Epi Explorer gets a complete makeover

[ericsabbath]

I'm getting a new pickguard for mine but not that Hetfield 'St Anger' era look of the five-checker plate.  It will be the Dimebag diamond plate look, like this:



Great for blinding people Phil Lynott style  :lol:

please don't buy a mesa rectifier  8)

I always wanted to put a diamond plate in the washburn dime 333 I had, but couldn't find anyone that would cut a plate in the shape of the guitar (and it would get heavy as $%&#)
I like the cracked mirror plates too
acrylic mirror plates crack quite easily and look great

[Dave Sloven]

Ha ha, no danger of me buying a Mesa Recto.  They are really expensive in Australia and I don't like the sound much anyway.

I figured that with the black pickups with black bolts and then black pickup rings I would need something chromey to balance out the look with the chrome bridge, tuners, and tailpiece, hence the mirror pickguard.  The diamond plate is just a bit of a tribute to Dimebag and I thought it looked better than plain mirror.

[GuitarIv]

Agent Orange, I was actually referring to this baby:

http://www.cesaremattei.com/guitars/images/Gibson-Ex-1984.jpg

I see however how my post was misread, should have written "if only Gibson would release the 1984 Hetfield Style Explorer, the one without pickguard"  :lol:

[Dave Sloven]

That's a nice one!

[Dave Sloven]

I'm still waiting for the chrome grovers to arrive in the post - how can it take a week to go from Perth to Adelaide? - but in the meantime the pickguard arrived from Germany and the flat Triple Shots have been exchanged for archtop ones (I will sand the bottom of the bridge ring flat) to get the angle on the pickup. Here are some photos of them test-fitted.  I will make sure they fit and then wait for the bridge and tailpiece to arrive before taking it to Dr Guitar in Happy Valley to have these parts fitted.  The only stuff that has me worried is the Triple Shots and the new chrome studs into the body for the new bridge and tailpiece (I bought a full set from TonePros), but I can't fit the pickguard until then because the old pickup rings are oversized and do not fit with the new pickguard (the old one had been cut).  I've also put some of that foam that comes in the BKP boxes into the bottoms of the pickup cavities to reduce vibration/feedback







Might also be interesting for anyone who hasn't seen the underneath of a (long leg) Warpig, Aftermath, or Juggernaut

[Dave Sloven]

I followed this guy's advice (from this site):

Even though, for SG flat tops, they only come in short, non-angled, you can still use the tall angled version made for arch-top. It may not fit perfectly against the SG's flat top, but it still fits fine. There is just a little space under the center of the ring, which doesn't negatively affect anything, and you can't even see it.

However, if you want a perfect fit, it is very easy to take the tall, angled TS for arched top guitars and make the bottom flat to fit SG type guitars. Just hold some 150 grit sandpaper tightly on a flat suface (tabletop, workbench, etc) and rub the TS back and forth until the bottom is flat. Finish up with some 220 or 360 grit and you're done. Quick (about 2 minutes max), easy, NO additional cost or time waiting for Duncan to start manufacturing the correct ring.

Bad mistake.  He might have been lucky.  One slip-up with the cable under the triple shot touching the sandpaper and I destroyed the bridge triple shot.  Only $70 down the drain!!  These things are very flimsy.  Don't do this, even if you read that it's easy!  You can hardly see the damage in the next photo but believe me it's there.   Note the bit of red missing on the ribbon.



I'll now have to find a plain black pickup ring and use that, and only have a triple shot in the neck position (which is where I really needed it, anyway).  I also wouldn't recommend the triple shot in the bridge position because the switches sit very high and get in the way of your pick and hand.

On a more positive note, the TonePros bridge and tailpiece set and the chrome locking Grover tuners arrived today.  I installed the latter and then replaced the stock Epi bridge and tailpiece, and added the Dunlop Heavy Core strings to test them out.  Not sure if its the strings or the overall setup but nothing sounds right at the moment.  I'm just doing it for testing purposes at the moment and the guitar will soon go to the tech for the rest of the mods but I'm hoping I'll get it sounding at least as good as it did before the mods soon with some height tweaks.  On the positive side the volume bypass does make the guitar noticeably brighter when engaged, so that's working

It might be the case that I need better grounding for the shielding but I suspect the strings are a big part of the problem, and possibly the fact that the bridge has not been properly set up for the bigger strings.  I think I will switch to another set before taking it in for setup.  I don't like that heavy unwound G.

Here are some more photos:

[Adog2202]

Nice project! You can't go wrong the tripleshots! Also nice choice going all chrome. I never have liked gold hardware!

[Dave Sloven]

Nice project! You can't go wrong the tripleshots!

