Nostalgic Distortion
New member
Today is a NGD for me although I've actually had the guitar for about a week now? The 18lb slab of Mahogany that arrived at my door the other day could hardly be called a guitar. At least not out of the box but it's a Epi L.P. so basically I expected as much...
View attachment 69517
M.F. had these guys on end of year clearance for $400 new so I snagged one up with the intention of modding it into something half way decent, hopefully!!! LOL, like I said I knew it wasn't going to be anything too great out of the box but at that price it left some wiggle room for upgrades. I actually bought the Duncan C.S.F.M. SH-5/SH-1 set at the same time as the guitar because I knew no matter how improved they claim their puppies are they were still going to suck & they did!!! I also went into this knowing I was going to be replacing all of the electronics, I think the ground wire to the bridge is the only original wire left in it now?
The first thing I did was take care of the razor blades they call frets & give it a setup. I actually took my time, taped everything off, & did it properly. The result was a neck that rivals most of the Gibson's that I've played!!! I'm actually pretty impressed with myself, not my first rodeo but normally I rush & I get rushed results? This time I did it over the course of two days & it was certainly time well spent!
Next was the puppies, @ first I cut off the stupid quick connects & just spliced them together with the new pickups. The reason for this extra measure was simply to get a sense of how they were going to sound once they were installed permanently. I'm a bit of a alnico purest & I was a little unsure about the ceramic mag in the SH-5? Originally I planned on using a SH-14 in the bridge but my dealer didn't have one in black & white zebra so I figured I'd give it a shot. If I didn't like it I knew I could just take the A5 out of a spare CUSTOM 5 I've got kicking around and then I would have a black and white Custom 5 but to be perfectly honest I'm really digging the SH-5 in this guitar!!!
Okay, so it sounds good & it plays great but it's still full of cheap shielded wires, push/pulls I'll never use, lovely Alpha pots, & last but not least, that STUPID Quick Connect system!!! I went ahead & ripped all that out & simply started over. I built myself a new modern style harness out of high quality pots (all of which read exactly 536K) and some very nice .022 oil can capacitors. I did keep the stock toggle switch but I ran all new pushback wire from it and then re-installed the pickup's.
After giving it another once over just to make sure nothing was loose & everything was where it should be I put on a new set of strings (incidentally, huge improvement right there, factory strings always suck but these were really bad) and gave the neck another tiny tweak. Perfection, or as close to perfect as you can get a Epiphone L.P. Custom anyway!!!
The result is pictured below...
View attachment 69524View attachment 69525
Oh, I managed to salvage the Beauty Rings off the stock pickups and they do fit the Duncan's quite well. I don't know if I should put them back on or not? It looks great now but on the other hand they do add a bit of class, what do you guys think???
View attachment 69517
M.F. had these guys on end of year clearance for $400 new so I snagged one up with the intention of modding it into something half way decent, hopefully!!! LOL, like I said I knew it wasn't going to be anything too great out of the box but at that price it left some wiggle room for upgrades. I actually bought the Duncan C.S.F.M. SH-5/SH-1 set at the same time as the guitar because I knew no matter how improved they claim their puppies are they were still going to suck & they did!!! I also went into this knowing I was going to be replacing all of the electronics, I think the ground wire to the bridge is the only original wire left in it now?
The first thing I did was take care of the razor blades they call frets & give it a setup. I actually took my time, taped everything off, & did it properly. The result was a neck that rivals most of the Gibson's that I've played!!! I'm actually pretty impressed with myself, not my first rodeo but normally I rush & I get rushed results? This time I did it over the course of two days & it was certainly time well spent!
Next was the puppies, @ first I cut off the stupid quick connects & just spliced them together with the new pickups. The reason for this extra measure was simply to get a sense of how they were going to sound once they were installed permanently. I'm a bit of a alnico purest & I was a little unsure about the ceramic mag in the SH-5? Originally I planned on using a SH-14 in the bridge but my dealer didn't have one in black & white zebra so I figured I'd give it a shot. If I didn't like it I knew I could just take the A5 out of a spare CUSTOM 5 I've got kicking around and then I would have a black and white Custom 5 but to be perfectly honest I'm really digging the SH-5 in this guitar!!!
Okay, so it sounds good & it plays great but it's still full of cheap shielded wires, push/pulls I'll never use, lovely Alpha pots, & last but not least, that STUPID Quick Connect system!!! I went ahead & ripped all that out & simply started over. I built myself a new modern style harness out of high quality pots (all of which read exactly 536K) and some very nice .022 oil can capacitors. I did keep the stock toggle switch but I ran all new pushback wire from it and then re-installed the pickup's.
After giving it another once over just to make sure nothing was loose & everything was where it should be I put on a new set of strings (incidentally, huge improvement right there, factory strings always suck but these were really bad) and gave the neck another tiny tweak. Perfection, or as close to perfect as you can get a Epiphone L.P. Custom anyway!!!
The result is pictured below...
View attachment 69524View attachment 69525
Oh, I managed to salvage the Beauty Rings off the stock pickups and they do fit the Duncan's quite well. I don't know if I should put them back on or not? It looks great now but on the other hand they do add a bit of class, what do you guys think???
