bluesfordan
Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2016
- Messages
- 23
- Reaction score
- 37
I have an Epiphone Joe Bonamassa '58 Black Beauty Les Paul Custom that I grabbed last year as soon as I heard they were out. Three pickups, ebony board, with a case? Oh, yeah, baby.
My main gripe with the guitar are the Epiphone Kolb logo style tuners they came with. I know they were trying to be true to Joe's real '58 which has Epiphone tuners. It was known to happen back in the day, so it is said.
As far as function, I think they work fine ... but the buttons do not fit in a peg winder due to their shape. Now, this may sound petty but if I want to be more vigilant about changing my strings (not one of my favorite activities) I need to be able to minimize the time and effort to do so. Furthermore, the shape of the buttons are painful to my fingers when I have to turn and turn and turn and turn, well, you get the picture. When I did a setup on the guitar and tried to intonate it, my fingers were about raw when I was done.
I bought a set of Grover 102-GV on advice from my salesrep at Sweetwater, who said they'd be a direct drop in replacement. Due to the holidays and then my subsequent case of Covid-19 infection, it was almost 2 months before I could finally get to attempting to replace the tuners. The stock screw holes from the Epiphone kolb logo tuners did NOT line up with the hole on the 102-GV.
As this guitar is probably going to be collectible someday, I do not want to do any irreversible mods to it. Patent drawings of Grovers show the center to center dimension of the tuner post and the screw hole to be 10.5mm. Try as I might, I can't find any patent drawing of these kolb logo Epiphone tuners to find out the center to center dimension.
You can not swap buttons from the Grovers to the Epiphone tuners, the shafts are completely different. Does anybody know where I can find the specs on the Epiphone Kolb logo tuners? Or better yet, a Grover rotomatic style that can drop in replace them without having to fill and/or drill new holes for the screw? I really got to get rid of these buttons in order to use this guitar to the fullest.
My main gripe with the guitar are the Epiphone Kolb logo style tuners they came with. I know they were trying to be true to Joe's real '58 which has Epiphone tuners. It was known to happen back in the day, so it is said.
As far as function, I think they work fine ... but the buttons do not fit in a peg winder due to their shape. Now, this may sound petty but if I want to be more vigilant about changing my strings (not one of my favorite activities) I need to be able to minimize the time and effort to do so. Furthermore, the shape of the buttons are painful to my fingers when I have to turn and turn and turn and turn, well, you get the picture. When I did a setup on the guitar and tried to intonate it, my fingers were about raw when I was done.
I bought a set of Grover 102-GV on advice from my salesrep at Sweetwater, who said they'd be a direct drop in replacement. Due to the holidays and then my subsequent case of Covid-19 infection, it was almost 2 months before I could finally get to attempting to replace the tuners. The stock screw holes from the Epiphone kolb logo tuners did NOT line up with the hole on the 102-GV.
As this guitar is probably going to be collectible someday, I do not want to do any irreversible mods to it. Patent drawings of Grovers show the center to center dimension of the tuner post and the screw hole to be 10.5mm. Try as I might, I can't find any patent drawing of these kolb logo Epiphone tuners to find out the center to center dimension.
You can not swap buttons from the Grovers to the Epiphone tuners, the shafts are completely different. Does anybody know where I can find the specs on the Epiphone Kolb logo tuners? Or better yet, a Grover rotomatic style that can drop in replace them without having to fill and/or drill new holes for the screw? I really got to get rid of these buttons in order to use this guitar to the fullest.