I'm not dogmatic on this stuff - and I'm very keen to hear that frozen fish guitar! If it sounds good I'll be happy to recommend that construction.

Wow, I bet it would wail (whale, geddit?). What tunas would it have? What would the scale length be...?

Cheers - C

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Can we order a Custom Shop Carpocaster?

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

I don' t have a fish guitar but I do have a very rare 1966 "Scuba-caster"

It's aluminum coated in vulcanized rubber body with some hot high pressure hydro-tympanic pickups and clear plexi neck.

The surf girls love it, most of them are really sharks.

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I remember when we were free!

Nitro or Poly ??

It should have a FISHMAN piezo , get it ? Fishman ?

What kind of steel there are numerous classes of steel? Look at the difference knives cost because of the steel used on them, but there all steel.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Funny to read about Les Paul bridges and tailpieces here....because just a few week ago I took the bridge and tail off my 1977 Gibson Custom and saw marked on the bottom of the bridge,"made in Germany"....and I thought "well I'll be damned"....and that's on a guitar I've owned since brand new that I thought was made entriely in the US of A.

Just occasionally I like to take a walk on the wild (non Fender) side and own a limited edition Les Paul Extreme by Epiphone. It's a standard LP construction - mahogany & maple cap, mahogany neck etc - but the finish is entirely black mother of pearlesque (basically a plastic veneer I guess - you see Strat pickguards made of the same stuff) with a matching scratchplate and chromed knobs. I saw it in a 2nd hand shop and was so intrigued by it that I just couldn't leave it there. It had had a hard life and needed the TLC I was prepared to give it.

The pickups - polished nickel plated cover jobs with the Epsilon symbol - were basically rockers, so they had to go (retained of course). Replaced them with serious kit Seymour Duncan JB neck & SD Seth Lover bridge pickups and rewired it with good cable and pots.

It's now a superb LP, but I feel it could have a little more top end. I think that plastic top may be compressing the tone or body resonance slightly. I have thought a Tone Pro Tune O Matic bridge might get another 5 - 7% top end out of it, so I was interested to read the comments here about LP hardware. I take the point, but I'm still undecided.

I'd put it up against most indifferent Gibsons (lets be honest - a great LP would smoke it) but the finish is so outrageously flashy it's a real love or loathe it job. After seeing some of his comments about pearlesque finishes, I know that Nikkininja at least, would hate it! I've never seen another one, not even on the net. Maybe thats just as well LOL..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Hi Oneal lane,I have 2 Epi Les Pauls and they both sustain and sound great with the standard hardware on them.Personally I wouldn't go to the added expense of getting a steel or aluminum bridge or tailpiece as they are comparable to a Gibson as is and I see no room for improvement on them.From what I've seen of a lot of Gibson's lately and the many troubles that a friend has had with his new Gbson Les Paul Custom the Epi is your best bet anyway.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Guits,

Thanks for your suggestion, it is the route I plan to take at this point. I really do love my EPI LP. At first I kept thinking I would never be quite staisfyed with it because it was not a "real" Gibson LP. But now I think of it as more like a MIM Strat, and their just great as far as I'm concerned.

I have a couple of stat projects to finish and after that need to quit tinkering and play more.

First, thanks to everyone for their imput and information.

OL

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I remember when we were free!

Like I said earlier, wish I had my Epi back. I was just as good as any contemporary LP I've played and better than a lot of contemporary LP's. Pups were great, set up out of the box wasn't bad and a little truss rod tweak here and saddle height adjustments there the thing played like butter.

People complain about the pots and switches. My old Epi is now going on 5 years of being played daily (guy who bought it plays it a LOT) and it still has the original pots and switches on it. They work fine.

Now, if you just like to tinker, well, by all means, keep up posted with the photos. You know we all love projects!!

Jeff

Well If I do anything it wil be with the alloy bridge. GFS has a chrome plated brass one with roller saddles for about $23.00 US. they are currently out of stock but I buy their strat stuff all the time and have never been dissapointed, other than that I am fine with the instrument as is.

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I remember when we were free!

I think the best Epi I owned was a Wilshire DX back in the early 1970s. But about 8 years ago I bought, just for fun, a honey burst flame-top Epi Les Paul. The first thing I did was replace all the wiring with Seymour Duncan pickups, new pots and caps. BUT.... then the brass ferrules for the bridge posts started to pull out and tip toward the neck! I was only using .10 strings and looked at that and thought, What the heck???? So I pulled then out and used super glue to set them back in place. The guitar played great but I just ended up selling it off on ePay. They are great guitars for the price, but I already has a couple other really nice older Gibsons, so I thought I would just stick with them. Never even looked to see where, or of what the bridge was made of, but then I would think Made in Korea or China would be on there somewhere..... Here is of the guitar next to my 1950s Gibson ES140.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

I love My Custom Plus, it is one of the early ones with a Rock Maple set net instead of Mahogany.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Found a picture of it on my old PC ~


http://img685.imageshack.us/i/epiphonegtr005.jpg

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Never had a problem with sustain from my 59 Les Paul Custom from the light metal bridge/tailpiece setup ( don't ask, I sold it in 93 ).
One thing that did help to improve the sustain was to rout the strings thru the tailpiece, ball ends facing the bridge, out towards the strap peg up and over the tailpiece.
Which was the method that was/is supposed to be used with that bridge tailpiece set up.
which replaced the trapezoid tailpiece on early Les Paul's.

Ok enough, back to Fender.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "