I hear ya, that sounds like a lot of work. Can't wait to see the end result though. The korean Casino my friend/old bandmate always played sounded pretty good, but my experience with p90s is limited enough so I can imagine the pickups needing replacing. Seems the Gibson USA p90s are solid usually, and I hear a lot of good reviews about the Lollar P90s too.rexter wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 12:18 am
Thanks man! Yeah I forged ahead but it's probably going to be a little while before I hit it again now, have so many jobs piled up! It's definitely happening though.
The neck will need a bit of grain filler - and the body and sides just need sanding a little. Then some sealer, no grain fill needed for maple. Maybe three wet coats of sealer flatted back before the Pelham blue and then clear and tint coats. Lots of pesky binding to mask and scrape which is another reason these jobs get kind of pricey.
The original pickups aren't going anywhere near it when reassembled, they are really muddy. They read at about 12k each which explains why the sound so... meh.
The USA Riviera is a hard one for me to call. When I bought it I knew the body had been relacquered and assumed that meant with nitro but it definitely wasn't. The neck is super aged and worn with checking all over it and the body looked pristine and that 2k lacquer was never going to age or yellow.
Original plan was to give it a refin in its original blonde natural as these were the rarest colour in the 1993 epiphone Nashville collection from what I've read. I'd age the body to match the neck. This was my plan when I thought I'd have to sell it, but finances are much improved lately and I'm thinking of perhaps giving it a really nice burst - like this one...
Regarding the Riviera - if it was one of those rare blonde finishes to begin with, that's not a bad place to start for the sake of originality and considering how hard it is to find one of these (no less to find one in the UK). I am a sucker for those bursts though, and prefer something like that to the type of burst they were doing on those USA models at the time. Personally, if you were planning on keeping it, I'd go with the burst. It'll also visibly age a lot nicer than a blonde finish.