Few guitar questions.

Krsnik87

This is what I started out with.

http://www.thomann.de/ie/epiphone_lp_special_black.htm

• So far I've stripped the paint and want to leave it as a nice natural wood colour maybe darken it a bit, not sure how I should go about protecting the wood, what varnish or whatever to use. Any suggestions?

• I was thinking about replacing the wires, control knobs and switches, not really too sure what the best way to go about that is. Not sure what I can put in that will work with this guitar. Little help?

• Also what are the odds on being able to fit a bigsby tremelo to this guitar, would the stop bar and bridge screw sockets get in the way of fitting?

Thats really all I need to know I think. I already have a new neck with grover machine heads, a 490 and a 498 for the pickups with chrome covers. Just working out the final stages for the build now. I can't wait to get this thing finished because its been a pain in the arse since day one lol...

Any help, ideas or suggestions would be appreciated

deaddonkey

Hi.

for the finish, i would strip and sand it, then get a bottle of woodstain to darken it to your taste, then i would either use a regular polyurethane based varnish and sand, varnish, sand, sand some more, then a bit more, then wetsand it. or you could skip on all that sanding and spray on an acrylic clear coat and wetsand it and buff it out.

The wiring in epiphones is notoriously bad, if you're serious about the guitar then i'd def. consider putting in new pots, caps and a new switch, and new pickups too. Easy to do, buy the parts separately and solder them together, if you don't know how and you're in dublin i'll do it for you free, it's my idea of fun...

bigsby... not a problem, there's a few types of bigsbies, but some will fit for certain. that's a flattop guitar, right? there's def. one that fits, i think it's the B6 model.
altogether it's probably more effort than the guitar is worth, but if you like it, then it's a fun project and go for it.

most importantly: read a lot, and have fun.

Krsnik87

Thanks for the reply man, I already have most of the parts sorted and I have no problem with the assembly (thanks for the offer though!).

I don't suppose you could recommend a place to get the pots, caps and switches or even what would ones work well in this guitar. I am completely in the dark on the subject and wouldn't know what is good/bad when it comes to that stuff or even where to buy them. I'm splashing out on this project so price isn't an issue.

I had a feeling the stock parts wouldn't be able to do the pickups justice. Hopefully this will turn out as expected because even though it is stressfull its also very fun and a good experiance!

deaddonkey

for simplicity's sake i'd just buy a les paul wiring kit from say guitarfetish.com, i've used them a bunch of times and they've been great.

you could get higher end parts, but my opinion is it's worth putting them into a gibson historic series, not into a low end epi LP

http://store.guitarfetish.com/colespaupelc.html

deaddonkey

what pickups are you putting in there? if you're going for anything hotter than a PAF make sure you put 500kOhm pots in otherwise you'll choke out the pickups' treble
if you want a brighter sound go for 1 megaohm pots, that'll jangle plenty.
whatever pots you get, you have to get audio (logarithmic) taper, not linear taper, otherwise the sweep of the pots will be all over the place and it'll just annoy you.

Krsnik87

http://www.thomann.de/ie/gibson_p490r_gitarrenpickup.htm

http://www.thomann.de/ie/gibson_p_498_t.htm

eoin5

deaddonkey wrote: »

for simplicity's sake i'd just buy a les paul wiring kit from say guitarfetish.com, i've used them a bunch of times and they've been great.

The SPII only has 2 pots. Is there space to put 2 more inside the cavity of the guitar? You'll get a lot more tone options that way but if you have to route out the body to do it then its probably not worth it.

Krsnik87

eoin5 wrote: »

The SPII only has 2 pots. Is there space to put 2 more inside the cavity of the guitar? You'll get a lot more tone options that way but if you have to route out the body to do it then its probably not worth it.

I was actually thinking about that, I'm gonna measure it out and see if I can just pop in the holes, It would definately be worth it if it fits.

eoin5

Krsnik87 wrote: »

I was actually thinking about that, I'm gonna measure it out and see if I can just pop in the holes, It would definately be worth it if it fits.

You probably know already but the new pots you get will be a good bit bigger than the crappy ones that come in the guitar. Just something to be careful of.

Krsnik87

Yup I've taken that into account, thanks