On The Guitar Front

Last weekend I found a Gibson Maestro Epoch guitar in a pawnshop. It didn't cost much and I thought it might make a good project guitar. The pickups, dual humbuckers, sounded OK, the electronics were OK, and it looked a lot like a Les Paul Studio, but with top edge binding. It is very heavy, finished in black, has the Les Paul single cut-away and head stock shape, but a flat top and a bolt-on neck. The bolt-on neck does not bother me a bit. I've owned lots of Fenders. After living with this guitar for a while I decided it needed to have the higher frets leveled, and the primitive tailpiece/bridge needed to be replaced with another with individual bridge saddles. I ordered one from Stewart-MacDonald, based on the old Leo Quann BADASS bridge design. Yesterday I got a chance to do the work. I removed the old strings, removed the neck, leveled the frets by reseating them, installed the new bridge, re-assembled, and discovered that I would have to change the neck angle. No problem! A bolt-on neck can be shimmed. After re-stringing with medium light GHS strings, I set intonation. That's a tedious process. But the guitar frets true and can be intonated to a high degree of accuracy. The action is lower but I still have a problem at the 19th fret. It is just high enough to cause some buzzing on notes fretted at the 18th fret. I rarely play in that position and it only affects the 3rd through 6th strings. I'm going to live with it until I change strings. At that time I will hone the offending fret. I like the action now. Maybe after that little bit of extra fret work I'll be able to lower it a little more. This is a nice guitar now, sounds just as good as a Les Paul and it cost a heck of a lot less! I put on strings gauging 042 to 009, and that is probably too light. When I restring I'll use 046 to 010. That should be perfect.