Spent all day today in an update to an Epiphone Bass.

New pickups and machine heads.

There are a couple of problems to overcome.  Firstly the bridge pickup is much bigger than the existing hole, although the old pickup rings are longer so there may be some old holes and marks visible.

Second problem, the owner wants the pickup coils switchable between series and parallel, but there is nowhere to mount the switches.  I think I’m going to make a space under the scratchplate and mount them there.

I’ve marked out the areas I’m going to remove to make space for the pickups and switches.

Tidy up the edges a little and start fitting and wiring the new pickups..

So far so good.  I just want to move the bridge pickup a little, to hide as many of the marks from the old pickup as I can.

Having got the pickups done it’s time to look at the top end.  Fit a new set of machine heads.  It should be easy apart from the fact none of the screw holes line up!

Firstly then, plug all the old holes.  Once the glue is dry trim the wooden pegs and fit the new heads.

Making sure they are nicely lined up.

Hold them in place with tape and drill the new holes.  The old holes will be covered unfortunately there are a few marks from the old heads as they were slightly larger but I must say the black ones do look good….

Now that it’s all back together all I need to do is fit a new set of strings and complete a setup.  I’m not exactly sure how the owner likes the setup so I’ve gone as low as I can without any buzzing.

Looking good….