neutrik jack

Black = Rythem (Neck pickup)

The most dificult thing is to solder the shieldwires to the middle pin. I found it best to first apply some solder to the

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switch itself an some on the wire before soldering them together. The results are quite stunning for a noob like me.

Next we will install the switch in the body's switch cavity and run the wires to the control cavity.

Damn, the switch does not fit. Ok so we start over again with a smaller one.

Picture 34 - Now with a smaller switch it does fit.

Always measure the conductivity of all solder spots and also check all switch positions for good conductivity with a multi

meter. Also measure the conductivity in the cable after soldering it on the switch. Make sure you do not burn through the

insulation of the signal wires and also test this with a multimeter.

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Picture 35 - And from the side.

Picture 36 - Extra isolation by glue to prevent a shortout with the shielding.

Now we run the wires through the body and keep them together with some tiewraps. This is what the beast looks like

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at this stage.

Picture 37 - Frontview

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Picture 38 - Backview

Picture 39 - And the pickups and pots are in!

Now that the pickups are in we can install these pups. Luckily the bridge pickup ring does not fit the body curb, so we

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do some sanding to make it fit.

Picture 40 - Sanding the bridge pickup ring

Picture 41 - And it looks like this with the pickups built in. Chrome screws on the bridge ringand gold screws on the

neck ring.

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After some searching I found a lot of threads about wiring a Les Paul. There are too many to mention so I will only

discuss my wiring choice here. If you want to read more please you can find extra information in the links section.

I chose for the 50's style wiring with independant volume control because:

The 50's style wiring sees to it that more treble is retained when you roll the volume back.1.

With independant volumecontrol you can change the way the middle position of the switch acts. The standard

way a Les Paul is wired has it so that when playing in the middle position with both pickups on, turning either

of the pickups all the way off will also silence the other pickup. I prefer that the volume controls behave

independent of each other, in that one can be zeroed without the other one being silenced. This way you can

blend the pickups.

2.

Picture 42 - Wiringdiagram for 50's style with independent volume control

But there is a twist. The Dimarzio DP161 is a 4 conductor pickup. This gives me the chance to use 2 push/pull pots

so I can use it ins serial/parallel connected and/or make both coils go in or out of phase. So I did not hesitate to

order the new pots and will change the Treble/bridge connection to match but keeping the basic wiring as mentioned

above. This is basically a partial implementation of the Jimmy Page wiring (see here).

This comes straight from the DiMarzio manual for 4 conductor pickup wiring:

The above text is based on the use of seperate switches. I don't want to drill extra holes in my guitarbody so I

contacted the DiMarzio techs to ask them how this converts to the use of their EP1201PP push/pull potmeters. They

were so kind to send me the schematics for this setup within 5 hours!

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Picture 43 - Dimarzio tech wiring diagram

The only issue with the above wiring diagram is that it's not 50's independent volume. But that is easy to fix.

Picture 44 - Adapted for 50's wiring with independant volume

Again if you are interested, here's the full Jimmy Page wiring

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Picture 45 - And this is the wiring diagram for a full blown Jimmy Page wiring.

I started of by making a central Ground point by using a thermoplastic connector.

Picture 46 - Thermoplastic connector to make a central ground point.

Since soldering in tight spaces is only for the pros, I made myself a simple cardboard template. I cut out a piece of

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cardboard and held it to the front of the body and marked the holes with a black permanent marker. Now I can

easily solder the parts together and transfer it later into the controlcavity and finish the job. I can solder

everything on this template except the three wires (red, green and black) that run from the switch. I'll have to do

these ones build in to the control cavity.

Picture 47 - Wiring template. The EP1201PP's are the bottom two. Nice way to spell Rhythm by the way.

Picture 48 - The biggest part of the soldering is done on the template.

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Picture 49 - Close-up of the Treble side wiring.

Picture 50 - Close-up on the Rhythm side wiring.

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35 de 42 06/02/2014 11:18 a.m.

Picture 51 - Treble side shot from over the Rhythm side.

Soldering is not a difficult job if you have patience and a steady hand. I used a enlarged picture of the wiring as

guidance. I shortened the capacitors not too much to keep some tolerance for building it in the guitar. All the

black cloth cable is used as ground cable. the blue cable is always signal. This will help keeping them apart.

The most difficult was to solder the ground on the push/pull pots. It just would not stick on the chassis. I sanded

it up al little and then it stuck.

I made special grounding connections on the volume of the bridge pickup and on the volume of the neck pickup

which will connect together in the thermoplastic connector I made earlier. This way I can separate treble and

rhythm separately without desoldering on a later stage if necessary. What now remains is to solder the last 7

connections (and 2 ground connections). To do this I need to build in the pots first.

Tomake sure that there will be no unshielded groundwire touching anything, I used some 4mm and 2 mm

heatshrink to isolate them. Again sticking to the color coding that black is ground.

Picture 52 - Heatshrink put to use on the switchcables.

Do not twist cables in the connectionholes on the potmeters. One day you may want to change something and it will

be hell to desolder and untwist it. Keep connections short. After soldering them, shorten them by cutting off

excessive cable length so it will not accidentally come into contact with other cable and possibly short out. Again test

all connections with a multimeter.

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Now I will put all the parts together and solder the last wires.

Picture 53 - Rhythm/Neck electronics solderd in first and connected to thermoplastic connector.

Picture 54 - Treble/Bridge electronics solderd in. This was quite a chalange.

