'Souping up' an Epiphone Special II

[AlexMC]

I mistakenly blew $150 on an Epiphone LP Special II last year... but due to the horrible tone and ineffectual pots I've never really played it.

 

What would be the best way to 'hot-rod' it so I can get some usuable Slash/AC-DC tones out of it?

 

I'm thinking new pickups (but which ones?), new pots (maybe push-pull for some new combinations) and switch, and a good shielding job inside the control cavities... anything else worth doing? New nut? New tuners?

 

Or just eBay the damn thing for $75?

[cokekolev]

Get a set of gfs fat paf's and some of their electronics

[guitarcapo]

There was one particular color of the Epiphone LP Special II...the candy apple red /Indonesian one...that was made from solid wood instead of plywood. I snapped one up a while ago and love it. The body was made out of some Asian mahogany....perfectly straight grain and 2 piece.

Anyway I swapped out the tuners for some nice Klusens I pulled from a Gibson Les Paul Studio. Swapped out the pickups for some Schaller humbuckers that came out of a Heritage 575. Swapped out the black hardware for chrome from parts lying around. I never did anything fancier with the wiring but I love the guitar's tone now. Slight mid hump and great for gigging without worrying about beating it up.

One day I plan on stripping off the poly and refinishing it but for now I'm just playing it.

 

As for pickups to replace it....I'd recommend a Duncan Seth Lover at the maybe a Burstbucker 3 for the bridge.

[BuckyB]

I had one of these for awhile and didn't play it too much until I started upgrading it. My whole philosophy was to keep in mind that it was a $150 guitar, so I kept my upgrades inline with the price level. I tried a set of $25 EMG Select p/u's and really liked them. I also put on a set of Gotoh vintage-style keystone tuners, straplocks, a push-pull tone control to split both p/u's and a few minor cosmetic items. After tweaking the truss rod and bridge, I had a very nice playing and sounding little axe. I don't think it makes sense to put $160 worth of Duncans on a $150 guitar, but some carefully-chosen "budget" upgrades can make a HUGE difference on an otherwise uninspiring instrument.

[ShadowSong]

by "ineffectual" what do you mean?

 

I'm guessing you have those really cheap tone pots that don't do anything until the very last part of the turn and then go all the way instead of gradually rolling back the high end. I very rarely use my tone knob so i never care about this.

 

GFS pickups are halariously good for the money.

http://store.guitarfetish.com/humbuckers.html

 

They also have pots and stuff too. I ordered a prewired pickguard to soup up a squier strat and I can't tell you how nice it is. The pots are the big nice ones like what comes in american strat and the pickups all have great tone. very comparable with my american strat.

[stype]

I own two of these and they make great project guitars. The first one has replaced pickups and a neck from an old japanese 335 clone. Its my main solid-body dual humbucker guitar. I bought another last year, the special edition one with the zebra pickups. Also replaced the pickups on it, but the big thing I did was remove the frets. It was a great starter for a fretless guitar project. Fret-work is usually poor on these cheap guitars but that really doesn't matter at all if you rip them out and sand it down smooth. The fretless currently has jazz flatwound 13's and is my main slide guitar. I have one more mod planned for it...I'm going to screw a piece of diamond plate aluminum to the front to make it look pretty bad-ass.

[AlexMC]

Some great ideas... thanks, folks. I'll look for some used pickups on eBay and grab a new switch & pots from Allparts. I'm getting some shielding paint/tape anyway for another guitar so can give it a good shielding job. The chunk of wood it's made from is quite pretty... cherry red sunburst with a nice grain visible through the yellow varnish, and the neck is pretty straight and well-finished, too.