Cheers, but actually I did go wrong with the triple shots ... I managed to destroy the bridge one.  They are a very delicate design.  I'm hoping that after the neck one is installed it will hold up.  Other than that the project has been going well so far, although I'm not sure if I need to add some more ground wiring for the shield.  It's sounding a bit odd; if I can't get rid of that with the usual height adjustments etc I might have to remove the strings again and screw/solder in some more wires.  Other than that all that is left is the stuff that I have to get a tech to do, like installing those inserts in the body

The chrome hardware is going to make a huge difference visually.  I really like the look of the chrome tuners on the headstock now

[Dave Sloven]

Now I seem to be losing sound every now and then.  I wonder if a hot is touching shielding somewhere?  I'll have to pull the jack out and the pickguard off and have a look.  Some black electrical tape on the shielding where there might be contact would do the trick? If it's not that then maybe I have a loose wire or a faulty tone pot.  The guitar seems to go completely quiet when I turn the tone right down, which does not seem right. Hmmm

[Philly Q]

Now I seem to be losing sound every now and then.  I wonder if a hot is touching shielding somewhere?  I'll have to pull the jack out and the pickguard off and have a look. 

Did you shield the hole where the jack socket sits?  Sometimes the jack touches the shielding (but only when the cable's plugged in), and that cuts out the sound, I've seen it especially on Strats and Teles.  It seems to be best to just not bother shielding those parts.

[Dave Sloven]

Now I seem to be losing sound every now and then.  I wonder if a hot is touching shielding somewhere?  I'll have to pull the jack out and the pickguard off and have a look. 

Did you shield the hole where the jack socket sits?  Sometimes the jack touches the shielding (but only when the cable's plugged in), and that cuts out the sound, I've seen it especially on Strats and Teles.  It seems to be best to just not bother shielding those parts.

I did, but then I realized how tight a fit it was, so then I sanded away the shielding paint.  There might still be some there, so I'll try lining that opening with electrical tape

EDIT: I did line the selector switch cavity with tape near the switch itself, and ground away some more of the paint around the jack, and it seems to be working fine now.  Here are a couple more photos, one of the metal pickguard fitted (and strap button moved to the back of the neck), the other of the wiring diagram.  It has 500K volume pots that are bypassed when the push-push master tone pot is up. Also if you roll back any pot all the way you kill the sound.  With the bypass on you can still adjust the tone.  The closest thing I could think it might sound like is a set of Warpigs with 1mge volume pots and a 500K tone pot.

[GuitarIv]

That looks sweet, can't wait to see the finished result  :)

If I only had the time (and more money) I'd do a complete makeover to most of my babies as well, but the day will come! Haha ^^

[Dave Sloven]

The best thing will be the string changes with the locking studs on the bridge and tailpiece and the locking tuners.  I'm going to change out these strings for a D'Addario Medium Top/Heavy Bottom (11-52) set before its first jam with the new crust punk band I've joined this Sunday as the Heavy Core 12-54 set is too heavy for anything higher than C standard and we are tuning to D standard.  I've used an Ernie Ball Skinny Top/Heavy Bottom (10-52) set before, and I found it a little sloppy on the high strings in C#, so I'm hoping the D'Addario set will strike the right balance, especially when top-wrapped.  If so then I will have the guitar set up for them when I have the new bridge and tailpiece installed.  Like I said it should be a breeze when I don't have to worry about them falling off and I don't have to wind on the strings at the headstock

[pagan7]

Regarding the sheilding in the pickup cavities , I had a problem with this some years ago when I fitted my first ever set of BKP's into an Ibanez RG (Alnico NailBombs). Though they were certainly an improvement on the stock pups , they sounded really "boxy" and somewhat nuetered to what I was expecting and they had none of the NailBombs renowned "breathing" qualities and dynamics . I'd sheilded the cavities completely with copper foil and Tim advised me to remove this completely from the pup cavities and said that only single coils and unstacked P90s need sheilded pickup cavities to stop them being microphonic and feeding back too easily and that humbuckers don't need it , quite the reverse in fact , though he did say to leave the controls cavity sheilded and earthed . I removed the copper foil from the pickup cavities and what a transformation , everything I was hoping for from the NailBombs.
So if that great looking Explorer of yours doesn't sound how you'd hoped when you finish it , try unsheilding the pickup cavities. :)

[Dave Sloven]

A lot easier to do with foil than with paint!

I would need to use a grinder to get the paint out.  That or simply move the pickups into another guitar.

The main issue with shielding is usually a break in the ground between the pickup cavities and the control cavity.  This has not been an issue with mine so far, just because I was so thorough with the paint brush. If the shield is broken the pickup cavities can then become an aerial for noise rather than removing it.  You need to have continuity right from the pickup cavity walls to the output jack, which I have

It all seems to sound good so far, better than it did before I started the mods.  Most of this is due to the pots and harness, but the shielding does not seem to be hurting the sound as far as I can tell.