It Has Returned to Me + Mods!

[Clifdawg]

So, I mentioned a while back that I gave a friend my white '66 G400 Pro because he had fallen on hard times and was putting his Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul up for sale. Well, he decided after some time that he wanted to keep the Gibson, and despite my telling him that he was free to keep the G400, he gave it back to me. So now, after some TLC, I've got it set up as a real player.

I also just recently sold an old cell phone, so I used the money to order a new wiring harness as well as some black GFS Mean 90 humbucker-sized P90s, as well as a blank white pearloid pickguard to cut out in the shape of the full batwing to replace the black batwing. Thanks to the Frank Montag SG Maker flash app, I was able to mock up this guitar with the planned mods:

More pics to follow as it gets built! Parts are set to arrive Monday. Glad to have this one back in the stable.

 

[Col Mustard]

That one ought to rip...
I've had a lot of fun with the "make yer dream guitar" app too.
Good clean fantasy fun, and you don't have to sell yer Les Paul to
afford it.

Epiphones are like that too. I usually hedge and make cautionary comments
when guys come aboard saying: "Here's my new SG '61 RI, and I'm going to
mod it right away with __________________ (some aftermarket p'ups) and
new tuners and bridge, and a bigsby etc etc etc... Because I believe the '61
is already one of the best there is, so why degrade it?

But Epiphone guitars respond really well to mod fever, and you can have lots
of smokey fun with one, and end up with something that will rock peoples' sox off.
That's what I like. I designed a very cool fantasy SG with the Montag program
which came out like this:

And then I ended up with an Epiphone ES-339 P-90 pro, and modded it until it came out
like this:

This guitar does lots of what I wanted, and looks and feels great, and didn't cost thousands
like my spalted maple semi hollow ebony fretboard inlaid with vines and flowers SG would have.

So now we all would like to watch over your shoulder as you complete your SG
project. I really like that BW pick guard on a white guitar.

 

[Clifdawg]

Beautiful 339 P90 Pro. If I ever invested in another guitar, it would probably be a semi-hollow like that... Although I won't do that for some time, since I would like to stay married.

Stay tuned! The pickups are supposed to arrive tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Clifdawg]

Got the Mean 90s and the GFS Kwikplug wiring harness (yeah, it's cheating, but I don't know how to solder). Put them in with the black pickguard, and they look really sharp. Can't wait to cut out the new white pearloid pickguard.

Pic by itself:

And with (most of) the rest of the stable:

I didn't realize until I got to working with them that the pickups are totally unmarked, so I have no idea which is the neck and which is the bridge. I'm willing to bet I got them swapped because despite a large difference in pickup height, they roughly have the same output as installed. I'll try to confirm with a voltimeter when I get down to cutting the pickguard and swap if need be.

Only got the chance to run it through the Blackstar (sleeping baby and all), but it sounds great through that. Next to the Gibson and it's absurdly hot firebird-ish pickups, the Mean 90s have less output and a smoother attack, although ironically it gave the Epiphone a similar tone profile to the Gibson. Still raunchy with some OD, but a little more forgiving, just not quite as white-hot as the Gibson's mini-hums. Looking forward to putting it through the Katana at volume soon and see what they really do squeaky clean and with some really hot OD kicked in.