Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Syemon

Member
  • Posts

    6
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Personal Information

  • Location
    Manchester

Recent Profile Visitors

229 profile views

Syemon's Achievements

Rookie

Rookie (2/14)

7

Total Watts

  1. Epiphone Express Sg Special in factory worn black. Saw this on Facebook near me and paid £45 for it. It's a righty but being small and handy enough to have next to me when noodling around and also be a traveller I had to have it. Basic condition was decent but no string, missing a load of screws, odd knobs and a gouge in the fretboard 5th fret. Was messing with it into the early hours. Filled the gouge with superglue gel, then sanded flat. Removed nut and shimmed it so there was enough to recut for lefty. Dressed the frets, put a dpdt vol pot in and it splits both the humbuckers. Screws,knobs and screws I already had. Set it up with a low action, it intonated OK and the truss rod needed tweaking but I'm really happy with the result. It plays nice. Itvs bigger brother the Epiphone G-300 was one I picked up before xmas for £50. This one was in poor condition. Previous owner had tried to convert it to righty (I don't know either). The body was scratched all over, the pickguard looked like a woodpecker had gone mental on it, the jack out socket had been ripped out and put back back in what was left of the hole. The body was lightly wet sanded and machine polished. Not perfect but night and day to what it was. The pickguard was attacked with various grades until it was acceptable and left in a matt finish. Graphite nut fitted as well as two push pulls on the tone controls to split the humbucker. The jack out was sorted with a metal jack mount and is solid. Had to shim the neck and the usual truss rod, action and intonation. New knobs and truss rod cover and it's currently my favourite 6 string. I like stuff I can mess with and get use able again. Pic of it and it's new little brother.
  2. I considered this and if I had a router I'd have done the cavity but there's only so much chiselling I can do. Any more wood taken off and I'd be left with just the pickguard left😁. Thinking about the neck dive and balance of the guitar the righty routings allow for wood or heavier ballast to be used to shift the balance point to reduce the effects. Playing sat down the overall weight isn't as much an issue and it doesn't matter what I do with it because it's worth nothing to anyone but me anyway.
  3. Hi, thanks for the reply. Weight is definitely biased toward the neck but I play sitting down with the neck more upright than most so with the strap it's not too bad. Tone wise the P pickup is still the same and the strat single coil is bright as expected. The tone control can change that. In parallel mode the upper tones are very similar to the strat but you get get a nice fill-in from the P lower down. I spent a while tweaking the pickup heights last night to balance the outputs to levels that make them work together. The neck is surprisingly good, straight, level frets and after a light sanding is comfy and slick up and down. Between this and the J bass with the S1 switch I've got pretty much the tones I wanted. I've left enough space under the bridge pickup to be able to adapt to maybe a bass humbucker and do a split coil. No rush now as it works. I like little projects and might invest in a router further down the line and revisit this for some clean up and tweaks. So far it's cost around £25 to turn it into something I will use rather than the firewood it was.
  4. History of this is that it was bought around 15 years ago for £40 as something to mess with as I was just playing guitar back then. It's a 1980s Encore Coaster bass with the pointy headstock, plywood body and was a shoulder buster. Being a lefty and not wanting to spend much a cheap righty restrung with a new nut seemed the cheapest way. That's all that was done to it and it gathered dust in a corner. I bought a used unmarked Harley Benton JB for £70 and used that. I put an S1 switch on that for a bit more lows and was considering getting a PJ or a P to play with. Anyway plugged the Encore in and it sounded nice to my ears so a mini project was on the cards. The first incarnation was lopping the big horn off and shaping the contours a bit. Not really happy with the look. Try to disguise the fugliness with stickers? FAIL.. Put back in the corner to regroup my thoughts. It had to be done on the cheap or it wasn't worth it. So, a large sheet of pickguard, new nut, coping saw and a rattle can of gloss black it was time to begin. I had various bits in a box so a strat neck pickup and a couple of switches were to be added. Hammer, chisel and coping saw later the body was abused into this. Not pretty as I don't have a router but I cleaned up the cavities and the largest pickguard in the world would cover the righty routes. Next was the pickguard done with the coping saw and some sanding. I used some heat to relax the pickguard to follow the righty body contour. Next was a rattle can of gloss black to hide the fugly. Lightly sanded the fretboard and put a very light stain as it was too glossy and light then gave the headstock a little extra shape. Next I fitted the neck which needed a 1mm shim at the heel to get the angle I wanted, new nut fitted. I drilled the pickguard for the tone & vol pots and an extra two holes for neck/bridge pickup and the other for both pickups in parallel. It may change to a blend pot in the future but as I had a bag of switches from earlier tinkering it was in keeping with the low cost of this project. So it was time to assemble. It went OK but I had to reverse the polarity of the neck pickup as it was cancelling signal when in parallel mode. It is not a thing of beauty but the nut was filed, string height set, truss rod tweaked and intonated spot on. I'm happy with the result. It does what I need with my setup. Compared to all of the guitars on here it's still fugly but it's to me it's the equivalent of Susan Boyle. Ropey looking but sounds pretty good. Just waiting for a string retainer to align the A string better. Be kind, here for your close alternative for needles in your eyes is Subo 😁 Thanks for not flaming😁 I hope..
  5. I play lefty lefty guitar and lefty drum kit. Tried righty first but it was slow progress so flipped to lefty and off I went. Table tennis, badminton etc. play lefty. Two handed like golf and cricket play right handed. I'm right footed also. Going in a music store is always a bit of a downer as you know that maybe 90% of stuff on show is righty. Finding lefty stuff on show is like an egg hunt. It's got better in recent years but when I started playing in the mid 90s most stuff had the lefty tax on the rrp.
  6. Syemon

    Hello

    Hi, played lefty guitar for 25 years+ and flirted with bass now and then but as my cheapo 80's encore P copy bass was a righty converted it never really helped as it wasn't set up ideally. Anyway.. picked up lefty Harley Benton JB 4 months ago and love the thing and play most days. I play just for pleasure, I have an electronic drum kit(played for 5 years) going through a laptop with interface and monitors so the guitars go through that as well with modelling software, midi keyboards also go through it. Covid lockdown meant I spent most days playing some instrument of other. I work in electronics so tinker with my stuff with mods here and there. I've got into repairing and setting up guitars properly and come to a point that the 80's encore has been attacked with a coping saw, chisel and had a neck pickup added with the p. It's not a thing of beauty but it plays. It has the largest pickguard in the world to cover up the righty routings😁. Sorry for the long intro😯
×
×
  • Create New...