Joseph Cooper

New electrics and pickups for my Joe Pass

I have just picked up a parcel from town………….

Inside, my especially designed, and made, new electrical assembly for my Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II, from Mojotone.

All looking in order, except the ground wire seems to be missing, so I will use the existing one in my guitar.

I will be adding to this post as the work progresses to fit the new assembly and pickups.

This is what we have in the box:

Seymour Duncan SH-2n Jazz Model Pickup Black (Neck) 1
Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Model Pickup Black  1
ES-335 3-Way Prewired Assembly 1
upcharge-23    Solderless Option
Mojotone Nickel Silver Humbucker Pickup Cover Gold 49.2mm (1.94”)    2
Mojotone Gold US Spec Top Hat Knob         4
Mojotone Humbucker Polepieces Gold / 6         2
Gibson Toggle Switch Cap Black         1

All the way from Mojotone, Burgaw, North Carolina, USA.

Wasted no time.

So, when the kids were in bed, I set to work.

I have never modified a guitar before, and it has left me with a tremendous feeling of achievement.

It took a lot of hours, and it is frustrating and nerve wracking work, at times I thought I was not going to make it.

The toughest part, was making the holes big enough for the new US assembly.

Stock Epiphone wiring

Once that problem was overcome, then came the feeding of all the giblets through the bridge pickup cavity.

Got all my strings in a tangle the first time, but had a cup of coffee and a good think, then redone it with a little more planning, and a little tweak here and there on the size of the holes, and there it was, done.

The solderless option my supplier had sorted for me worked fine.

Had to wait till this morning, when the wife had gone to work and kids were in dagis to plug the Joe Pass into my Valveking 112.

Wow, what a difference. The volume and tone knobs now actually do what they are supposed to do.

The Duncan Jazz sh-2 in the neck sounds great.

But the biggest shock for me (I play mostly blues and jazz oriented stuff), is the Duncan JB sh-4 in the bridge position. I hardly ever used the stock bridge, because it just didn’t do anything for me at all, but I am getting some lovely bluesy tones out of this new bridge pickup.

I have done it…, been planning this for a while and now I am over the moon…….:-)

I will now give the guitar a thorough set up and throw on new nut, then my total outlay on this second hand, Samick built, Joe Pass, with top quality wiring, and Duncan pickups, will be just a little over what a new Indonesian made Joe Pass would cost in Sweden.

I am well happy.

Tags: design, Epiphone, guitar, Joe Pass

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.