NPD! (new pickups day)

[Timko]

Since I began playing guitar again 5 years ago, I've dreamed about owning a single coil hollow body.  As a big fan of Elliott Smith, I've gravitated to the ES-330. There's actually a cool sunburst vintage 330 on Craigslist in my area right now.  But I own one big hollow body (a '92 Gretsch Country Gentleman) and thought that I'd enjoy playing something a little smaller (I'm not tall, and the big body guitars can get awkward to position when standing).  And when Epiphone released the Johnny A Custom, I knew I had a guitar I could mod without cringing at wrecking a vintage or custom shop instrument.  I got this instrument in the fall of 2017, and when doing a setup to replace the nut the tech broke the freaking headstock .   I got a reasonable amount of money for the guitar plus the guitar back repaired and knew that it would be ripe for any projects I felt like trying.

As a fan of the Gretsch, I decided to go with their single coil pickup choice in the early 50s:  The Dynasonic Darmond.  I opted for the TV Jones T-Armond.  It's also the 2nd hollow body I've re-wired.  I swore after doing my Gretsch 5120 I'd never do another one.  Well, the Johnny A is 1.75 to 2 inches thick depending on the carve, which makes moving pots around even MORE difficult.

The harness is homemade with parts from StewMac (they're the only ones who sell gold things) and Mojotone.   I have knobs but I realized the knob pointers I had didn't fit the US size pots so they'll be here later this week.

The pickups are bright, sparkly, low power (as designed), and maybe the clearest thing I've used.  Someone had had the Dearmonds are like a Tele on steroids.  I don't think they are quite as spanky, but the definitely twang.  They have a depth that I've not had in a guitar before.  So far I've found them to be quite fantastic for fingerstyle.  I'll be breaking out the drive and fuzz tonight to see how they treat it.  It's a great addition to the family!

[dan.schumaker]

Oooh!  That's real pretty!

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Mojo Dijon... Lol

Sweet new axe!

[Timko]

Mojo Dijon... Lol

I actually built my first harness with Orange Drop caps (you can see them in the 3rd picture), but that one didn't use heat shrink and I had some grounding issues due to the tight space.  I bought some of the Dijon caps because they were super cheap from Mojotone and decided to throw them in.  I normally don't buy into capacitor mojo, but these things were $1.20 a piece (about the same price as Orange Drops), plus they look cool.  The yellow matches the guitar, and, in the end, guitar/cap color coordination is the most important .

It's also 50s wired for right now.  The bridge pickup may change to modern to help round out the bright tone, but I need to play it for a while before I make any changes.

[midwayfair]

Re the difficulty installing pots in these: You can drop pieces of string into the holes, then fish it out through the f hole or pickup hole or wherever. Then you tie it to the pot it's going on, and slip all the pots into the guitar. To get them above board you just tug on the strings.

[Timko]

Re the difficulty installing pots in these: You can drop pieces of string into the holes, then fish it out through the f hole or pickup hole or wherever. Then you tie it to the pot it's going on, and slip all the pots into the guitar. To get them above board you just tug on the strings.

I used wire to do this but used this technique to get them in.  The F holes are too small to take the pots through so everything went through the pickup cavities.  I've done a Gretsch 5120 rewire, but I could use tubing to get the pots to the holes.

The big difference with this one is the thickness.  A 330/335 is 2" and has enough room to shift the pots underneath up through the holes.  The Johnny A is a carved thinline, and along the edge the thickness is a hair under 1.75". That extra .25" made a lot of difference in terms of the ease  It took some work to get the harness in there but it finally worked.

I'm still giving this 50s wiring a try, but I may opt for a modern wiring on the bridge pickup to warm it up a little.