Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II Upgrades

[Cunamara]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this forum (amazing BTW) and I'm very glad I found a thread like this one. I own A left-handed version of the Joe Pass Emperor II, bought more than 20 years ago (sunburst, not that it's important). Although my guitar hasn't been played in a decade, mainly because I play in a rock band, I recently plugged it in and as you may have guessed, it didn't go well...tone and volume knobs produce a horrific oxidized sound, the pickup switch is almost dead (only neck pickup position produces sound) and the overall condition isn't that great.

I've contacted a guitar tech I know well and he told me that it would cost almost the residual value of the guitar (400-500€ according to him) to repair it and didn't want to, I quote, 'steal money from me'.

I really want to revive this guitar and I think I can do it myself, or at least try. My main problem is I really don't know which parts (obviously not the Epiphone original ones, because they were crap since the beginning) to change and what brand and product would fit.

Let's say I just want to change the pickup selector for starters: where do I begin? Are there replacement parts for this guitar still available (again, NOT Ephiphone original)? I'm kind of a newbie regarding electronics, but I have a friend who can help me.

Thank you very much!

The very first thing I would recommend is getting a can of spray electrical contact cleaner, such as DeOxit. Squirt some of that into the switch, the potentiometers, the jack. Spin the knobs, work the switch back-and-forth, plug and unplug the jack a bunch of times. That may clean up a lot of your problems simply, quickly and easily. Most likely during the 10 year hiatus, the copper contact surfaces just tarnished. The cleaner and actuating them will clean that off.

If that doesn't fix it, then you may be in for replacing the switch, potentiometers and capacitors, output jack, etc. That's really not all that difficult; you can buy a premade harness. The challenge is getting the darn things in and out of the guitar, since there's no hatch on the back of these things. You've only got the F holes and pickup openings to work through. You can find a number of videos on YouTube showing different ways to do this, usually tying some string to all of the electrical components before they removed, swapping that over to the new components, and using the string to pull them back into place in their respective holes. Sometimes those pickups were the Epiphone replication of the Gibson Classic 57 pickup, and aren't bad pickups themselves. There are many excellent replacement options, including the Gibson Classic 57 and the Seymour Duncan Seth Lover, both of which are readily available, among other excellent options.

The unfortunate economic truth is that it's a $500 guitar and fixing all of these things will leave you with a $500 guitar, not getting back the couple hundred bucks worth of pickups and parts that you'll put into it. However, personally, I would go ahead and do that because I would intend to be using the instrument and getting that value out of it that way- not from resale value.

[StefanoGhirardo]

Hi Alwallace, welcome! To be able to evaluate whether you like the sound of your guitar or whether it needs improvement you should hear it. Scratchy potentiometers or switches can be treated with a dry electrical contact cleaner. The ideal would be to spray it into the potentiometer, which is almost impossible without disassembly and/or complicated acrobatics, but it also works if sprayed onto the potentiometer stem. You just have to remove the knob, protect the wood around it, spray the stem and at the same time rotate it several times in both directions. In many cases this operation, perhaps repeated, works. The same, without taking anything away, for the selector, making it move up and down while spraying (without overdoing it with the product).
If this operation makes the sound of the guitar listenable, you can decide whether to change something or whether you like it that way. Otherwise you will have to change potentiometers and selector and decide blindly (deafly? :-) whether to change the pickups too...

[alwallace]

I was away for a few days and didn't have a chance to check the forum until today: thank you very, very much to everybody for your kind replies and advices. It seems it can range from easy (contact spray) to horrendously complicated (change everything) ;-)

I'll try to deoxydize the potentiometers and see if the pickup switch is still working. I'll keep you posted! Thank you all again.

[sgosnell]

Deoxit might not fix the switch, because it probably won't actually get to the contacts. Repeated flipping of the toggle might bring it back, though. It depends on how much oxidation has developed. I've also seen switches which have been left in one position or the other develop bent contact arms, and thus no longer can make contact, even with no oxidation. The switch may need to be removed and rehabilitated, but that can be a lot of work. For replacing switches and control pots in hollow-body archtops, take a look at the StewMac here: Search - StewMac, then get a wire clothes hanger and make something similar. The StewMac tool works, but it's way too expensive for what you get. For a cheaper guitar like that, you need to minimize costs, and maximize learning opportunities. You can do the work yourself if you're of average ability, but it might take time and practice to learn all the ins and outs. The guitar is certainly repairable, and probably with only Deoxit and possibly some disassembly, and the cost should be minimal. I see no need to replace the pots or switch unless they're really badly corroded. Also clean the output jack, which probably has some oxidation.

[Doctor Jeff]

If the electronics are sketchy, just get a prewired harness from Stew Mac or GFS (cheaper) and call it a day.

I replaced the pots and switches with my former Epi JP, but it was kind of a kludge job. At the time I used old guitar strings to pull the knob posts through. More recently I used aquarium tubing, which worked better.

Nevertheless, the Epi JP is a GREAT base for modding. You can try out all kinds of cool stuff both electronic and cosmetic.

[sgosnell]

Tubing, dental floss, fishing line, soda straws, old guitar strings, etc can work, but are far from the best choice. IME the StewMac Helping Hand, or a home-made facsimile, which I use, is a far better choice, and does the job quickly and easily. It was a total eye-opener for me. The one other thing I sometimes use is a 1/4" plug, shaved down to be narrow enough to fit through the jack hole, to connect into the jack and pulled back through to get the jack into position. What I use for that is an old 3.5mm/1/4" adapter, with a spare audio cable inserted into the 3.5mm jack in the end. The Helping Hand works most of the time, but sometimes it's just easier to fish the jack into place using the plug. But for the pots, switch, and everything else, the Helping Hand makes replacing those a piece of cake.

[alwallace]

I was away for a few days and didn't have a chance to check the forum until today: thank you very, very much to everybody for your kind replies and advices. It seems it can range from easy (contact spray) to horrendously complicated (change everything) ;-)

I'll try to deoxydize the potentiometers and see if the pickup switch is still working. I'll keep you posted! Thank you all again.

Hello again,

I finally completed my restoration work, not perfect, but much better than original condition!



I used a smooth brush to remove all the sticky dust on the pickups and polished the body, changed the pickup switch, changed the knobs and cleaned the contacts, fitted new strings and corrected string height.

Thank you everyone for your inspiration and advices!

[Cunamara]

Well look at that! That turned out really nice. I like the new knobs, aesthetically speaking. Hoping that you have years of enjoyment with that guitar!