These Epiphones aren’t bad these days, some of the parts aren’t quite top flight but then that’s how they keep costs down.  One of the simplest upgrades are the pickups.

How about a set of Seymour Duncans.

If you’re going to change the pickups then it’s probably worth replacing the pots’ as well.  It might not improve the sound a great deal, but it’ll increase the reliability.

While I’m at it the holes for the backplate screws have all been stripped out.  The only real way to fix that is to drill them out and plug them.

Once the glue dries cut the tops flush and re-drill the holes.

The new pickups in place…

and the new pots’ wired in place, with two nice new Orange Drop tone caps’ as well.

New holes for the screws.

With the strings back I can properly assess the pickup heights.  It’s a starting point anyway.  the best way to assess that is to plug it in and listen to it.

There it is, ready to Rock ‘n’ Roll.

For all the other things I can do just check out www.guitar-george.co.uk