NUD: Introducing the Black Budokan!

[caljoe]

Good job, it looks great.
I'm sure Ace would approve

 

[MrKensei]

Fantastic looking axe man, must have been a real pain to rewire and upgrade.

Only a real saint would have taken that job on...it must have taken ages!

 

[TheAce93]

Got some very brief sunshine today which always makes for better pics. I decided to just lay them out on my bed, which was probably a good idea since it started raining about a minute later!

 

[AK Epi Player]

Man, I keep looking at these pics, and thinking just how much better my fake BB3 would look if it underwent a similar transformation. But, that's very unlikely to happen. Glad to have these pics of yours to enjoy instead.

 

[DahlKen]

Turned out very nice, congrats!

 

[paruwi]

What do you mean? I had no trouble viewing it on my 15" laptop and my 7" tablet. Even now it doesn't look much different.

Thanks I guess.

All pics had been in just one line,
so you had to scroll sideways to view the thread

 

[TheAce93]

All pics had been in just one line,
so you had to scroll sideways to view the thread

Strange, the images were fine for me on Chrome, on both Windows 7 and Android. Must be like what Tanq said.

 

[rogue_one]

That is fantastic! Excellent vision and execution!

 

[TheAce93]

I just noticed you mentioned that you had a set of the pearloid's....Put those babies on there!

I may order another set of pearloid kidney beans for the Black Budokan like the ones I have on my Ace Custom. Those square banjo style ones really don't function all that well in comparison, and this guitar is no case queen so I gotta have tuners that work properly. They look kind of odd on an Epiphone headstock too!

Take a look, sorry for the crummy pic!

I may also get one of these!

 

[Tenacious T]

I'd go with the square-ish buttons....TR cover would be a nice touch.

Great pairing you have there brother.

 

[TheAce93]

Thanks T, I'll have a tinker on with the buttons and see which ones look/function the best.

And many thanks to everyone for your kind words in my thread!

I'm glad this guitar was so well received here, I was a little worried about posting it after reading the 15+ page KISS bashing thread in the Backstage.

 

[radiomatts]

I LOVE THIS! Way to to, man. That looks wonderful!

Today is the first chance I've had to make a thread dedicated to this guitar since I got it back on Tuesday. After putting it through my DSL40 playing non-stop through KISS Alive! and Alive II...

I have to say I'm very proud to present what I call the 'Black Budokan'!!

I based the look on the Gibson Black Beauty played by Ace Frehley around 1978-1980 (and then later on in Frehey's Comet with that god awful trem). The pickups are the same as the 2012 'Budokan' Les Paul made by Gibson and Epiphone.

It now has pair of Dimarzio 36th anniversary PAFs in the neck and middle positions and a Super Distortion in the bridge. The bridge and tail piece have been upgraded, the stock electronics have been changed out with vintage wiring, CTS pots, orange drop tone cap, and Switchcraft toggle + jack socket. All of the gold hardware has been changed to chrome, the plastics from black to cream, and the pickguard was fashioned from one originally made for a standard two pickup LP.

The action is set up low and it plays like a beast, even with the chunkier neck profile I can still get my favourite two and a half step bends out of it without much effort. The wiring was done in a way that allows the volume of each pickup to be controlled independently, what would normally be the neck pickup tone is now the middle pickup volume, and the bridge tone is now a master tone which controls the tone output of all three pickups.

There wasn't much sunshine today (typical Britain..) but I took a few decent photos before it started getting dark. Enjoy!

 

[radiomatts]

Where did you get the pearloid tuners? I can only find the pearl tops in kidney bean, not banjo style?

I have a set of the pearloid banjo Budokan tuners if I ever want to complete the look but I find they don't turn as smoothly as the Grover kidney beans so for now they're staying off!

Ace in action!

 

[deyago]

Congrat mate, very nice job. looks rather bad ass.

 

[TheAce93]

Where did you get the pearloid tuners? I can only find the pearl tops in kidney bean, not banjo style?

I bought them from a friend who owned an Epi Budokan, I think he said that it came with dud tuners so he complained to Gibson and got a brand new set for free complete with pearloid banjo buttons.

I bought his spare buttons.

Grover were supposed to be selling the buttons as spare parts you could buy last July I think, no idea what happened there, I guess they changed their mind. As a result, there's pretty much no way of obtaining these tuner buttons unless you actually own a Budokan, Gibson or Epi.

If it's any consolation, you can find this kind of pearloid buttons pretty easily eBay. I use them on my 2002 Ace Custom (over the original chrome Grover kidney beans). The plastic/resin feels much nicer than touching cold metal when your hands are hot from all of your pyrotechnics on stage!

 

[robotNinja]

Lol that headstock picture cracks me up everytime I see it.

 

[suedehead]

Cool upgrades. HNUD

 

[TheAce93]

Lol that headstock picture cracks me up everytime I see it.

It was just to show him the tuner buttons I was referring to, the guitar belongs to another MLP member, not me!

Why's it funny?

 

[Brians Evil Twin]

Grover were supposed to be selling the buttons as spare parts you could buy last July I think, no idea what happened there, I guess they changed their mind. As a result, there's pretty much no way of obtaining these tuner buttons unless you actually own a Budokan, Gibson or Epi.

Allparts sells them: Pearloid Button Set for Grover | Allparts.com

[Edit] Nevermind, I see you meant the square ones. Hen's teeth those are.

 

[robotNinja]

It was just to show him the tuner buttons I was referring to, the guitar belongs to another MLP member, not me!

Why's it funny?

Just the expression on the face looks funny to me. Plus it's a big head on a headstock.