Need some P90 help

[LH575]

Hey all,

 

Heritage player here (555, 157, 575 on order), but this is a Gibson question - so beware! 

 

So I got a 1968 ES-125 from Ebay.  The guitar is in excellent shape - few dings, incredible action, great finish.

 

Problem is that is spent the last 25 years under a bed and never played.  The electronics are bad.  The P90 outputs about 20% of what it should.  So I am going to replace the electronics.

 

So my question - what P90 should I put in there?  I hear good things about Lollars.

 

I'm not looking for a high gain or pseudo-P90.  I'm looking for that authentic P90 sound.

 

Let me hear some opinions.

 

Did I say I'm not only a Heritage board poster, but I'm also a Heritage player. 

 

Thanks,

LH

[brentrocks]

i just bought a H 137 w/ Lollars and i am very impressed with them!!  from what i understand to buy the pickups outright they are quite expensive, but good ones are.

[Kazwell]

From all the reports, it sounds like Lollars are the standard when it comes to great sounding P-90s.

[GuitArtMan]

Ok, I have to ask.  Why is sitting under the bed a bad thing?  How would this make the electronics go bad?  Unless it was sitting in standing water, or needed a truss rod adjustment 20 years ago that was never done, sitting under the bed should keep the guitar in pristine condition - assuming it was in the case.

 

Anyway, Lollar makes a great P90.  Some say it's a little polite sounding when compared to the original Gword P90 and favor the Bare Knuckle P90s.  The Duncan Antiquity P90 is about as close as you will come to a 40 or 50 year old P90 in looks and sound.  All of the above are great.

[slider313]

Try spraying out the pots and checking you solder connections before giving up on that original pickup. If indeed it's weak, send it off to Lindy Fralin for a rewind. Lollars are one of the best sounding p90's I've heard. In all fairness, I have not heard the Duncan Antiquity p90 but Duncan can't be beat for quality and cost.

[cosmikdebriis]

Before changing the original pickups I'd be inclined to test them.

 

As you say you've lost output it could well be down to the pots or soldered joints. I suggest un soldering the pickup(s) and connect them (in turn) directly to an output jack, bypassing all other possible sources if signal loss. See if that makes a difference to the output.

 

Whilst the pickups are un soldered you can also use or borrow a multi meter and measure the impedance/resistance in the coils. Figures for expected resistance should be fairly easily available on the web somewhere.

 

Another advantage of doing this is that, should you sill decide to swap the pickups out, you could always sell the originals, with a fair appraisal of their condition. I should imagine they're worth a fair amount.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

[LH575]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

Why is it bad for a guitar to sit around and not be played?  Not sure.  I'd think it would be good as new.  Not this particular guitar though.

 

SO my guitar repair guy checked out the wiring and pots - all checks out.  It definitely the pickup.  We put it on a meter and it's not registering any resistance.  We think a wire might be broken.  It's a 1968 pickup so instead of getting  a new one, I'm going to have this one rewound.

 

I'm going to contact Lollar abouit it.

 

Turns out I have a Duncan P90 new in box for a guitar I was building but never finished.  So I'll have that in the meantime to play around with.

 

Thanks again!

 

LH 

[Cryoman]

I'm with the others on this... Please keep those vintage P-90 pickups in that guitar at all costs and have them checked out before deconstructing anything.  A 1/2 hour with an excellent guitar technician can diagnose why the output is so lame.  The cleaning of the potentiometers was a great idea and also the idea of a re-wind by someone who knows this work well (again as a last resort).  Fralin, Lollar, of course are excellent.  Curtis Novak is my favorite custom pickup man.  Best of luck with a great guitar. Report back when those vintage 90's are up and running again.

 

Cheers,  Cryoman

[cosmikdebriis]

So, if his pickups produce no meter reading across the coils (though he doesn't say if they've gone open or short circuit) then they will need to be re wound.

 

This begs the question, is a re wound pickup still a "vintage" pickup?

[111518]

Sorry if i'm hi-jacking this thread, but I think its important to reply to this point...