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Picture 55 - And this is how it now looks from the front.

UPDATE: I did not like the way the independant volume works. I kept the 50's wiring but with normal volume

control.

The soldering takes about 3 hours when done right and using heatshrink.

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I love the Les Paul sound more than any other guitar. This type of guitar is unpredictable. One day it plays like

a feather and the same guitar will make you work for your money on the other. Just like a tube amp you might

say.

One thing I always missed is a tremolo. Not for a good dive bomb, but for that extra solo effect. So I googled if

something like that existed. And it does! I found the Stetsbar to be more my thing although some people think

it is rather ugly and prefer the Bowen Handle. Guess it is a matter of taste.

Here are some pictures of how the box looks like. Bought it from Guitar Supplies.

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Picture 56 - Stetsbar in the box

Picture 57 - Stetsbar out of the box

And now the first real trouble came up. I thought this would be the easiest part of the project. As I was

"firmly securing" the bolts all of a sudden the bushing which holds the ground cable just popped out! Time for

some more repairs.

The problem was bigger than we thought. We used the #20 black glue that we also used for the body repairs.

After reinserting the bushing and checking the ground connection we noticed that the connection was

broken!! O my god. We hd to pull out the bushing again and investigate the problem. Well the problem is the

glue. The glue is so strong tha even a bit of contact with the blank wire will act as an isolator. The only way

we could fix this is to solder a new ground wire to the inside of the bushing and route a blank wire back in the

hole in the body. Here is a little drawing of the construction. Again it took a lot of "dremeling" to get a good

spot to solder on.

After whacking these ones in I let the glue dry for 24 hours. And it stays put!!

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Picture 58 - Look at this beast with the whammy bar

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.

Picture 59 - And a close-up

Update: Ok, tried the stetsbar. Sustain is good but the detuning sucks. I'll try to use some oil to see if it

operates better.

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Sound and Video

And here are some sounds:

Neck

Middle position with bridge in series and out of phase

Bridge in series in phase

Bridge in series out of phase

Bridge in parallel in phase

Bridge in parallel out of phase

For your listening and comparing pleasure I will add some samples of all my pickups made under exact the

same conditions:

Brand and type NeckBridgeSolo

Epiphone Classic '57 (4 cable) X

Gibson BurstBucker Pro X

Gibson Classic '57 X

Seymour Duncan SH-1N Vintage '59X

Di Marzio Steve Special X X

Epiphone Classic plus '57 (4 cable) X X

Gibson Burstbucker Pro X X

Seymour Duncan SH-14 Custom 5 X X

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It is so much fun to do these basic things yourself. It saves a lot on tech costs and can make your

guitar sound so much better. Next thing is to learn the real wood repairs and setup of a guitar.

1.

Take risks, do not plan the creative part to much.2.

Measure all the parts before ordering replacements. Be 100% sure you have the right replacement

part especially with pickup rings and screws.

3.

Soldering takes time! First see how the parts will fit together and only then start to solder it

together.

4.

Read and learn more about all the individual parts of the guitar before buying a replacement.

Sometimes stock is good enough but more often the alternatives are better. Look for reviews and

also look for youtube video's etc. Read Harmony Central reviews (often they are the best) and buy a

book or two.

5.

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Schedule

21-05-2010 Bought the Epiphone Custom Ebony.

23-05-2010 First plans made with Thomas.

24-05-2010 Start ordering parts.

30-05-2010 Sanding the armrest.

30-05-2010 First round of glue.

31-05-2010 Second round of glue.

04-06-2010 Third round of glue.

06-06-2010 Added first shielding coat and sanded the glued parts. Fourth round of glue.

08-06-2010 Second coat of shielding.

12-06-2010 Design for the custom paintjob.

18-06-2010 Birth of my daughter Emma :-)

26-06-2010 Custom paintjob started and finished. Added first layer of varnish

27-06-2010 Second layer of varnish.

28-06-2010 Third layer of varnish.

30-06-2010 Fourth layer of varnish.

03-07-2010 Ordered new pickups on second thought. No standard pups in this guitar.

04-07-2010 Installed the hardware and started with rewiring.

06-07-2010 Pickups came in and were installed.

08-07-2010 Electronics finished and built in.

12-07-2010 Finished

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Links

Shops:

Steward Mac All your Luthiers supplies

Epiphone Guitar Parts Good place to find Epiphone specific parts

Stetsbar Great Tremolo system for your Les Paul

Bowen Guitar Handle Another Les Paul Tremolo

Guitar Supplies Very good dutch supplier of guitar parts

Thomann Great German Guitarstore

Marktplaats Dutch place to find all kinds of stuff

Ebay Another international place to find parts

CKO Guitar on Ebay Webstore on Ebay for guitar parts

Goodbuy711 on Ebay Webstore on Ebay for guitar parts

Information:

Les Paul Forum

Les Paul Forum - Wiring diagrams

Les Paul Forum - Shielding Thread

Les Paul Forum - Coil Splitting Thread

Les Paul Independant volume control

Les Paul Forum - Linear vs Audio (logarithmic) Pots Thread

Stew Mac - Wiring diagrams

New England Luthiers

Guitar Nuts

Jack's On 5

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References

GuitarPlayer Repair Guide - Third Edition by Dan Erlewine (ISBN 0-87930-921-0)

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Contact

If you have any question, please do not hesitate to email Arnold also if you have questions for Thomas.

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pimping and repairing an epiphone custom ebony by arnold dikstaal and thomas schmidt

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