antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 Been meaning to post this for a while, finally got time. I bought an Epi Special 2 on e-bay for £50 a while ago, supposedly for my partners' daughter to learn on. Serial Y7030805, bolt-on neck. Of course I couldn't just leave it as it was... Interestingly, I think a previous owner had already modded it to fit the neck P90 and the grovers. I found the tone very disappointing, the neck too thick for my tastes and it was difficult to get a low action without getting dead frets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 I found the neck P90 to be quite nice for clean sounds but the bridge one was too quiet. I put a spare 57 CH humbucker on, with a surround I fabricated from a sheet of black plastic. Couldn't resist a few cheap cosmetic mods. White pickguard and trc, and Gibson headstock logo.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 Then, she me refinishing my faded DC in TV Yellow. The faded yellow Gibson uses on these is nothing like a proper TV Yellow, and I did this to mine : This aroused her curiosity; she wanted to know if there was anyway I could refinish hers in the brightest green possible. I liked the idea, and produced this : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 Inevitably, she lost interest in learning and it ended up as an ornament in her room. I don't believe in trying to force kids into music, I give them opportunities and then it's up to them. I rescued it and decided my next project would be to take it down to a wood finish single-P90 guitar, with high action, that I could leave permanently in open tuning to learn bottleneck on. Work in progress : You can see that I've re-cut the headstock shape and filled the tuner holes prior to drilling new ones slightly lower down. In this pic you can see the cut-out walnut veneer I was going to re-face the guitar with. I did like the plain light wood, but the plain body edges just showed all the cheap plywood ! : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 "Finished" product (except with me, no guitar is ever "finished"!) : I wasn't happy with the finish. Applying veneer and getting it to stick flat was very difficult. I spayed the body edges with ebony wood dye to mask the ply, and faded it into the top face, then clear nitro. The whole effect was darker than I intended. I'd fitted a chrome-plated brass nut and sanded the neck to a slightly thinner profile too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
layboomo Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 Well I like the end result....just took you a while to get there! You can't go wrong with a Jr style single P-90 IMHO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 Now to bring it up to date...with an overlay from http://www.axewraps.com/ And a few more obvious changes. Epi stock humbuckers and knobs came out of my spares drawer... These axewraps are a very high quality overlay. Only drawback is that a lot ot the apertures come pre-cut or marked, and most of us know that the exact positioning of knobs and switches on Epis varies from year-to-year and factory-to-factory....so don't expect a perfect fit. I'm now playing with a Tele project, an Alba I bought for £35. I don't intend to do any more to this Epi .... except maybe sell it. I did actually use it at a recent gig...but only for one song. When he saw it our drummer said it was not so much Les Paul, more Les Dawson (the Brits will get that one). I know some of you will think me crazy for doing all that; thing is, I enjoy it. And it's good practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricochet Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I really like the "walnut-ed" Junior. Did you consider binding to get rid of the veneer's edges? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Strum Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 Then' date=' she me refinishing my faded DC in TV Yellow. The faded yellow Gibson uses on these is nothing like a proper TV Yellow, and I did this to mine : [img']http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/antwhi2001/guitars%20over%20the%20years/100_0518.jpg[/img] I really like this one. It has a lot of class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 I'm not skilled enough at carpentry to fit binding properly. I just smoothed the edge of the veneer to the plywood then sprayed the edge black, blending into the walnut with a sunburst technique to mask the join. You can't really see it on the pics, but the walnut veneer "bubbled"; I used the right adhesive but possibly too much of it. I placed it on a flat concrete floor while it was drying, with a metal plate plus weights on top to try to compress it flat. Stll got some "bubbling".... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wardog Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 although the walnut looks great and believe me most of us would love to be at your skill level. but, how much does all the re-work affect the tone of the wood_obvious newbie question. The tv yellow was a keeper. i would have snagged that one for sure!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stan 58 Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 As one who has Gibsonized an Epi, i salute you! Your job was alot bigger then mine and it looks good. I think the need to do that, goes back to my college days when i was the king of fake IDs. LOL. Here's a pic of mine and i call it a Tribute Guitar, and its as close as i will come to a real 58 V. Stan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canine Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I'm doing something similar to a bare-bones guitar I got for almost nothing. New pups (thanks y'all for the advice...), tuners, pots and wiring, new bridge and nut as well... I'm into vintage looks and tone, so I'm thinking about refinishing mine in TV yellow, but might as well go for the ebony look with cream pickup mounting rings and switch washer, I like that as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 Thanks Wardog. Believe me, all that work did nothing whatsoever for the tone or the natural sustain of the guitar - both of which are still poor. The body is a slab of cheap plywood. Don't know what wood the neck is made of, it's too soft to be maple. You might as well make a guitar out of cardboard. I still can't get the action as low as I would like without buzzing and fretting out. This will never be a "good" guitar by anyones' standards. It's just about adequate for a beginner to start on, because it does stay in tune now. The gap in quality between this guitar and the set-neck Korean G400s, LPs, and 57RI Juniors is vast. Those are real musical instruments, when they are set up right they play very nicely, and they have some natural resonance. This one sounds pretty dead unplugged. Plugged, I can get a thin clean sound usable for 50s rockabilly, and it sounds ok on full distortion for solos. Everything in between sounds poor to me - no fullness, no mids. The TV Yellow one is my Gibson LP doublecut, it's been my main gigging guitar this year. I've done 40-45 gigs in the last 12 months and used the doublecut about 70% of the time. Those P90s through my Marshall give me all the tones I want for rock/blues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iansmitchell Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 The cherry red special IIs are solid mahogany, and the necks are mahogany. THOSE, can be made into really great instruments with the kind of work you put in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwhi2001 Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 In fairness I should point out that my comments about this Special II relate to an Indonesian model from about 10 years ago. Recent ones certainly look nicer, and if they are all mahogany (even low-grade asian mahogany) I'd expect them to sound better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kh10string Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 antwhi2001, Where'd you get the Gibson decal? --Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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