I've wanted one for awhile, and grabbed a donor Epi T-bird off of my local CL a few months ago for $100, with a hardshell case... I've actually enjoyed playing the Epi, after setting it up and tweaking it to my tastes - and have gigged it a little with great results... This has convinced me that the stock pups will work out just fine, as long as the neck change doesn't alter the tone drastically - we'll see...
I've been scouting for a Fender P neck since then - since the Epi neck was almost 1.7 at the nut, and one of my main players is a Highway One with a similar neck... I was pretty sure I was going to buy a MIM off of ebay for around $200, when my local CL came thru for me again: I picked up an '11 American Special P neck for $125 last sunday!!! This neck is like new, and I LOVE the profile - the only downside is that the tuners aren't very good - I think the seller scrounged them up from somewhere, and used the '11 tuners on a Warmoth neck he had - no biggie, considering... I'm leaning towards springing for some Hipshot HB7s for it - we'll see... I'm going to have a local NAPA mix up a can of seafoam green laquer, and spray the body myself - then put the Epi Goth stuff back on it until I decide what I want to end up with...
I'm taking it down to my luthier to have the body routed out for the neck - then, we'll get this party started!!! Here's some pics of what I have so far:
The Epi Goth neck will probably go on ebay - I sort of hate to part with it, since it's got great fretwork - but I really won't have a use for it once the body is routed out... Anyways, I'll update this thread as the build progresses...
- georgestrings
