Epiphone Strat COpy (Update)

[Commodore 64]

Had a thread earlier (posted in the wrong forum) about my $45 Gibson Epiphone Strat...Turns out the body is laminate, and not mahogany. But I went ahead and upgraded it a little bit anyways,
since the volume pot was bad, and it was a good first foray into soldering and major surgery.

I got my GFS lipstick pickup and rewire kit, last week, so I went ahead and made my first major guitar surgery. The existing electronics included 500k pots...

The new kit included 250k pots, and they are much larger in size. Kit also included a PCB switch. I understand some folks don't like them,
but I didn't feel like unsoldering all the stuff from the old switch. Here's a side by side comparison of the parts...

I took this opportunity to install a GFS Tube Pro Neck Pickup and change my knobs to black.

And here is a pic of all my gear (except my other acoustic, a Yamaha FG-180):

 

[FrankenFretter]

Good job! How do you like the new pickup?

 

[Commodore 64]

Good job! How do you like the new pickup?

Couple things regarding the Pro-Tube PUP.

1. The cling film they used on it, to protect it following manufacture (I assume), was an absolute ***** to get off. It would not peel off. I had to scrape it with a plastic spatula type thing and use Goof Off. It was infuriatingly difficult to remove, and took me about 20 minutes.

2. When the switch is set to share the neck and middle PUP, it doesn't sound quite right. The volume level is way lower, and it just doesn't sound quite right. I don't know if this is a function of not having properly "matched" PUPs (is that even a possible issue?)

3. The Pro Tube PUP set screws are very, very long. After vacillating about whether to shorten (grind or cut) the screws, I ended up drilling some holes with a step drill and a drill press in the guitar body to accommodate the screw length.

4. Regarding the sound/tone of the Pro-Tube PUP, I'll have to play with it more. I'm not great judge of these things yet, but if you put a gun to my head and said I had to make an observation...I'd say that they stay cleaner longer than the PUP I replaced. Does that make sense? They stand up to a harder pick attack and higher volume setting on my Blackheart before distorting.

 

[Ch0jin]

Couple of things.

2. I had the exact same issue with a set of GFS NAL9 PU's I wanted to put in my Squier. I wanted the NAL9 SC's in neck and middle and a FAT PAT HB in the bridge. When I wired it all up using 500K Vol and 250K tones the HB sounded great, but the SC's were easily 1/4 of the volume, maybe less. I ended up using the original middle SC and an old Dimarzio stacked HB in the neck which works better for me. So yeah, I'd say mismatched PU's might be your issue.

3. I'd have cut the screws. Sounds like you did it the hard way

4. I'm sure the guys that know more about guitar setup can correct me, but I think your observation makes sense. Sounds like the new PU is slightly "cooler" that the previous one. Have you tried playing with the PU hight?

 

[Commodore 64]

So I took the guitar over to a friend, longtime blues musician.

He played around with it. This guy has a great ear. I thought I had set the intonation (i used a tuner), but it was definitely off. The guitar kept coming slightly out of tune. I had put new strings on the day before, at fist he thought they might be stretching...but later he felt that that there was something strange going on.

So now I'm wondering if I need new tuners too, heh.

 

[SuperSwede]

That guitar looks so d*** cool now.. how about a couple of clips?

 

[Commodore 64]

The g-string refuses to stay in tune, and I don't think I can really play anything worth recording.

ALso, I finally got a digital multimeter. Is there a way to measure the Pot values, after it's already wired up? I wanted to provide some feedback requiring the quality of the GFS pots...

Edit: Just looked harder into the G-string. The tuner is busted, the thread shaft is broken, so the tuning peg is loose. Looks like a trip to local store is in order.

Also every time I remove a screw, it seems like the hole strips out. Kind of a PITA. SO far I have $45 in for the guitar, $15 in for the pots and switch, and $30 for the PUP. Might have to spring ~ 30 for tuners. :/

 

[Commodore 64]

OK, nabbed a new threaded bushing and some strap locks from the local store. G stays in tune now.

I just did the toothpick + glue trick in several screw holes. I think I'm on the road to recovery here.

 

[Ch0jin]

Looks like you answered most of you own questions

Not a great idea to measure pots in circuit. If you measure across the pot (from pin 1-3) you'll also be measuring the pickup resistance, so the value you see on your meter will actually be the resistance of the pot and the coil in parallel.

Quick example.

500K Volume pot
15K Pickup
Formula for parallel resistance 1/R=(1/R1)+(1/R2)

So if you measured across pin 1-3 of your Volume it'd read around 14.5K and you'd be all like "What The..?"

Don't sweat it on the PCB selector either. I had to file out the body a little to get it to fit, bit it's been working flawlessly in mine.

