Epiphone Les Paul Special 2 finish question

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
ric Thank You for all of the information pertaining to your refinishing of guitars. I have done extensive painting in structural steel, precision metal shops, autos and motorcycles as well as quiet a bit of wood finishing. I was just trying to find some solid information about the finishes on Epiphone imported guitars. If I just wanted a solid color I can buy the paint and take it down to one local body shop without setting up a complete paint booth for guitars.
This is not the only forum on which I have posted on this subject. The only stumbling block I keep running across is tradition, traditionally you just cannot do those things. By God that's not the way things are done. I guess you know what I am talking about since apparently you have struggled through similar things.

[Steve A.]

I cannot see why that bothers you so much. How could it possible be iffy to replace one bolt on neck with another bolt on neck of the same scale?

What is "iffy" was Epiphone's decision to replace the set neck in the original design of the Les Paul with a bolt-on neck, not your replacement of one bolt-on neck with another. The Les Paul has a thick, heavy body and IMO it needs a set neck with a tenon glued to the body for the optimum transmission of vibrations from the neck to the body. Just my own opinion...

Steve A.

[potatofarmer]

What is "iffy" was Epiphone's decision to replace the set neck in the original design of the Les Paul with a bolt-on neck, not your replacement of one bolt-on neck with another. The Les Paul has a thick, heavy body and IMO it needs a set neck with a tenon glued to the body for the optimum transmission of vibrations from the neck to the body. Just my own opinion...

Steve A.

Why, are you afraid the sustain... will increase? Lutherie Myth/Science: Neck Joint Type and Sustain


If you do decide to refinish, I gotta suggest a heat gun. I stripped an Ibanez RX20 with a poly finish with just a heat gun and a putty knife with the corners ground to round to minimize scratching. The poly comes off like popcorn. Lo and behold though, the guitar was plywood. I wanted to go for a mottled look, like worn in blue jeans, and the back went perfectly but the front took stain a little weirder. A couple coats of wipe-on poly and the body is noticeably thinner and more comfortable, though arguably as pretty as a bulldog with a goiter.

I have a friend who started doing the same thing with a Squier strat he got for close to free. His body turned out to look like a butcher block (his words) and he got so discouraged he threw it out.

On this one you at least have the maple top, so that'll probably look decent with a translucent finish. The sides and back though, I wouldn't be surprised to find 4+ pieces of mahogany that don't particularly match one another. But a solid color on the back and sides with a translucent finish on the top could look good.

[ric]

SpareRibs, I agree with PaulP's comments. He mentions a maple top and applying stains. My background is trim carpentry and I remember a church altar new build. The lead carpenter palm sanded the solid maple and it left tiny pigtails that the dark stain highlighted while barely darkening the rest of the surface...not good. Another painter I knew that was a wiz at wood finishing told me that would have been avoided with a coat of thinned sanding sealer before stain. Same with soft woods like pine to avoid stain being taken up unevenly and blotching.

Aren't these factory guitar finishes applied with the pigment in the finish? I believe furniture is made that way.

With your experience in painting, SpareRibs, seems like you're well positioned to take on this Epi LP Special. As my post above shows I just go ahead and mess with my stuff and see what happens. Amazingly I usually get fair to good results. I tried to find what finish is used on the guitar in question on the almighty Google, last evening and the most detailed description was "gloss".

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
I have about 5 sanders, 2 finish sanders 3.5 x 7.5", one of the palm sanders with a triangular pad that uses scotchbrite, an orbital sander (grinder that can be used with one of the rubber discs and stick on sanding discs), and a polisher for buffing automotive finishes.
I originally just wanted to use the scotchbrite pads to take the gloss off of the guitar and feather the edges of the black a bit. look on the MLP forum at (Dulling Poly Finished Guitars). The reason I am not worried about the edges is that the guitar is solid wood. I have had all of the covers off during the modifications and the wood is solid. On the Epiphone web site they are billed as such. Maybe at the time of their introduction that was the case. I do not know the age or country of origin for the modified guitar as I bought it off craigslist minus the neck and no neck plate which would have had the serial number.
The one I bought in 2006 is indeed plywood. I have tried to contact Epiphone to find out what years are solid and when they went to plywood. Up to this point they have not replied. However that fact is nicely covered as they are sold as a laminated body of mahogany/alder and maple. It may well be that they are the woods used in the construction but it doesn't tell you how it is laminated. Most people would assume it follows the Gibson method mahogany body with a maple cap.
Anyway Thank You to every one for all of your input.

