Are these Gibson P-90s?

[GlennW]

They don't look like the one I bought years ago. They have an extra keeper bar on the bottom.

They're supposed to be from a SG that's one or two years old.

[Spence]

I would say they are Gibson P90's but they have been dicked with.

[GlennW]

Dicked with is right...both dicked to death.

[Spence]

Dicked with is right...both dicked to death.

Send them to me Glenn and I'll put them right for you.

[David Schwab]

How do they sound?

[GlennW]

I appreciate it, but it won't be necessary. The VOM was set to the wrong scale. I'd checked some speakers and diodes and didn't reset the ohm scale to 20K. Silly me. The pickups both read 8.34K.

Yesterday I removed the extra keeper bars and tried to straighten the baseplates with a couple of cresent wrenches (adjustable spanners) and dripped some wax on the magnets before reinstalling the baseplates hoping to prevent squealing.

Had to take a chain saw file to the holes in the covers, glued the pickups to the covers with clear Permatex RTV, and made little suede support straps (not the leather spacers that can be seen) that run under the pickups and glued them to the dogear parts of the covers so the mounting screws go through them. That was the best way I could come up with to make the soapbar to dogear conversion. I also changed the caps to .047uF OD's since the harness was out of the guitar. That might have been a mistake, especially on the neck.

They sound a lot different than the Epi P-90s; the Epi neck pickup sounded too Stratish, the bridge was ok. Both Epis read about 8.25K. It's interesting how different they sound since they're so similar in other ways.

I have very little playing time on the new set up, but here are the Gibson soapbars in their new home, a '97 Epi Sorrento in Chevy Engine Orange.

[GlennW]

Changing the neck cap from .047 to .023 made a huge difference, for the good. It sounds a lot more like it did before. I think changing the caps made more difference than changing the pickups. I'll get back to it later.

[David Schwab]

They sound a lot different than the Epi P-90s; the Epi neck pickup sounded too Stratish

Thats how the P-90's sounded in my mid 60's Gibson ES-330TD. The 70's P-90's were wound hotter and had that midrange honk, but the older ones were clean and smooth sounding.

I rewound a 70's P-90 I had in a LP copy once to 60's specs and it sounded great at the neck. That nice hollow heck tone.