 

[Commodore 64]

Well, the G-String is still coming out of tune pretty quickly again. And to top that off, there's a crack in the finish of the body, near where the neck pocket is...I imagine that means the wood is cracked underneath.

I really like this guitar in my hands, but I'm starting to suspect that it's a pretty low quality instrument. Some of these Epi Strats may have been pretty good, perhaps this isn't one of them. I don't want to throw in the towel, but, man....this Xavier is looking pretty good:

 

[marnold]

Well, the G-String is still coming out of tune pretty quickly again. And to top that off, there's a crack in the finish of the body, near where the neck pocket is...I imagine that means the wood is cracked underneath.

Not necessarily. Finish cracking near the neck pocket is not uncommon at all. I would not necessarily take that as any sign of the underlying wood.

My guess is that G is binding at the nut. Take a sharp pencil and rub it back and forth in the slot and bunch to get a healthy deposit of graphite in there. That should help.

 

[SuperSwede]

Sounds like a grapthtec nut or similar would do miracles for that guitar..

 

[Commodore 64]

OK jsut briefly played around with again. It seems like every string drops out of tune by about the same amount. Does this still point to the nut? Heh bought this guitar to learn about tinkering...it's sure delivering the goods .

 

[Tig]

My guess is that G is binding at the nut. Take a sharp pencil and rub it back and forth in the slot and bunch to get a healthy deposit of graphite in there. That should help.

For the smaller diameter string cuts, I use a mechanical pencil since the lead fits in there easier.

 

[kiteman]

I have an Epi tele and yea, they're laminated body. I upgraded mine with GFS Lil Puncher modern vintage set and 1meg no load pots.

I glued the neck to the body and I can feel the guitar vibrate. Made it better.

 

[Ch0jin]

OK jsut briefly played around with again. It seems like every string drops out of tune by about the same amount. Does this still point to the nut? Heh bought this guitar to learn about tinkering...it's sure delivering the goods .

Every string dropping out of tune by the same amount. H'mmmm

Over what period of time are we talking about, and by how much?

All of my guitars will tend to change tune (on all strings, by a pretty similar amount) as a result of temperature and humidity changes as well as storage time and string stretch. Not to mention playing aggressively on new strings.

Maybe it's to do with your bridge/trem setup. Do you use the trem arm? Have you adjusted this at all, like added/removed springs, moved the claw screws etc? I'm just guessing though. I effectively locked mine down when I replaced the bridge so there's no floating going on and it hold's tune very well.

 

[Commodore 64]

The strings go flat by a small amount (a couple tick marks on my tuner) after I play it for about 5 minutes.

I did mess with the tremolo springs...I put .10s on there and the tremolo came way up, so I bought some trem springs and tried out different combos until I got the trem parallel with the guitar body. It's probably between 1/8 - 1/4" from the body of the guitar now.

There's no tremolo bar...so I don't go dive bombing or anything.

 

[ZMAN]

I have nine Strats and all of them are screwed right down. That makes them almost a hard tail. I like an extremely low action and it does keep the guitars in tune. The tuners could be the culprit, but I doubt it would be the nut.
A little bit of graphite would keep the strings from binding and going out of tune. Is there any movement on the neck at the joint? Also it could be the new strings. But hey, I have 2000 dollar guitars that need a tweek on the tuning during a playing session. Those electronic tuners are very precise, and when you think of the old way of tuning by ear with the E string the guitar is not off by a lot. I think you are correct in you assumption that it is what it is. You didn't pay a lot, and if you are smart you won't put a lot into it. Sometimes you just can't turn a frog into a prince. Also sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take it to a good tech. After you do a thousand guitars you get a knack for finding little overlooked issues that make a lot of difference. My guy charges 35 plus strings. Worth every nickle.

 

[Commodore 64]

Another update. I made some changes. EADG strings were super tight and pinched (in fact they didn't even fit in the nut slots unless you pressed really hard an "snapped" them in).

1. Put in more trem springs, enough to keep it planted down tight.
2. Bought some .11 strings (I had been using .10s)
3. Borrowed some tiny files, filed my nut.
4. I also rubbed a pencil all over it and got some graphite off up in the slots.

First impression...it's staying in tune!

 

[Ch0jin]

Glad to hear you got it sorted. 11's huh. I'm only running 10-46 on all my guitars.

 

[Commodore 64]

Glad to hear you got it sorted. 11's huh. I'm only running 10-46 on all my guitars.

I decided to try something different. I've only ever run .10s

 

[Commodore 64]

Played for a good 2 hours last night. I'm really digging the .11s and it is staying in tune well enough now.

Question: My volume pot doesn't seem to do a whole lot. Especially with a lot of gain or higher volume on my amp, turning down the volume pot all the way results in very little reduction in volume. It certainly doesn't go down to 0, like my Michael Kelly does. What gives?