The Reason I havent been around much lately..
This is the reason why I've been away lately. Not the best photo since my phone camera pretty much sucks. I'll have to get some better shots of this thing soon.. people keep asking for them!
The guitar is a 1998 Epiphone Les Paul MIK (Made in Korea), and I named her "Jade".
I bought this guitar in 2000 while I was in Russia, and brought her home with me. It was love at first sight in the store.. I went straight for her!In 2003, I fell on some hard times, and sold her to a friend, with the promise that he wouldnt sell her to anyone else, and if I wanted her back, he would sell to me and only me.
Well, this spring I was really missing her, so I phoned him up and asked if he'd be willing to trade for my Ibanez Icx220 "Iceman" guitar. His enthusiastic reply was reassuring. I packed up the iceman and drove to his house.
When I got there, he pulled out Jade, and I had a little cry. Shortly after he bought her, she got dropped and broken. 2 tuning heads, the nut, and a nice chip from the backside of the body, right on the top edge. To top it off, he lost the bridge and the stop bar, as well as the new nut he purchased for her.
So I was left to decide.. do I trade a perfect condition, well setup, metal machine ibanez for the broken down, missing pieces, and filthy les paul?
OF COURSE! He offered to pay for the replacement of the missing pieces, so he owes me $125 for parts.. but I cant even imagine a dollar amount for the time I've spent lovingly rebuilding, cleaning, tweaking, and googling over this wonderful piece of hardware.
We all know the amount of work that goes into building something beautiful, and obsessing over every tiny detail, and I have to say that the work I've put into this guitar probably exceeds the time I've spent on all of my computers.
She plays like a dream, and sounds amazing. Wednesday night I took it to band practice at church, and floored everyone with the good looks and the incredible tone. All the other guitarists were lined up to try her out, and every one of them was ashamed of their own guitars after playing her. I think there'll be a few more Les Paul's at the rehearsal next week.
So let's talk mods!
I had to replace the missing parts anyways, so I decided to go with a graphite nut and saddles, since I've always had strings break in one of those two spots over the years. A new tune-o-matic bridge, and nice stainless tail stop rounded out the package. ($125)
I picked up a new knob to replace the missing one ($6 for one knob), and a new set of D'addario nickel lites ($8 ), and proceeded to tune, retune, adjust, tweak, and tune for 4 solid days.
I ended up top wrapping the strings for a bit more sustain/action/break protection, but I'm not sure I'll keep it that way.. time will tell. I'm also switching up to Pure Nickel 11's ($12 strings) next, and probably adjusting the neck a *bit* more, then raising the action at the bridge just a fraction.. that should help clear up a bit of buzz around the 8'th fret on the low strings.
Other than that, a quick pickup adjustment, and she's good to go! Plays and sounds amazing, even better than she looks! (Like I said.. the picture does it NO justice!)
We have other guitarists in here, post your main axe!
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Originally Posted by Luke122
