NGD: The Queen of Diamonds

[Space1999]

Here are some pics after I cleaned her up, restrung her, put my usually Graphtech bridge and tailpiece on and got everything working.

The back of the guitar was very hard to shoot. It’s like a mirror, I have never seen such a beautiful finish job. The neck is a light satin finish. The front is more of a glossy.

Enjoy!

 

[Space1999]

oh happy bday and I foresee you'll be great jedi knight great player . (saw the one with liam neeson over the weekend)

I don’t know it has taken me 49 years of playing to just not suck.

Pat

 

[Space1999]

Well I figured it was going to come down to this. I have never had an Epi that I haven’t had to level the frets somewhere. So instead of dragging my feet, I will be working tonight.

Everything lined up great except a few frets near the nut. Well that’s kinda why I like Epi’s to begin with. They end up becoming completely custom instruments by the time I get done fussing with them.

But I love all of them and they play exactly like I want them to with such great action and feel in the end.

You just can’t buy that off the rack. And at Epi’s price point I am not afraid to do alterations I would have to turn over to a tech otherwise just because the guitar is so expensive.

I’ll be whittling away.

Pat

 

[Noodling Guitars]

that’s a nice one you got there! I really like how you could see the wood grain on the back of your neck. Mine’s got this really heavy satin finish on it that just shows up as a very cloudy wine red.

 

[Space1999]

Finished with the frets. The first 5 needed to be brought down and then leveled with the rest, Part of it was the neck settling down. Dual truss rods always seem to yo-yo before they settle in when I change the strings to 11’s.

Happy to report everything has settled in just fine and I was able to get the same low action I have on my other Epi’s.

I am not that impressed with the graphite nut that came with the guitar totally and with its ability to stay in tune. So I ordered an ebony Tusq XL for a replacement.

Should be getting that in the mail in the next few days,

Got to put the Dunlop strap locks in and that should be it.

I will let you know my impression of the Gibson pickups once the playing field is level with my other Epi’s.

I found a beautiful Levy’s strap to go with the guitar.

 

[Space1999]

 

[Space1999]

Man, I really dodged a bullet with replacing the nut on my new guitar. I thought I had better Google how to properly remove a nut and stumbled onto Gibson’s official page about removing their nuts.

I learned that Gibson often time uses a fine detail line that bridges the binding and the paint job on the neck and headstock. As well they spray the nut with the final finish they use on the headstock further binding the nut with the paint job.

So if I were to go barging in and try to knock the nut off, I could take some paint from the guitar off with it on the headstock and on the sides!

Sure nuff my guitar was exactly as Gibson said it would be even though it is an Epiphone.

So Gibson recommended using an X-acto knife to score lightly around the nut on the sides and where the nut meets the head stock until it was free of the paint job.

Then lightly knock the nut on one side and then the other while bracing the nut on the neck side with a wood block till it was free of the glue. Then using pincers lift the nut off the guitar instead of sliding it out one side or the other.

Man I would have done everything wrong if I hadn’t read this article. What a major bummer that would have been.

So I got the Tusq XL in the mail today and it looks to be an exact match of the graphite nut Epiphone put on this guitar.

The graphite nut performed poorly keeping the guitar in tune and I suspect is robbing the guitar of tone as well.

I plan to take my time removing this nut! I’ll keep you posted…

Pat

 

[Noodling Guitars]

Man, I really dodged a bullet with replacing the nut on my new guitar. I thought I had better Google how to properly remove a nut and stumbled onto Gibson’s official page about removing their nuts.

I learned that Gibson often time uses a fine detail line that bridges the binding and the paint job on the neck and headstock. As well they spray the nut with the final finish they use on the headstock further binding the nut with the paint job.

So if I were to go barging in and try to knock the nut off, I could take some paint from the guitar off with it on the headstock and on the sides!

Sure nuff my guitar was exactly as Gibson said it would be even though it is an Epiphone.

So Gibson recommended using an X-acto knife to score lightly around the nut on the sides and where the nut meets the head stock until it was free of the paint job.

Then lightly knock the nut on one side and then the other while bracing the nut on the neck side with a wood block till it was free of the glue. Then using pincers lift the nut off the guitar instead of sliding it out one side or the other.

Man I would have done everything wrong if I hadn’t read this article. What a major bummer that would have been.

So I got the Tusq XL in the mail today and it looks to be an exact match of the graphite nut Epiphone put on this guitar.

The graphite nut performed poorly keeping the guitar in tune and I suspect is robbing the guitar of tone as well.

I plan to take my time removing this nut! I’ll keep you posted…

Pat

Glad you read that before you proceeded! Do you have a set of proper nut files? The off-the-shelf Tusqs need a bit of filing too sometimes - really depends on your strings, or else you basically end up with the same issues as the stock nut.

 

[syco]

Man, I really dodged a bullet with replacing the nut on my new guitar. I thought I had better Google how to properly remove a nut and stumbled onto Gibson’s official page about removing their nuts.

I learned that Gibson often time uses a fine detail line that bridges the binding and the paint job on the neck and headstock. As well they spray the nut with the final finish they use on the headstock further binding the nut with the paint job.

So if I were to go barging in and try to knock the nut off, I could take some paint from the guitar off with it on the headstock and on the sides!

Sure nuff my guitar was exactly as Gibson said it would be even though it is an Epiphone.

So Gibson recommended using an X-acto knife to score lightly around the nut on the sides and where the nut meets the head stock until it was free of the paint job.

Then lightly knock the nut on one side and then the other while bracing the nut on the neck side with a wood block till it was free of the glue. Then using pincers lift the nut off the guitar instead of sliding it out one side or the other.

Man I would have done everything wrong if I hadn’t read this article. What a major bummer that would have been.

So I got the Tusq XL in the mail today and it looks to be an exact match of the graphite nut Epiphone put on this guitar.

The graphite nut performed poorly keeping the guitar in tune and I suspect is robbing the guitar of tone as well.

I plan to take my time removing this nut! I’ll keep you posted…

Pat

Last 2 guitars I bought , both 59 Standards , IMO , had nuts cut too deep . Both "basically " fell out when I took the strings off , so it was easy to replace them . Replaced them with the TUSQ XL . Had to remove /lower /sand ( probably not saying this right ) a bit off bottom . I'm not sure what year your guitar is , but there is a "pre 2014" 6060 and " post 2014" 6061 . So make sure you ordered the right one .

 

[Space1999]

Last 2 guitars I bought , both 59 Standards , IMO , had nuts cut too deep . Both "basically " fell out when I took the strings off , so it was easy to replace them . Replaced them with the TUSQ XL . Had to remove /lower /sand ( probably not saying this right ) a bit off bottom . I'm not sure what year your guitar is , but there is a "pre 2014" 6060 and " post 2014" 6061 . So make sure you ordered the right one .

Thank you for the heads up. I ordered the nut from Sweetwater and they had them clearly tagged pre 2014 6060 and post 2014 6061.

I just don’t understand how one nut fits all the Epiphones post 2014 when Les Paul Customs have a wider neck. Come to think of it, the same bridge fits LPC’s and regular Les Pauls too.

Can someone explain that to me?

 

[Noodling Guitars]

Thank you for the heads up. I ordered the nut from Sweetwater and they had them clearly tagged pre 2014 6060 and post 2014 6061.

I just don’t understand how one nut fits all the Epiphones post 2014 when Les Paul Customs have a wider neck. Come to think of it, the same bridge fits LPC’s and regular Les Pauls too.

Can someone explain that to me?

Bridge is easy because the routing is the same to fit the standard metric tune-o-matics (only exception would be older Samick made ones, but that's a different story) . Nut depends - there might be situations where you can't just go by the "fits all Epi before/after X" description. Always should measure before buying.

 

[Space1999]

Well I thought about it and it stands to reason that the closer the nut is to the bridge the wider the neck would have to be since the nut is smaller than the bridge.

So I suppose it’s just how far the nut is from the bridge that determines how wide the neck is and I am sure they have the exact measurements for all that.

At least that’s how I imagine a regular nut and bridge fitting a wider neck and a standard neck.

This is clearly above my pay grade.

Pat

 

[Space1999]

Well I have decided to leave the graphite nut be for now. Basically, the biggest problem with this guitar is just hasn’t ever been played.

So, the strings were kinda sticky on the graphite nut at first, maybe because I am playing 11’s, but they have started to wear in and the guitar is staying in tune now.

The Tusq nut might give a more midrange pronounced sound but I have that nut on 2 other Les Pauls so I am willing to try something new.

Pat

 

[Noodling Guitars]

Well I have decided to leave the graphite nut be for now. Basically, the biggest problem with this guitar is just hasn’t ever been played.

So, the strings were kinda sticky on the graphite nut at first, maybe because I am playing 11’s, but they have started to wear in and the guitar is staying in tune now.

