Any love still out there for Epi SL and projects?

[Steve T 667]

nothing is verboten.
no rules

 

[Lester]

Bit of a break while I moved. Here it is mocked up after being color-sanded and hand polished with compound. It actually has a lot more gloss to it than you see here but the sun isn't out and the lighting inside is poor today, so the photos are poor. Any apparent color variation is just lighting.

I think I'll keep it at this level of shine without any clear on top. It's about halfway between a factory LP gloss level and a matte finish.

Edit: Not sure about the white pickguard. I was going to swap it to black when I first looked at it... but it's starting to grow on me.

 

[Lester]

Here's the rear of it, along with a comparison of how roughly they are finished out of the factory. This grain is visible all over the body.

Headstock/Neck is mahogany and also unfilled so it looks like the rear photo below with lots of open grain. But I think I'm leaving that as is. Neck was overpainted matte and it was hard to play... that was sanded as noted above and it's actually smooth now, if a little thin on the paint.

I used a couple coats of filler/build type primer first and sanded that back to flat wood to fill in the grain imperfections. Then I primed with a sandable primer, sanded again, and did a few coats of finish paint.

 

[Lester]

I'm still thinking strongly of going light relic on this. The Poplar body is very soft. I can push a fingernail into the wood (not the paint, that's hard) under the pickguard area. It's going to be banged up quickly. I might hasten the process.

Thinking somewhere around this level:

 

[Lester]

I put in Snake Oil mini humbuckers, different knobs.

I have minis in my LP. Love them... but I mostly like Jazzyish Blues, so that might be part of it. Still, they still scream when you want them to.

Working the electronics for my lime-ster. Will have a photo of it up soon.

 

[Lester]

Back together!

- Swapped tuners for some used-look-new Grover Mini's. I thought they'd be lighter and help to balance it but they actually weigh more than the original (larger) Epi tuners. But, I like the look and they are nice tuners.

- Replaced the missing Truss Rod Cover. Spotted a used Epi Special II cover in excellent condition. Decided this guitar was kind of "special"... and the decision was made!

- Moved the jack to the standard LP heel location.

- Used the jack hole for a third pot hole (spacing is identical on all three although my photo doesn't look that way). This allowed me to install two volume controls and a master tone.

- Pots are all 250K Bourns minis with push-pull DPDT's. Neck Pickup volume control DPDT is a serial/parallel switch. Bridge Pickup volume control DPDT is a phase switch. Tone control DPDT is to select one of two two cap values for the tone control.

- Switch is a mini DPDT on-on-on. Should have gotten the fat-bat... it's a little short. But sticking with it for now. Went in the hole previously used for the jack.

- Pickup cavity and pickguard covered in aluminum tape with bare ground wire connecting all the pieces. Full Faraday cage.

- Reflector knobs

Wiring the mini-pots with DPDT switches and the mini DPDT selection switch was very annoying. The holes in the DPDT's will only take wire around 24 gauge. Too small to work with but I made it work. They are also very tall - I had to do a little routing in the pickup cavity to make them fit. If I had it to do again I'd use full size pots and separate (full size) switches.

All seems to be working but my amplification is crude right now. Should have better audio test equipment tomorrow to check out the sound differences. I think the tone control / cap will need some tweaking... full on is extremely bright.

 

[Lester]

Photo:

 

[Lester]

Sound test has everything working aside from the tone control range... which I'm not really satisfied with (a separate post on that issue).

Interesting collection of sounds. This is my first excursion with single coils outside playing a Strat or two at GC so I'm still getting used to it. Seems to be a less predictable with amp changes (simultations) vs. a Les Paul. More experimentation needed.

 

[jvin248]

.

Early on you mentioned series switching.

Put a 4-way Tele switch in there ... neck/parallel/bridge/series. My favorite Tele mod.

.