[ric]

Hey, SpareRibs- I've had success deglossing several acoustics with scotchbrite, but only by hand. I doubt that would give you any grief. I wonder if the finish on your guitar holds the pigment. This is a guesstimate on my part, that the color's in the finish, so taking back the black leaves bare wood. So then it's spray a matching brown back to the black edge. That may be challenge. Well those are my thoughts on it for what it's worth.

[Paleo Pete]

I read the link above about sustain, pretty good article. I've played both plenty, and never really noticed a great difference. But I started thinking about that...

Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Robin Trower...all noted for getting some pretty good sustain, and all play(ed) almost exclusively Strats onstage. Gilmour uses other guitars for studio work, including a Les Paul on "Comfortably Numb", which surprised me but most of the onstage pictures and video I've seen had him playing a strat, and a very old Tele or Broadcaster on one song.

As far as acoustics go, my all time favorite acoustic was a Epiphone made around 1975 with a bolt on neck and zero fret. (stolen around 1988 or so) The one I have now is a Takamine G Series with Cedar soundboard, best bass response and sustain of any acoustic I've ever played. I've seen one Taylor and one Martin that could come close, and according to what I've been able to find out about cedar, it's the reason.

For a solid body electric, I don't have a preference. My Squier Strat (in my avatar picture) is the one I play most both onstage and at home doodling or practicing. The Cort CL1500 hollow body bolt on is probably second. I haven't noticed much difference in sustain but sound is definitely two different guitars...

As for your finish issue, that's really your choice, unless I intended it to be a project guitar to begin with I'd leave it alone. But that's me. But now you have some good info on what to look out for...

Also, I'm a trim carpenter too and have tinkered with woodworking for years. My brother taught me something from a picture framing class that I loved.. Get an old useless window pane and a glass cutter, and cut out some business card size rectangles. Try this on a scrap board to get the feel of it, you'll find it works great. Lean it forward, and scrape along the wood in the same direction as the grain, same as sanding. Never sand across the grain. Ditto for glass, never across the grain. It does as good as 320 grit sandpaper and leaves no dust, just fine shavings that don't fall or get pressed into into the pores of the wood. Lean it the opposite direction as using a wood chisel though, you're scraping, not cutting. And pull, don't push. Difficult to describe, but hold it in the hand with the top leaning in the direction you intend to move it, at a 45 degree angle or less, maybe more like 30.. It works great, we used it to finish up the oak on my mother's stairs, no sandpaper needed. Ever notice the ripples a planer leaves? Took them right out. For a guitar you'll need sandpaper for the rounded corners, that's about it, and you may want to give it a quick sanding by hand with 400 to 600 grit if you want a really smooth finish, but the glass will probably be enough.

But again, try it on a scrap piece first and get the feel of it, and with glass and sandpaper go only in the same direction as the grain of the wood, never across. I think you'll like the glass trick, I was skeptical until I tried it, 5 minutes and I absolutely loved it.

I also second a couple of ric's points, sanding sealer is sometimes invaluable, I think he also might be right in guessing that the pigment may be in the finish, which is what I was referring to in my first post, if you sand away the black you might be looking at bare wood. He said it better than I did, but same idea...

[John_H]

Leave it alone.
If you mess with it, it's going to backfire like crazy on you.

I agree with the wise man.^^
Trying to modify the finish the way you speak of would be impossible. I wouldn't touch it even with someone else's ten foot pole.

..I'm a trim carpenter too...

We're taking over!

[Steve A.]

I read the link above about sustain, pretty good article. I've played both plenty, and never really noticed a great difference. But I started thinking about that...

Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Robin Trower...all noted for getting some pretty good sustain, and all play(ed) almost exclusively Strats onstage. Gilmour uses other guitars for studio work, including a Les Paul on "Comfortably Numb", which surprised me but most of the onstage pictures and video I've seen had him playing a strat, and a very old Tele or Broadcaster on one song.

On stage with an amp cranked up I think that most guitars will have plenty of sustain. The LP has a very dense body made from mahogany so I think that it would be less effected by loud volumes on stage than a strat.

Steve

P.S. I was unable to find the full text of Mottola's “Sustain and Electric Guitar Neck Joint Type” article in American Lutherie #91, 2007, p. 52 (the link above is only for the abstract.) Was anybody able to find the full article?

BTW I do not understand the preoccupation with sustain in guitars (or the violin-like sound in a guitar amp!) I guess I have always been interested in a singing tone from my guitar and amp...

EDIT: I did find this on the Mottola site explaining his test rig and testing procedure...