The Tusq nut might give a more midrange pronounced sound but I have that nut on 2 other Les Pauls so I am willing to try something new.

Pat

Maybe just take the extra string that was cut and use that as a makeshift file and file out the slots a bit to make sure the strings fit?

 

[Space1999]

Maybe just take the extra string that was cut and use that as a makeshift file and file out the slots a bit to make sure the strings fit?

I have some coated sanding wire that I use on sticky nuts and that solved the problem.

Pat

 

[Space1999]

Update on my Prophecy…

The Gibson pus are not only not what I want for this guitar, I couldn’t see putting them on any guitar.

The overwound bridge pu is nothing but highs and high mids with no growly mids or low end warmth at all. They sound like @$$ clean too.

The bridge pu is just too weak and doesn’t have any character/tone at all. What a weird pairing of pickups!

So I have a luthier here in town that winds his own pu’s and he is currently finishing up my P-93.

When he gets done with that I am going to have him wind a set of humbuckers for the Prophecy.

3 of my electrics have ProBuckers in them (which I love) and 1 has a set of AlnicoPros plus the newly wound P-90’s in the P-93, so I want a different sound for this guitar.

I can get them wound however I want with whatever magnets I want so I am wondering what you all think. What kind of pu would you put in the Prophecy?

Pat

 

[Noodling Guitars]

Update on my Prophecy…

The Gibson pus are not only not what I want for this guitar, I couldn’t see putting them on any guitar.

The overwound bridge pu is nothing but highs and high mids with no growly mids or low end warmth at all. They sound like @$$ clean too.

The bridge pu is just too weak and doesn’t have any character/tone at all. What a weird pairing of pickups!

So I have a luthier here in town that winds his own pu’s and he is currently finishing up my P-93.

When he gets done with that I am going to have him wind a set of humbuckers for the Prophecy.

3 of my electrics have ProBuckers in them (which I love) and 1 has a set of AlnicoPros plus the newly wound P-90’s in the P-93, so I want a different sound for this guitar.

I can get them wound however I want with whatever magnets I want so I am wondering what you all think. What kind of pu would you put in the Prophecy?

Pat

Now that you mentioned it... you know I just noticed that yours didn't come with dirty fingers!!
So I checked online and apparently by the time they switched to the 4 knob layout and block inlays, they installed 490R/498T on your model... I guess they were trying to go for the Jerry Cantrell vibe back in the day.

 

[Töñə ÇH@$əR]

Happy Monday ET fam. I have been searching Reverb for anything remotely interesting as far as an Epiphone goes. I wanted a new guitar for my 55th birthday today.

I had given up and was mindlessly checking through the new arrivals when I spotted a familiar guitar but in a deluxe custom package. I was floored!

It had been on Reverb for two hours when I bought her. Hardly played and with case $800. Exactly the limit I had set myself. Thanks God!!

So here is my yet to arrive …

Epiphone Les Paul Custom Prophecy Plus EX/GX

View attachment 18601

Gibson 498T and 490R pickups, pearl inlays (as opposed to the lightning bolts)
deluxe binding and a very old school custom logo instead of the metal logo that is standard on this model. Grover tuners.

If anyone else knows any more about this particular model please let me know. I am excited and I will keep you posted.

Pat

you did good pat...really goodand happy b-day

 

[Space1999]

Now that you mentioned it... you know I just noticed that yours didn't come with dirty fingers!!
So I checked online and apparently by the time they switched to the 4 knob layout and block inlays, they installed 490R/498T on your model... I guess they were trying to go for the Jerry Cantrell vibe back in the day.

I don’t know who’s sound they were going after…
Is there a band named “Absence of Tone”??!!


Pat

 

[Space1999]

Well I got this guitar back from the luthier’s today.

He put a pair of his hand-wound humbuckers with Alnico 5’s in. He did them scatter-wound like the first pair I got from him. They are intense to say the least.

Big strong bottom with a great hard mid sound and a pleasant upper mid.
The split coil is the best I have ever had. When the pu’s are split they sound just like a top shelf Strat. I don’t know how this guy does this, but I am not asking questions. Just take my money…please!

He also found out that the frets on the guitar where never glued down. Some did not even make contact with the neck! This explains the complaint I had that the guitar was not resonating when it was unplugged like all my good Epi’s do.

Finally he installed a Tusq plus nut instead of the graphite one that the guitar came with.

Now when I play the guitar unplugged it resonates wonderfully and that of course translates big time to the plugged in sound,

I am a happy camper today and very grateful.


Pat