1965 Epiphone Olympic Special Electric Guitar
Update July 2018: I've now gone and edited this blog post twice and now I've completely updated it and rewritten it and reshot the photos again to reflect its current state. Enjoy...!
This guitar originally came to me as a customer repair job. Its body had been spray-painted a sickly orange and there was an old '80s-style humbucker in the bridge position with a Kleenex box lid rudely-cut as a "pickup surround" to hide a rudely-cut oversize pickup cavity. The only original parts on the guitar were the posts for the bridge, the pickguard, and bits of the controls. The tuners were a mixed-bag of Grover Rotomatics and the only original finish was the "California Coral" orange on the back of the neck and the black/clearcoat on the headstock.
Suffice to say, I stripped and refinished the body in natural satin (it has its share of still-remaining mild dings and scratches), leveled and dressed the frets, cleaned it up, wired-in and fit new pickups (at the time a humbucker hiding under a P90 cover at the bridge and a '60s Goldfoil at the neck), added new strap buttons, redid the wiring harness, and set it up. She played happily with her owner for a year and then he traded it to me earlier this year. I played it as-is for a month or so for local shows and then decided to spruce it up my way by adding a Lollar P90 at the neck (and cutting the body for it) and a Korean Alnico P90 of some sort (it sounds good) at the bridge. The tuners got swapped to Kluson-a-likes at the headstock and now she's purring pretty and much more like some lost Gibsonian family member. Needless to say, the Lollar sounds superb and snarly with just enough kerranginess.
The neck is straight, the frets have plenty of life to go, and it feels rockin' and is lightweight to boot. I removed the original whammy unit some time ago as I love the simple bridge/tail setup and the oomph it gives the guitar. Strings are currently 52w-12 but this is just as happy with 11s or 10s and for a short while I had 56w-13 with a wound G on it and the neck complied just fine.
Specs are: 24 5/8" scale, 1 5/8" nut width, 1 3/8" string spacing at the nut, 2" spacing at the bridge, 12 1/2" lower bout, 9 5/8" upper bout, and 1 3/16" side depth. Action is set to hair-under 3/32" E and 1/16" ADGBE at the 12th fret.
This guitar originally came to me as a customer repair job. Its body had been spray-painted a sickly orange and there was an old '80s-style humbucker in the bridge position with a Kleenex box lid rudely-cut as a "pickup surround" to hide a rudely-cut oversize pickup cavity. The only original parts on the guitar were the posts for the bridge, the pickguard, and bits of the controls. The tuners were a mixed-bag of Grover Rotomatics and the only original finish was the "California Coral" orange on the back of the neck and the black/clearcoat on the headstock.
Suffice to say, I stripped and refinished the body in natural satin (it has its share of still-remaining mild dings and scratches), leveled and dressed the frets, cleaned it up, wired-in and fit new pickups (at the time a humbucker hiding under a P90 cover at the bridge and a '60s Goldfoil at the neck), added new strap buttons, redid the wiring harness, and set it up. She played happily with her owner for a year and then he traded it to me earlier this year. I played it as-is for a month or so for local shows and then decided to spruce it up my way by adding a Lollar P90 at the neck (and cutting the body for it) and a Korean Alnico P90 of some sort (it sounds good) at the bridge. The tuners got swapped to Kluson-a-likes at the headstock and now she's purring pretty and much more like some lost Gibsonian family member. Needless to say, the Lollar sounds superb and snarly with just enough kerranginess.
The neck is straight, the frets have plenty of life to go, and it feels rockin' and is lightweight to boot. I removed the original whammy unit some time ago as I love the simple bridge/tail setup and the oomph it gives the guitar. Strings are currently 52w-12 but this is just as happy with 11s or 10s and for a short while I had 56w-13 with a wound G on it and the neck complied just fine.
Specs are: 24 5/8" scale, 1 5/8" nut width, 1 3/8" string spacing at the nut, 2" spacing at the bridge, 12 1/2" lower bout, 9 5/8" upper bout, and 1 3/16" side depth. Action is set to hair-under 3/32" E and 1/16" ADGBE at the 12th fret.
How about all that figured mahogany that got revealed in the refinish?
Ah, the nut and truss-rod cover are original, too.
The P90 "riser" hides most of the egregious hacking-up of the body but there's still a few chips poking-out from behind it around the edges. The bridge is some sort of worn-in aftermarket, compensated type.
J-bass knobs, I know -- but ya know what else? I like them.
The three holes are for the original whammy unit that would've been on here.
The figure is even crazier on the back.
At some point, some poor fool drilled right through the back under the pickup. Hence his/her doweled-in fills.
While the back of the headstock is repainted, the serial number was saved.
The back of the neck has its original, California Coral color with nitro finish. The neck has a nice, medium-depth round C/D shape which gives it a bigger feeling than the 1 5/8" nut width would suggest. I absolutely love this neck for playing up-and-down the neck chords all night.
An old, '80s Gibson hard case comes with it -- and it fits!
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