Epiphone LP upgrades?

[bentonar18]

Just bagged a cheap epiphone LP from flea- bay. It has some heavy-metal pickups that will be yanked as soon as some new ones come in. Tuners on it are the old Deluxe-style that are not too bad, but I plan to replace them. Give me some opinions, gang!

Here are my questions:
1) I'm OK doing the soldering, so what kind of capacitors should I use to get better sound? Likely I will be installing a pair of Seymour Duncans: I'm thinking a Jazz neck PU and a Pearly Gates bridge. I have a stash of old '50's and '60's era oil-filled caps (Mallories?), plus the usual Orange Drops, Mallory 150's, silver micas, and even a few bumble-bee caps. Also, what pots would you guys use for better sound? I will certainly be lining the control cavities with copper foil, too...

2) Tuners: if I do anything to this guitar I want to be able to put it back. partly because I know I will sell it sooner or later, and partly because I will use this $250 beater to experiment to find better tone. However, if I upgrade the tuners I don't want to have to re-drill the tuner holes. What will fit in the stock holes?

3) Other hardware: see #2 above: I don't want to redrill anything. Should I replace the bridge or stop-bar? will this gain me much?

What else should I consider doing? Thanks!

John

[Bob-I]

I don't have a Epi LP but I have a Sheriton that I upgraded. I bought it with Loller PU's, then replaced the pots, neck PU volume is 300K, bridge PU 500K, both tones are 500K with .022uF oil and paper caps. I also replaced the switch with an open LP style in place of the cheepy closed. The difference in tone was dramatic, sounds really sweet now. The fact that the guy I bought it from installed the bridge PU backwards and didn't know how to solder was a factor but the pots and caps made a big difference (even with the tone controls on 10.)

I left the original bridge and tailpiece at first and later put a Les Trem on it for some Bigsby style vibrato, but the originals were fine IMHO.

I also redressed the frets and replaced the nut with a graphite.

Sounds great, there's nothing that a 355 can do that this guitar can't.

Good luck

[selloutrr]

you have a great platform for experimenting. If I was you the first thing I would do is sand the thick laquer on the neck way down and give it a good fret dressing. Upgrade the tuners to a schaller or grosch ( spelling ) I don't know the name but the locking tuners are pretty cool if you don't like to wind strings and it's a gigging guitar so you can get back in the game fast after a break. You'll get a lot of improvement in tone from upgrading the PU's, pots and wiring. If you haven't tried them yet for the $ the ones sold on the forum are surprisingly good!. as long as you get a good ground and qualilty parts your going to be on the right path. if you don't care about the guitar adding a toggle or rotory switch so you can switch caps would give you a nice spread of voicings. You might want to upgrade the Nut and Bridge so you can get the best action and intonation.

[M Fowler]

I just good one off ebay last month and ordered a cap set from the for sale section on ampgarage a .015 and .022 for put on both my Epiphone and my Gibson LP. I am using the Epiphone just as I got it as the action is very good and the pickups are better than on my les paul.

[billyz]

After upgrading all the electronics, pots, caps and the three way, might as well do the output jack too. The Gotoh lightweight ALuminum stop tailpiece does make an improvement in tone too. I have had 3 different tail pieces on my 345 . It had a bigsby and had lost the stop tail piece. It came with a later heavy gibson tail. I did not want to pay for the Gibson custom shop one so I went with the Gotoh, It made a nice improvement. Later ,I found an original Gibson lightweight stop tail and it was even better than the gotoh but not by much.
I have rewired a few Historic Les Paul's and the pots and caps made a huge difference, also check out the Vintage les Paul wiring schemo, it's different than the modern style. If you can't find the old Centralab pots, or Clarostat pots the PEC's are next closet thing. If you tend to keep the controls full on then the CTS are fine.

I was at Collings guitar factory and I noticed they buy CTS pots by the thousands and hand measure each one and sort them according the value, they are all over the place.

[sliberty]

Since you are going to replace the pickups, I'd recommend also replacing the pots and caps. CTS 500KA pots and Mallory 150 caps will work very nicely with most humbucking pickups. I wouldn't use the old oil caps, simply because they are old. In my guitars, I prefer new caps. But, you won't do any harm, so give it a try.

As for tuners, Allparts has some Gotoh tuners that should fit without any modifications, and will most likely be much smoother with less slipage.

You might also want to bring the guitar to a good tech and have him replace the nut with a properly cut bone nut.

Don't be so quick to assume it is going on the block. At the end of these mods, you won't want to sell the guitar - it will be a very nice Les Paul with only one downside (to some) - the headstock.

[Ronsonic]

I say the best approach on the caps is to experiment with your stash. It's real easy to tack them into place. Just tack em in to try them and then solder it properly when you find the ones you like. Same approach for a bright cap on the volume controls if you want one.

Actually isn't it a requirement to spend some amount of time soldering on a guitar on your lap while the amp's hot.

[Greg]

I have experimented with many types of HB pickups. I used to love the early SD Custom Customs but then I found these:

http://www.vanzandtpu.com/pickups.html

I must say they are really a fine pickup. They make every guitar I put them in just come to life. They are sweet and smooth with wonderful harmonics. They are now a LP Studio Swamp Ash and I cannot put the guitar down. I am thinking I will try them in my PRS Custom 22. They are truly the finest PU I have every heard...my two cents!

[Bob-I]

....old oil caps, simply because they are old.

Not all oil caps are old. The one I put in the LP Jr is brand new. I was quite surprised at how much better the instrument sounded over the film cap that was in there.