1941 Epiphone Coronet (Modded) Hollowbody Electric Guitar

September 16, 2020

1941 Epiphone Coronet (Modded) Hollowbody Electric Guitar

Woah there, buddy! That's not what a US-made Epiphone Coronet from the '40s looks like! Yep, yep, that's correct. This poor old archtop must have lived a rough life because it came here with a many-decades-old refinish-to-natural (from sunburst) job, big old side cracks and impact damage, no pickups or harness, extra holes in the top, and... and... decrepit-ness.

Its owner picked it up as a husk and was expecting it needing a full overhaul and that's just what it got. After fixing everything structural, we put in a new Gibson-style wiring harness and a pair of Artec-made, Alnico II-magnet P90 pickups. While this is all lower in budget it's high in quality and sound -- do you hear this lovely old box in the video? If that's not late-'40s/early-'50s swagger, I don't know what is. Alnico II mags bring down the overly-aggressive factor of P90s but still retain that warm, mids-forward, blushy feel to them when you get into "driven only when you dig-in" territory with your amp.

As you might expect, the Epiphone neck feels great -- these are 1 5/8" at the nut and have a "medium" heft to the cut -- and it plays like a hot-rod because I set it up and adjusted it to play nice with modern 46w-10 gauges with a plain G.

Just for kicks, Epiphone made this instrument with a flat top/back rather than arched. It's thick ply for the top/back but solid wood for the sides. There's even a big pine block glued-up under the bridge area on the top -- presumably to deaden it even a bit more to cut-down on feedback. But, folks -- it'll feedback if you get too close to that amp.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, much repair to damage along the sides and near the 3/4 position where the jack was previously installed, a new back panel install, cut/fit of two P90 pickups, a new wiring harness (3-way, 500k pots, 010 Mallory caps, endpin-style jack), recompensation of the bridge top and mod of the bridge itself, and a good setup. I put an endpin-style jack on so that the next time the cable gets snagged, the side doesn't blow-out (for the third or fourth time).

Setup notes: action is perfect with 1/16" height overall at the 12th fret, a straight neck, working truss rod, and it's strung with 46w-10 "normal" electric strings with a plain G.

Scale length: 25 1/2"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2 1/8"

Body length: 19 1/8"

Lower bout width: 15 1/4"

Side depth at endpin: 3 1/2"

Top wood: ply spruce

Back & sides wood: ply maple back, solid maple sides

Bracing type: tonebar w/centerblock

Fretboard: rosewood

Bridge: rosewood, adjustable

Neck feel: slim-medium C/soft V-shape, ~10" board radius

Neck wood: mahogany

Condition notes: refinished a long time back (so it still has cool finish cracks), a number of patched/repaired cracks to the treble side, and totally unoriginal wiring harness, pickups, and whatnot. It'd been drilled to have 5 holes in the top already, so I just used them for the new layout. The knobs are, of course, replacement as well.