Pot Transplant...

No, the title is not talking about getting the tomatoes out.

For such a cool guitar, the Gibson Les Paul really has some issues. Earlier this year I wrote about having the fingerboard planed correctly (it was an issue all along, and not due to time or warping). Well, on Friday I performed surgery on my 1979 Custom and replaced the volume and tone pots, as well as the tone caps. Here is what things looked like before (note the anemic looking caps).


I replaced everything with the wiring kit from RS GuitarWorks. I just measured the pots and they were:
Volume: 327k ohms & 217 k ohms
Tone: 87k ohms & 91k ohms

Those tone pots were probably fine, but those Vol pots were replaced with 500k pots, a BIG improvement. Also, check out this stock photo of the kit - I sure hope those $15 caps were worth it! (Hovland musicaps, lol.)



The thing is, the sound is vastly improved. I never liked using the tone pots on this thing (anything less than 10 sounded muddy). The volume control was dark as well when that was rolled back. A lot of people that make this modification also change out the pickups, replace the bridge and maybe even the tailpiece. When someone asks "was it improved" they say "yes, but I cannot tell how much the improvement is from the new components, or the pickups, or..."

I only made the changes in the wiring this time. I can honestly say that this improvement is only matched by getting new pickups. The difference is that striking. The sound is clear at all levels, and the tone knobs are now fun to use for the first time (in 27 years!).

So, if you have a guitar with questionable componentry - may I suggest this upgrade.

Here's a cool picture with all the wiring removed. You can see the date (Jan 9, 1978) as well as the color scheme ("NATURAL"). It's not really rare or anything, but I have always liked the fact that this guitar has no fancy paint job on it. Just a clear finish (no flame or quilt-top either, just boring maple). Neck is maple too, and not mahogoney. (The guitar's serial number says that it was completed on January 11, 1979[!] in Nashville TN - so you can see that things moved quickly in that plant then.)



Oh, and if guitar talk bores you, here's a picture I took on the way to work. Yes, that is a purple toilet with flowers in it. The sign says RELAY FOR LIFE on it, but I thought they do that in September around here...



--gh