 

[Lester]

Too late! There are DPDT's on the volume controls. One is series parallel; the other is phase. I get series or parallel or in phase out-of-phase. So that would be four combinations plus bridge or neck solo. Not sure they're all useful sound wise, but we'll see.

 

[Lester]

While trying to get this set up, I realized that the compensated bridge was very poorly cut. The string spacing wasn't uniform and was too narrow over all. I saw it was badly done when I got close.

Replaced the bridge with a Pigtail type (Wilkinson) and with locking studs. That avoids the bridge tilt I've see with these before and gets some lockdown on the bridge. Still working some setup issues to get it perfect. I have some neck and or fret work to do now.

One upside to the Wilkinson bridge that I didn't anticipate is that it weighs substantially more that the stock bridge. The guitar is much better balanced now. The Grover tuners had actually taken it in the other direction. I was thinking about adding some steel inside the cavity just to add some weight or something similar. I think I can skip that now.

I'm not thrilled with the look of the pigtail but it's definitely a feature.

 

[Lester]

Still working this, slowly, as I break it in.

Liking the Wilkinson bridge and the locking bridge posts. Fixed a couple issues for me. I have been able to get the intonation spot on, which is nice. Nut is clearly too high, so that's next on the list.

Also, the closer I get it, the more I realize there are at least a could frets that need a tweak to get the action low. So, I'll be checking those and either tweaking a couple or leveling all (since that's actually easier for me to do right.

 

[JukeBoxRat]

That's very cool. I'm in the process of modding my Heritage Cherry SL. I've got some Bootstrap Oatmeal Stout pickups on the way and I've got a couple CTS 250K pots and a new jack for it. The switch died a quick death, so it's already got a sturdier Epiphone switch I had laying around.

Last week I sanded and stained the headstock. Here are some before, in progress, and after shots. I added an Epiphone bikini logo as well. First time staining anything and I'm pretty happy with the results.

 

[Lester]

Looks nice. I wasn't aware they'd done any bursts for these, just the solid colors.

I'm appreciating the series-parallel and phase mods, so think about those. I can get some nice tones from mellow to Strat quack out of it. But, with the Bootstrap pickups, that might not be as needed. Are you thinking of using the neck and bridge or the neck and middle? If you do neck and middle you get an RW pickup that you can set up as hum cancelling or switch them in-out of phase.

As I mentioned above, the Wilkinson with some locking posts is great for intonation and helps balance the guitar. After playing a Norlin LP most of my years, this thing is WAY to light on the body side. Almost put some lead in the control cavity. Still might, but the bridge helped.

Yeah, that switch was junk. Mine fell apart when I took out the control panel. I went with toggle & body type just to preserve space in there.

 

[JukeBoxRat]

Looks nice. I wasn't aware they'd done any bursts for these, just the solid colors.

I'm appreciating the series-parallel and phase mods, so think about those. I can get some nice tones from mellow to Strat quack out of it. But, with the Bootstrap pickups, that might not be as needed. Are you thinking of using the neck and bridge or the neck and middle? If you do neck and middle you get an RW pickup that you can set up as hum cancelling or switch them in-out of phase.

As I mentioned above, the Wilkinson with some locking posts is great for intonation and helps balance the guitar. After playing a Norlin LP most of my years, this thing is WAY to light on the body side. Almost put some lead in the control cavity. Still might, but the bridge helped.

Yeah, that switch was junk. Mine fell apart when I took out the control panel. I went with toggle & body type just to preserve space in there.

I plan to use the neck and bridge. The middle Bootstrap pickup is actually destined for another guitar I'm working on that needs a middle pickup. I don't have the tools to drill a new jack hole and I'm not buying anything more to fix up a $100 guitar, but after seeing your pics, I texted a guitar tech buddy of mine and he's going to drill a jack hole for me on the side. I'd definitely prefer that both for comfort and to get the extra volume pot on the guitar without having to drill an extra hole in the pickguard.

