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Upgrades to Epiphone Century with P90 Pro


bacham

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I recently bought an Epiphone Century in Vintage Sunburst with a P90 Pro - and I have to say I am beyond happy with it. It plays and sounds incredible (for my taste).

 

I actually sold a Gibson Custom Shop ES330 with P90s because I simply didn't like it and ended up hating playing it and I personally don't think it sounded particularly good. It buzzed everywhere despite several professional set-ups, every week something new started buzzing in the sound hole (cables, pickup selector etc.) and the pickups were awfully unbalanced (massively boomy bass and super uncomfortably sharp high end).

 

The Century on the other hand plays like a dream (beautiful neck) and sounds beyond anything I ever heard from the ES330, not one of the frets buzzes (even though I haven't set it up professionally) and only the A string isn't intonated properly at the 12th fret, the others are spot on. Action is fantastic. The P90 Pro sounds like a 300 dollar pickup to me (through a Fender Princeton Reverb). Also it has a much more interesting acoustic sound when unplugged, the ES330 sounded terrible unplugged which discouraged me from noodling on it when unplugged whereas now with the century i find myself noodling until late into the night with it unplugged (it almost sounds like a resonator)... and all this for 1/6th of the price - I really am quite surprised.

 

The only downside I see is that although the Epiphone generally looks great (I like the satin finish) it doesn't look like a top-end guitar if you look closely. Although it's an arch top I would say the top is more flat than arched, the tuning pegs look like cheap plastic and the nut is a jagged-edge white plastic that looks like it belongs on a toy and it doesn't let the strings glide properly.

 

Thus I am looking to carry out a few upgrades to perfect this beauty of a guitar:

 

- Tuners: I'm not very experienced with upgrading and can't seem to find tuners that would fit this guitar (without drilling extra holes), any recommendations?

- Nut: I suppose a tailor-made bone nut is the best option? or can one buy off-the-shelf nuts?

- Pickguard: can't seem to find replacement pick guards for the century

- any other suggestions?

 

 

Thanks for the help!

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Is there a reason for wanting to get the tuners and nut changed, beyond that they "look" cheap?

 

do they tune well and hold tune?

 

you could try Stew Mac for the tuners but as you mentioned, you may have no direct drop in replacement for that.

 

For the nut,, hmm don't know,.. but again, are strings binding in the nut, or are you having trouble with open chords intonating?

 

you could have one custom cut one for you, once such place for that is WD Music

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Is there a reason for wanting to get the tuners and nut changed, beyond that they "look" cheap?

 

do they tune well and hold tune?

 

you could try Stew Mac for the tuners but as you mentioned, you may have no direct drop in replacement for that.

 

For the nut,, hmm don't know,.. but again, are strings binding in the nut, or are you having trouble with open chords intonating?

 

you could have one custom cut one for you, once such place for that is WD Music

 

 

Hi Kidblast, thanks for the reply.

 

You're right, i forgot to mention the actual issues with the things I want to replace. With the tuners and nut, when I tune strings sometimes they sound flat and all of a sudden jump to being sharp, so my (amateur) theory is that they are getting stuck in the nut and aren't gliding properly, it's like the nut doesn't let them slide through. The tuners themselves seem sort of wobbly and unstable, it feels like they have a lot of 'give' and they seem to slip a lot.

 

The pick guard is fine but was just looking for alternatives :-)

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Nut:

 

This is really quite common. for a quick home remedy, take a tooth pick and dab it in some Vaseline, then apply a wee dab of Vaseline to each nut slot. See if that helps.

 

IF it does, look up (on Amazon or ... ) for a tube of Big Bends Nut Sauce. This will keep the slots lubed preventing the string binding n the nut as it moves back and forth. The REAL fix is to have a setup guy (aka Luthier) regulate the nut slots to the proper width and depth.

 

The tuners:

still not really sure there are direct replacements available, but again, the place to check first would be Stewart Macdonald's web site.

 

Totally understand the reluctance to put a set that would require modifications.

 

 

I think a black/white/black laminate guitar would look nice on that one! WD will cut one if you give em a trace, and show where to drill the mounting holes.

These guys are cool to work with, they should be able to do that no problem, (could be expensive, but you may find it worthwhile)

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Beautiful guitar. Enjoy it!

 

I have an Epiphone Riviera Custom P93 guitar and changed out the nut and tuners. Very happy I did both. I experienced the same issues with strings getting caught in the nut slots and my guitar easily fell out of tune, especially when I used the Bigsby vibrato. After trying a few of the usually recommended home remedies, I decided a fabricated bone nut was the way to go. I did some research and found that Kluson Revolution tuners would fit my guitar, but the post holes would need to be reamed out to fit the bushings. I did both mods at the same time and the luthier who made and installed the bone nut reamed the post holes and installed the tuners for just a few dollars more. I’ve been very happy with these changes. My guitar is easier to tune and stays in tune much longer than before. The new tuners and bone nut both also look stunning on the guitar. Good luck!

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