 

Why is it bad to leave guitars in closed cases for years?  There's a one word answer ... the same one word that Dustin Hoffman got as career advice in "The Graduate:" plastics.  The enemy is within....

 

The celluloid pickguards, tuning machine pegs, and, most troubling, binding, on almost all guitars are in a process of chemical decomposition, though at very different rates.  Almost all the keystone pegs on the klusons on 50s gibsons, for example, are crumbling or beginning to crumble.  Some older electrics are having particular problems with bindings --Grestch, pre-Kalamazoo Epiphones, etc.  Until recently, a large % of Martin flat-tops developed what is called "the pickguard crack," caused by a shrinking plastic pickguard glued so tightly to the top it pulled the wood with it until the wood cracked along the grain from the front edge of the guard to the front of the top. 

 

The common problem with gibson electrics is the pickguard, and the common lingo is "gassing out."  You'll begin to notice an oily film on the pickguard, but not only is the pickguard loosing its own resin, its also emitting gasses that will rapidly corrode the adjacent hardware, damage the enamel on pickup wire, and even eat into the nitro finish on the guitar and start to damage the wood on the top.  This happened to my '70 es 355 during a period when I was not playing.  By the time I did open the case, not only were there spots on the pickguard that felt like black slime, but the pickguard covers were badly corroded, and the finish --fortunately mostly under the pickguard-- was blackened and the top layer of the actual wood laminate was starting to split and separate.  I was pretty lucky in that I caught the problem before it had ruined the electronics, and the finish damage was mostly concealed by a new pickguard, though if you know its there you can see a blackened area that peeks out from beneath.  i have seen very nice blond gibson archtops from collections that have had major damage to the top, to hardware, to binding ...the case concentrates the gas and accelerates the damage ...sort of a chemical pressure cooker.  (Or like that fifties dodge car that had been buried by some city, and when they recently dug it up expecting a pristine museum piece they instead found a rusted hulk.)

 

It's sad to think that over the very long haul almost all the guitars we love and admire are going to suffer problems with their plastics, but it is going to happen.  This is part of why I'm not completely convinced there will be an ongoing international fascination with 20th C. American guitars as there has been with fine violins.  Are people in a hundred years going to feel the same way about great-grand dads 59 standard when all the binding and other plastic parts are replacements?

 

Anyway, this may have nothing at all to do with the problems on this es125 ... but it is something everyone should be aware of, and something that vintage dealers are not exactly advertising.  If you've got older collectable guitars, you need to check them regularly, and if the pickguards are gassing out, take them off and get them out of the case (once you see the process, the pickguard is pretty well doomed.)  There seems to be disagreement over whether there is anything effective to do to slow or prevent decomposition, but everyone seems to agree having guitars out in the air regularly is a good thing. 

[slider313]

So, if his pickups produce no meter reading across the coils (though he doesn't say if they've gone open or short circuit) then they will need to be re wound.

 

This begs the question, is a re wound pickup still a "vintage" pickup?

 

I've repaired a few strat pickups, with little or no output, by hitting the spot where the wire is soldered to the bobbin with a hot iron. Sometimes the solder joint is cold or was never making good contact from when the pickup came off the line. This could very well be the problem and it's something I would do before sending the pickup for a rewind. After doing this you should get a normal reading on the ohm meter. I believe a P90 should read about 12K-14K ohms

[LH575]

Update:

 

So I contacted Lollar.  Not going to happen, he's swamped with work.

 

So, I grabbed myself a glass of cheap whiskey, my soldering iron, solder, and the Duncan P90.  Finally got the courage after the 2nd drink.

 

An hour later, the guitar is singing, and I only have 2 iron burns on my fingers.    Maybe the Duncan isn't vintage, but whatever, I am very happy with the sound.

 

I worked with the old P90 for a bit.  I hit all the solder joints with the iron and make sure all the joints were sound, still nothing.  So I have still have the old pickup.  I'll get it rewound at some point, but for now, the Duncan does the job and an old beautiful guitar is finally being played after years under someone's bed.

 

Is this thread useless without pics? 

 

As for the pickguard (111518 - great post!), it's seen better days and has marked the finish underneath.  Time to replace.

 

Thanks all,

LH575