I really like the Heritage Cherry finish on mine. I was surprised by this guitar. Mine actually had no sharp frets or anything, which I think was just luck of the draw. Once I put some Wilkinson tuners on it, it stayed in tune just fine. Neck pickup wasn't too bad sounding, but I really don't dig the bridge pickup. I've had it maybe a year and a half and it's been my go to couch guitar because it's super loud and bright acoustically. The only real weak spots it had were the tuners and the switch. I see they're now going for $140, whereas I paid $106 for mine new. I wonder if they put a better switch in the newer ones and raised the price a bit?

 

[Lester]

Well, I did the jack hole with a fresh 13/16 bit from HD and a hand held drill. But, I've done a lot of woodwork in my life so I was fairly comfortable with the idea of not cracking the guitar in half or drilling an oval even with a crude setup. If you have someone who has experience, that's prob the way to go. That guitar is begging for a side jack hole! I thought my idea was unique but when I started googling for EPI SL mods, it seems like a lot of people do it.

That middle pickup is reverse wound/phase, so take that into account if you use it elsewhere. I'd pilot that bridge and make sure you like it. Being an LP guy, I was a little shocked at how bight a single coil Fender type bridge is. But you've already heard that.... and those pickups you're buying are darkened down, so it could be perfect. I'd be interested in a sound file for those pickups if you can produce one. Maybe even a comparison to the stock on the same recording setup if you're good at that stuff.

FWIW, I didn't like the pickups at first, but after playing with amp models and settings I got them sounding fairly good. Still might update them Definitely not as forgiving as my LP pickups which have a policy of "we sound good no matter what you do with the amp" !

I think the price change is related to "we underpriced these" or maybe "loss leader, get some out there". Still a bargain compared to other budget guitars.

 

[JukeBoxRat]

Well, I did the jack hole with a fresh 13/16 bit from HD and a hand held drill. But, I've done a lot of woodwork in my life so I was fairly comfortable with the idea of not cracking the guitar in half or drilling an oval even with a crude setup. If you have someone who has experience, that's prob the way to go. That guitar is begging for a side jack hole! I thought my idea was unique but when I started googling for EPI SL mods, it seems like a lot of people do it.

That middle pickup is reverse wound/phase, so take that into account if you use it elsewhere. I'd pilot that bridge and make sure you like it. Being an LP guy, I was a little shocked at how bight a single coil Fender type bridge is. But you've already heard that.... and those pickups you're buying are darkened down, so it could be perfect. I'd be interested in a sound file for those pickups if you can produce one. Maybe even a comparison to the stock on the same recording setup if you're good at that stuff.

FWIW, I didn't like the pickups at first, but after playing with amp models and settings I got them sounding fairly good. Still might update them Definitely not as forgiving as my LP pickups which have a policy of "we sound good no matter what you do with the amp" !

I think the price change is related to "we underpriced these" or maybe "loss leader, get some out there". Still a bargain compared to other budget guitars.

I'll see what I can do for a soundfile on the pickups when I get them!

 

[Lester]

Couldn't get the action right without the upper strings flatting on some bends, so I decided to do level the frets - something I'm vastly unqualified for and would only do on a cheap guitar.

But, it worked out nicely. I was surprised how high the upper frets were once I started making things level. They looked OK with the straight edge but they were definitely high.

Action is much better now. Things are still settling in but it's almost there.

 

[diavolo]

I bought one a while back, just to make it look cool as a creative experiment. I sort of did an old barn door weathered paint look at first with some hollow body hardware for styling. It was playable, but more a strange artistic conversation piece. Eventually i reworked it into a player and sold it. Didn't have it very long.

I put humbuckers in it, relocated the output jack, rewired it to have 2 volume and 1 tone, had coil split, and an onboard diode clipping circuit that could be turned on and off. basically a passive fuzz effect. can't recall all i did to it, but it was fairly modified. i also leveled the frets and all that sort of finish work.
wasn't too bad of a thing to play, made some cool sounds.

 

[Lester]

I like that weathered look. Unique.