1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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WhiskeyJack
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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awwyisss
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ido1957
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by ido1957 »

I just realized that the mod thread and tone thread are 2 different threads. Duh!
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

Haha maybe I should have the sound clips in here, but I wanted to get something into the Tone Thread.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by ido1957 »

No issues... it would be cool to have it all in one sticky but that's just my humble opinion for convenience. Leave it as is...:)
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by WhiteStrat »

Greg--I think I've mentioned this to you on some other forum once upon a time, but your clown burst is my dream guitar. It's the only one I feel is truly lacking in my collection. I've even got a couple local shop owners on the lookout for a 70's sunburst with cream trim. Yours is awesome, and I love seeing how you've tweaked it and made it even better--thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

And I really love the cream pickups--they totally complete the look (again, it's exactly what I would do!). And for the record, I'd tweak the hell out of mine too--they ain't for collecting. They're for playing!

Enjoy!
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

WhiteStrat wrote:Greg--I think I've mentioned this to you on some other forum once upon a time, but your clown burst is my dream guitar. It's the only one I feel is truly lacking in my collection. I've even got a couple local shop owners on the lookout for a 70's sunburst with cream trim. Yours is awesome, and I love seeing how you've tweaked it and made it even better--thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

And I really love the cream pickups--they totally complete the look (again, it's exactly what I would do!). And for the record, I'd tweak the hell out of mine too--they ain't for collecting. They're for playing!

Enjoy!
Thanks bud. :D

I definitely made it better! It's way better than it was. And yeah, it's for playing. I want to play it. Sure it has some value but I got it to play it.

I too love the "clownbursts" from that time period. I mean, obviously, I bought one. I know Les Paul purists scoff at them, but fuck those retards. I think they're cool as hell. They ooze 70s. I was actually looking for old Silverbursts-turned-green when I found this one and I just immediately loved it.

Mine didn't originally have white trim, to the best of my knowledge. 70s Standards and Deluxe Cherrybursts could be had stock with white trim, but Custom Cherrybursts came with black trim. And like all Customs, they had the gross gold hardware and pickup covers. Besides Ace Frehley's guitar, I've never seen a Custom Cherryburst with white trim. Someone converted mine somewhere along the line before I got it. And that's part of what caught my attention. I look at pics of guitars like mine with the original black trim, and I'm like, ugh no thanks. Cherryburst with white trim looks way better. I hope you find one! And if you do, re-wire that thing! :lol:

So I've decided to do one more mod, and this is a big one....new knobs. I hate these black reflector bell knobs now. They were great with the black pickups, but those pickups are gone now and the knobs are the only black bits left on the guitar and I'm not crazy about it. So tomorrow I will grab some clear gold speed-knobs. That'll look good. And speed knobs are easier to operate when standing.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

Man this is some bullshit. Both of my vol pots are broke already. Lol. All I was doing was popping the new knobs on and *snap* They both broke. The pot body separated from the twisty part. Fucking hell.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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You are kidding right?
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by ido1957 »

Damn - that sucks.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

WhiskeyJack wrote:You are kidding right?
Nope. The two vol pots both sprung. The bodies separated from the wiper part. That is some fucking bullshit. I already fired off a pissed off email to StewMac. But now my bad ass new old guitar is non-functional again.

The gold speed knobs look sharp on it though. Lol.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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How can that be? Are the knobs the right size spline?
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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That's shit.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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Bubba wrote:How can that be? Are the knobs the right size spline?
Yeah they're actual Gibson knobs. They slid right on the push/pulls no problem. I did everything right - a little grease on the shaft, support the backside, and when I applied the knob the shaft sort of like dipped into the pot body. On both pots. Then when I took my thumb off the back *pop* the whole pot came apart. I wasn't even pushing hard. The knob was barely on. I think it's just a bad batch, and just my luck, like everything else bad that ever happens to me, it happens on a fucking friday so nothing can be done till next week..

StewMac responded quickly and said they'd send me another set of pots, so good on them for reacting quickly. But now I gotta dig back into this fucker. I really wanted to wail on this bitch tonight at practice. :x :roll:
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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Greg_L wrote:
Bubba wrote:How can that be? Are the knobs the right size spline?
Yeah they're actual Gibson knobs. They slid right on the push/pulls no problem. I did everything right - a little grease on the shaft, support the backside, and when I applied the knob the shaft sort of like dipped into the pot body. On both pots. Then when I took my thumb off the back *pop* the whole pot came apart. I wasn't even pushing hard. The knob was barely on. I think it's just a bad batch, and just my luck, like everything else bad that ever happens to me, it happens on a fucking friday so nothing can be done till next week..

StewMac responded quickly and said they'd send me another set of pots, so good on them for reacting quickly. But now I gotta dig back into this fucker. I really wanted to wail on this bitch tonight at practice. :x :roll:
Dude--that sucks. If I were you, I wouldn't even want to deal with it anymore! In fact, if you send it to me, I'd be glad to take care of it for you. Who knows? I might even send it back someday...
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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Wow dude, that sucks....You know what today is though, right???
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Bubba »

Greg_L wrote:
Bubba wrote:How can that be? Are the knobs the right size spline?
Yeah they're actual Gibson knobs. They slid right on the push/pulls no problem. I did everything right - a little grease on the shaft, support the backside, and when I applied the knob the shaft sort of like dipped into the pot body. On both pots. Then when I took my thumb off the back *pop* the whole pot came apart. I wasn't even pushing hard. The knob was barely on. I think it's just a bad batch, and just my luck, like everything else bad that ever happens to me, it happens on a fucking friday so nothing can be done till next week..

StewMac responded quickly and said they'd send me another set of pots, so good on them for reacting quickly. But now I gotta dig back into this fucker. I really wanted to wail on this bitch tonight at practice. :x :roll:
That's a real bummer. But at least they took it on the chin.

While we're kind of on the subject of soldering, do you still use 60/40 rosin core solder? I have some rosin-free solder at work and it's shit.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

Bubba wrote: That's a real bummer. But at least they took it on the chin.

While we're kind of on the subject of soldering, do you still use 60/40 rosin core solder? I have some rosin-free solder at work and it's shit.
Yup. 60/40 rosin core. Man for the longest time I was using this ancient spool of God-only-knows solder from my grandpa's garage. It had to be like pure lead carcinogenic toxic mercury solder, but it was so awesome. It flowed so cleanly and easily.
Minerman wrote:Wow dude, that sucks....You know what today is though, right???
Damn, you're right. Friday the motherfucking 13th.
WhiteStrat wrote:
Dude--that sucks. If I were you, I wouldn't even want to deal with it anymore! In fact, if you send it to me, I'd be glad to take care of it for you. Who knows? I might even send it back someday...
Yuck yuck nice try! :D
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Roman »

What kind of pots???? CTS shouldn't do that.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

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Roman wrote:What kind of pots???? CTS shouldn't do that.
Well, unfortunately, they did.
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Re: 1978 Les Paul Custom pickup swap, and 50's style re-wire

Post by Greg_L »

StewMac is sending me new pots, and I also ordered more from amazon. Amazon should be here monday, so while it sucks, it's not that big a deal. Things break, material flaws happen, life goes on. I'm more pissed about having to go back in to de-solder/re-solder everything.
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