An experiment was condicted to ascertain what effect the type of the neck joint of an electric guitar has on sustain. A test instrument was built using neck through construction. Audio recordings were made of this instrument using a uniform picking mechanism. The neck was sawed off and then attached with screws (bolt-on configuration) and audio recordings were again made in the same manner. The neck was then glued in place (set neck configuration) and allowed to dry, and audio recordings were again made. Spectrographic analysis was performed on these recordings and averaged sound clips were produced for listening evaluation. Sustain for each iteration of the instrument was measured. Listening evaluation did not indicate any difference in sustain among the three instrument iterations. Measured sustain values indicated that the bolt-on neck iteration produced the greatest sustain.

http://liutaiomottola.com/research/sustain.htm

I would really like to see pictures of this contraption in each of its 3 modes. This guy might know how to build guitars but he evidently doesn't know jack shit about playing an electric guitar. Do we pluck a string and then passively count the seconds that it sustains? Plucking the string is only the beginning of the note event- we might then apply vibrato or bend the string a little bit or a lot. How the guitar responds to all of this is what's important to me. I think that the neck and body need to communicate with each other well to get a good sound, whether it has a set neck or a bolt-on neck.

[Paleo Pete]

Do we pluck a string and then passively count the seconds that it sustains?

Don't think I've ever actually counted the seconds, but I usually do pluck a string, let it ring and leave it alone to see what the sustain of a guitar might be like, especially when looking to buy. But no vibrato or anything, just the guitar itself. An unplugged electric with no sustain probably will not do well plugged in, so I want to know if it has decent sustain to begin with. The biggest problem I've seen is with most pawn shop guitars you have to take rusty strings into consideration...that kills sustain in a big way...

Sorry to stray so far off topic...

[SpareRibs]

Hey, SpareRibs- I've had success deglossing several acoustics with scotchbrite, but only by hand. I doubt that would give you any grief. I wonder if the finish on your guitar holds the pigment. This is a guesstimate on my part, that the color's in the finish, so taking back the black leaves bare wood. So then it's spray a matching brown back to the black edge. That may be challenge. Well those are my thoughts on it for what it's worth.

Hello,
Looking at the guitar, I can see through the finish (where black is chipped) and the amber color is the first color covering the guitar completely before the black is applied. I have no doubt the color is in the finish as that would be probably be the most cost effective and fastest way for the application.
Everyone would have a different understanding of the finish if they had actually seen one of the guitars in person or held it in their hands. Right now it is like a group of blind men discussing an elephant.

[Steve A.]

Don't think I've ever actually counted the seconds, but I usually do pluck a string, let it ring and leave it alone to see what the sustain of a guitar might be like, especially when looking to buy. But no vibrato or anything, just the guitar itself.

That's how you will test to see if the guitar has inadequate sustain (definitely a deal breaker) but as they say "the proof is in the pudding"- how does the guitar respond to your playing? Both with and without an amp, and with different gain settings of an amp.
Going into a different off-topic diversion I don't give a lot of weight to YouTube demos of guitars and amps. The real test of a guitar or amp is how it responds to your own playing. Viewers may have a hard time discerning the differences in a YouTube shoot-out, which would be more apparent to the person playing the guitar.

Steve A.

P.S. Goggle "gibson les paul bolt-on neck" to get opinions on the few Gibson LP's that had a bolt-on neck.

[ric]

Hello,
Looking at the guitar, I can see through the finish (where black is chipped) and the amber color is the first color covering the guitar completely before the black is applied. I have no doubt the color is in the finish as that would be probably be the most cost effective and fastest way for the application.
Everyone would have a different understanding of the finish if they had actually seen one of the guitars in person or held it in their hands. Right now it is like a group of blind men discussing an elephant.

I see said the blind man to his deaf son as he picked up his hammer and saw. $-)

You asked for solid info on a finish and ended up with all our opinions....well what are you thinking? Give it a try? Not risk it? Let us know what you decide.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Yes ric I am going to start taking off the color off with a finish sander and the Scotchbrite pads. As it will be very slow going I can stop at any point. Worst case scenario I can just remove the entire finish and use acrylic lacquer to refinish it in three colors, amber, brown, and then black. There may also be a point where I can stop the removal and add some brown polyurethane between the black and amber to blend the two colors together making it look more like a traditional sunburst. At any rate it is just a piece of wood. How hard could it be ?

[ric]

Hi, SpareRibs-

I'd say you made the right choice. My definition of a pro is somebody that can deal with the problems, and there are always problems. If something isn't working out go over around or through it man. With your background this isn't learning how, it's keeping at it untill you get the result you want. Not what the guy down the street or anybody else wants. You may nail it right out of the chute. If not, that's what they make thinner for. Wear your respirator. When they'd tease me I told em: "last one in an oxygen tent wins".