[Epiphone hummingbird inspired by gibson]

On 1/11/2022 at 1:01 AM, John Joseph said:

I bought an IBG Epi J200 it was supposed to be a Demo with some dings and dents. Instead they sent me a brand new J200 because the demo was sold after I ordered it.  It sounded ok when I got it about 2 months ago. In the last 2 weeks I replaced what I thought was a cheap mass produced not very well made bone saddle that had the intonation off on all strings. I had a custom saddle made for it replaced the plastic bridge pins with bone and experimented with different strings and gauges. I settled on Martin Monel Tony Rice strings. The difference these changes made are amazing. The sound went from ok to pretty awesome. The bass improved the most and the high end . The overall volume is much better the intonation is perfect. I did when I replaced the saddle take the pickup ribbon under the original saddle and pull it into the body and taped it down.  The IBG J200 is well made and bracing is done well the finish is really nice on the body and the maple. back and sides are  beautiful. Polishing the back and sides with Lizard Spit brought out the grain in the solid maple back and sides.  Holding back the potential of this J200 were a cheaply mass produced saddle, cheap plastic pins and strings to light to drive the top.

Did you do this since you don't plug it in?  So that it has better vibrational transfer between the Bridge and the Saddle?

[Repairing a Norlin Era FT guitar with broken neck]

It's crazy that a thread from 2008 is still active.  Just want to show off my Dad's Epi acoustic.  It was made in Japan and is having the exact same issue.  It's identifier was rubbed off.  Is there any way to narrow down the model?  I'm not looking to sell it or even obtain a value.  Just want to find more info.  All of the serial number decoders say it was manufactured in the '60's but they also reference electric guitars.  Any indication as to the date of manufacture?  We changed out the tuners around 2004 and the separation of the rosette started around 2010.  At that time we loosened all the strings.  The headstock crack probably started around 2006 but it appeared to be in the finish so we didn't stop playing it immediately.  This guitar isn't an expensive one, but the tone is/was awesome.  I'm currently looking for a luthier to restore it to playable condition.