carverman

Those appear to be the Samick made p_ups from the period that your guitar was made. I had similar ones that I removed and took the cover off one of them..there was some "minimum wax around the twin coils and some coating on the bar magnet..but certainly mine were not potted" or encased in wax. There is no problem with these on low volume amps. Now if you are running them through stacked marshalls wide open..yes you probably would get some squeal..but as long as you are playing these guitars at a reasonalble volume it is not an issue. A lot of the older P-90s didn't come wax potted and didn't cause a problem at reasonable amp levels. BTW: The "double potted" Epiphone 57CH I have from my Epi LP has actual wax residue around the edges of the cover inside.

Well it was a Gibson Kalamazoo product in the 60s. Came out of Gibson's amp/electronics dept (Walter Fuller/Seth Lover..inventor of the Gibson PAF humbucker),before it folded because of declining sales in 67. We had a few of the smaller Epi amps in the late 60s. I used a Epi Zephyr AMP and I thought it was great with my Epi Triumph because this one did have a spring reverb and I found the tremelo next to useless, except as a novelty on playing some chords. http://www.harpamps.com/gibson/pg_0359.jpg Of course a lot of bands would not use Gibson/Epiphone amps because Fender/Vox was the way to go back then..but they were great little amps for the money. Ted McCarty mentioned that Gibson amps were designed to be "mellow" while the Fenders were "loud, harsh and raucous". I have the Valveking 112 and personally, it is a very nice sounding amp for the money plus you have the texture control to give you about 20 watts of simulated class A out of the 50watt 6L6 push pull. I don't think that the two can be compared..one is a modern design and with reverb spring as well as efx loop in/out and foot switch lead/boost channel. The Pacemaker was the entry line amp with tremelo, which was pretty much standard back in those days as reverb was only offered on more expensive amps. The power tubes (6Aq5) used were not the more common 6L6, so they may be harder to find and more expensive to get. Also may be true for the tremelo circuit and the 6eu7/6c4 driver. The champ OTOH incorporated the standard 6v6. As a second vintage sound amp, it comes close to the Fender Tweed Champ, which a lot of jazz musicians used, but the Champ still had a better sound for the ES-175.

Yes agreed. Any experienced instrument repair man (uh..person) will have an arsenal of specialty glues and tools for fixing cracks on guitars, which are more common than not. I wasn't trying to promote a specific repair method, since each guitar crack or repair is different..just a point of discussion and something to throw on the table. I enjoy woodworking joints and carving of course, so these kind of topics interest me more than most.

Your method is ok..the other thing that can be done is to clamp the neck and body VERY CAREFULLY under tension (to spread the crack slightly without causing any further damage), and inject a type of glue that is thinner. Some glues will still be ok "water down" but others won't. One glue that I have used that will tolerate being thinned down is WeldBond. Just don't water the hell out of it, because as you thin out the resin binders, the glue will lose it's strength as well when cured. Some people use a form of hypodermic needle, but you can use a piece of cardboard(bristolboard) or mylar with glue spread on both sides and attempt to slide that into the crack as far as it can. The glue joint will always be stronger IF both sides of the crack are coated with glue then clamped under pressure again.

Well..maybe..it depends on how the damage was done..if the guitar was "abused", then the warranty against workmanship and materials wouldn't necessarily apply,,they would fix it, but it would cost, not to mention shipping. OTOH..if the guitar was never removed from it's original case, and you have documented evidence of that, then the warranty would apply for the lifetime of the instrument...just a legality..but Epiphone cant have thousand of owners whacking their headstocks and then claiming repairs under warranty...

I tried that out, and I would have to say, be careful with the accuracy of any kind of downloadable guages. I found out that when I printed it off, the scaling was off by 1/16" of an inch based on the 1" thick line that is supposed to be a reference. The other thing you need to do is to measure the very center of each curve and mark it..it should be around 1 13/16" from edge to center according to my measurements. Then you need to accurately glue it onto a cardboard backing and very carefully cut it out. The other thing you need to do is to have a flashlight shine from behind to see if there is any light passing underneath the cardboard "guage" and if it "rocks" from the center towards the edge of the fb. My Emperor II (Joe Pass) is somewhere between 14" and 15" radius. The Les Paul is around 12" but that also depends on the machining of the fb at the various factories. Stew-Mac do sell fb radius guage sets, but most people (unless you are a luthier) are not going to invest $25 for a set of precision cut stainless steel radius guages. here's some more information on the subject.. http://www.musicplayer.com/article/fretboard-radius/Sep-06/23104

I think the OP was talking about a roller bridge. I bought one from GFS from my project guitar. It comes with the large oversize bushings and is slightly wider.. (76mm center to center of the posts) ..vs ..73mm for the stock asian t-o-m bridge. The difference is 3 mm which is .118" or about 3/16 of an inch wider on the roller bridge. The posts are also different sized diameters at the top (the part of the post that fits into the actual bridge). I suppose that even if you could get the threaded posts of the roller bridge to fit into the existing stock Epi t-o-m bushings, you would still need to shoehorn that roller bridge onto the posts, and it would not be easily adjustable. GFS Roller bridge posts: M8 x 1.25 (M8 is 8mm in diameter) Stew-Mac roller bridge: M8 x 1.25 Schaller Roller bridge: M5 x ?? (M5 is 5mm in diameter) Nashville style t-o-m : M5 x 0.8 ABR-1 post threads: M4 x 0.8 Examine the post holes on the standard ABR-1 vs the roller bridge and you will see the difference.. http://store.guitarfetish.com/gistbr.html

Metric vs Imperial sizes... ..this is the main issue with conversion of asian t-o-m to a roller bridge. The roller bridge in the link from Allparts is 2 29/32" which is like (basically) saying 2 15/16" spacing between the centers of the posts. OTOH, the standard asian bridge posts (putting metric aside) are (approx.) 2 14/16" from center to center so there is a descrepancy in the post width, AND the post diameters (the small part of the post) will be different between the two, so I doubt very much that the roller bridge will fit over the original posts. As well, the post bushings will be a lot larger in diameter for a roller bridge, which means that you will have to remove the old bushings, enlarge the holes carefully, for the new bushings AND shift the holes (slightly) for the correct final center to center spacing. You may be able to DIY, but don't get that hole sizing wrong. Best to take it to a guitar tech and get it done properly. unless you have the tools and the confidence that you can do it.