LukeAbi Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Hi guys, I recently bought an "Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus Prophecy Ex" around Christmas time 2016. Was extremely happy with the way it played, the feel, the look, the hardware ect.. It finally needed a string change about a week ago and I took this opportunity to give the guitar a nice clean. Gave the body a nice polish with the Gibson guitar polish and it came up really nice. When I moved over to the fretboard, I grabbed a new Gibson cloth and Gibson fretboard conditioner, gave the fretboard one wipe down....and off came the finish. It went from a nice darker (almost ebony looking) flat neck that the Prophecy EX's come with to a really light rosewood colour with open grain pours galore. I have messaged epiphone twice now and still no reply. Was wondering if anyone could help me. All I want to know is if they can fix the problem as it shouldn't of come off, or if anyone knows what wax/buffing compound they use to fill in the grain and give the fretboard that solid darker colour. Any help would be highly appreciated. P.s if anyone also knows what strings these guitars come with would be awesome. They say dadarios on the website but they don't have coloured string ends. Thanks :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Hello Luke, welcome to this nice place in the web. I would like to congratulate you on your nice purchase, but there is an unwritten forum rule: Pics, or it didn't happen! When I bought my Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus Outfit four years ago, I had a similar problem. More exactly, I was annoyed about brown stuff coming off the fingerboard onto my fingertips and the strings, too. Anyway, I wanted to switch from the otherwise great .010"-.046" stock strings to the .011"-.050" I use on most hardtail guitars, and so I took the opportunity and removed the fretboard coat with a cotton cloth soaked with Ballistol gun oil then. I rubbed until the cotton didn't discolour anymore. By the way, although it worked great, I meanwhile use almond oil for fretboard cleaning and caring purposes - except for finished maple boards, of course, where a damped cloth will work better. The colour of the fretboard was about the same, the pores were a bit more open, like on my Gibson guitars, and these have brighter, partly much brighter rosewood boards than my Epiphone and my Fenders from Mexico, Japan and Indonesia as far as they came with rosewood boards. The brightest rosewood board of mine is that of a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul, I'm not kidding, and it's laminated, too - see here: This is how my Epiphone Les Paul looks like: When about strings, D'Addario makes possibly all the Gibson strings, and lots of them have no colour coded ball ends. To my guess those on my Epiphone LP were Gibson Brite Wires that I like very much. She sounded better with them than any Gibson with stock pure nickel wound strings - to my taste, of course! I like a bright tone to get the most out of my guitars, and use only very bright sounding ones. I hope you can deal with the brighter fretboard. The darkest ones of mine are a Richlite (cellulose/phenolic resin) board on my Gibson SG Supra and the ebony board on my Ibanez Artist made in China. They are followed by two Fender Mexico respectively Indonesia rosewood boards, and everything else is brighter or has brighter streaks. Some Fender rosewood boards, the Richlite and the ebony boards have very fine pores, all the others wider ones, in particular a quite unusual Coração de Negro board on a limited Gibson LP of mine. However, this doesn't bother me, that timber is tough as hell and does not really look as dark as the Portuguese name may suggest but like this: I hope this quantum of solace helps you a bit in bonding with your nice Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus Prophecy EX guitar. And - post pics, please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pin Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Capmaster is correct about the "gunk" that Epiphone seems to put on its fretboards. I have had this twice with new Epiphone guitars: 1) Les Paul Tribute plus 2) Epiphone ES345. I took it off by rubbing with oil (took a lot of rubbing) and re-oiled with lemon oil. It does lighten the fretboard considerably. Both guitars have now been sold on so no pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPS1976 Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Hi guys, I recently bought an "Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus Prophecy Ex" around Christmas time 2016. Was extremely happy with the way it played, the feel, the look, the hardware ect.. It finally needed a string change about a week ago and I took this opportunity to give the guitar a nice clean. Gave the body a nice polish with the Gibson guitar polish and it came up really nice. When I moved over to the fretboard, I grabbed a new Gibson cloth and Gibson fretboard conditioner, gave the fretboard one wipe down....and off came the finish. It went from a nice darker (almost ebony looking) flat neck that the Prophecy EX's come with to a really light rosewood colour with open grain pours galore. I have messaged epiphone twice now and still no reply. Was wondering if anyone could help me. All I want to know is if they can fix the problem as it shouldn't of come off, or if anyone knows what wax/buffing compound they use to fill in the grain and give the fretboard that solid darker colour. Any help would be highly appreciated. P.s if anyone also knows what strings these guitars come with would be awesome. They say dadarios on the website but they don't have coloured string ends. Thanks :) they use D'Addarios. they make strings for Epiphone but they do not have the colored ends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeAbi Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Thank you guys very much for the reply's. Appreciate it alot :) So does anyone know what "gunk" they use ? is it buffing compound ? Also with the strings, what daddario's are they ? NYXL ? or some thing else ? Thanks :) P.s trying to upload photos still but keep getting errors :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeAbi Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Hello Luke, welcome to this nice place in the web. I would like to congratulate you on your nice purchase, but there is an unwritten forum rule: Pics, or it didn't happen! When I bought my Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus Outfit four years ago, I had a similar problem. More exactly, I was annoyed about brown stuff coming off the fingerboard onto my fingertips and the strings, too. Anyway, I wanted to switch from the otherwise great .010"-.046" stock strings to the .011"-.050" I use on most hardtail guitars, and so I took the opportunity and removed the fretboard coat with a cotton cloth soaked with Ballistol gun oil then. I rubbed until the cotton didn't discolour anymore. By the way, although it worked great, I meanwhile use almond oil for fretboard cleaning and caring purposes - except for finished maple boards, of course, where a damped cloth will work better. The colour of the fretboard was about the same, the pores were a bit more open, like on my Gibson guitars, and these have brighter, partly much brighter rosewood boards than my Epiphone and my Fenders from Mexico, Japan and Indonesia as far as they came with rosewood boards. The brightest rosewood board of mine is that of a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul, I'm not kidding, and it's laminated, too - see here: This is how my Epiphone Les Paul looks like: When about strings, D'Addario makes possibly all the Gibson strings, and lots of them have no colour coded ball ends. To my guess those on my Epiphone LP were Gibson Brite Wires that I like very much. She sounded better with them than any Gibson with stock pure nickel wound strings - to my taste, of course! I like a bright tone to get the most out of my guitars, and use only very bright sounding ones. I hope you can deal with the brighter fretboard. The darkest ones of mine are a Richlite (cellulose/phenolic resin) board on my Gibson SG Supra and the ebony board on my Ibanez Artist made in China. They are followed by two Fender Mexico respectively Indonesia rosewood boards, and everything else is brighter or has brighter streaks. Some Fender rosewood boards, the Richlite and the ebony boards have very fine pores, all the others wider ones, in particular a quite unusual Coração de Negro board on a limited Gibson LP of mine. However, this doesn't bother me, that timber is tough as hell and does not really look as dark as the Portuguese name may suggest but like this: I hope this quantum of solace helps you a bit in bonding with your nice Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus Prophecy EX guitar. And - post pics, please! Beautiful guitars mate !! Amazing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pin Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Thank you guys very much for the reply's. Appreciate it alot :) So does anyone know what "gunk" they use ? is it buffing compound ? Sorry Luke but I have no idea mate. It made a terrible mess of my fingertips before I took the stuff off. It looked like I had been rubbing my fingers in wet newsprint. Horrible stuff. I don't doubt it is harmless but lemon oil smells nicer and is known as a good fretboard lubricant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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