And the followup with the new signal chain and interface for the RC-30:
We traveled for 7 weeks this summer on a tour leading worship for camps and missions groups and I spent a lot of time in DADGAD tuning on my T5. From time to time I would need to go back to standard tuning for a song or two which required me to either retune, or play my acoustic which is a Dean Exotica Andes. Although I love that acoustic and have had many good years out of it (it was my first guitar) it just sounds and feels so bad compared to my T5 (when amplified). So I decided I needed another dual output guitar that played as easily as the T5, and still sounded as good. I considered buying another T5, but didn't have the money. I considered a Godin LGXT, but didn't have the money. I considered an Anderson Crowdster, but didn't have the money. It seemed that there was a common thread at work here. I started looking at lower budget guitars and decided that my options there were not only very limited, but the quality seemed lacking also. The Godin A6 crossed my mind, but I just didn't feel good about it.
Then I remembered my Epi G400 sitting at home and the L.R. Baggs T-Bridge I'd seen at Stewart MacDonald and I had my plan. The Epi was a used guitar I bought from the local mega music center. I had received a $100 gift card for credit card rewards, and they were asking $198 for it. It was used, well, more like pre-purchased, because it still had the factory plastic on the pick-guard and back electronics cover. I paid $114 and walked out feeling like I'd gotten a deal. I took it home and did a thorough setup on it. I took it to a gig and let my lead guitarist play it. He offered me $300. Over the course of a few months I had several different players offer me anywhere from $250-$500 for that little SG. It's my experience that Epiphones are great guitars for beginners and hobbyists, but every so often you run across one that's incredible. This was one of those guitars. So I decided to chop it up.
I started researching and found no information from anyone who had done a T-Bridge install on an SG, so I decided after I'd started the process that I would do a writeup myself. That's why the pictures start a little late in the process. Here we go:
In the case after leaving the store:
Next I removed the pick-guard, back electronics cover, bridge and knobs. The first volume knob was broken when I bought the guitar:
Removing the knobs is very straight forward and easy with the remover. Just slide the ring up, slip the tabs under the edge of the knob:
Slide the ring down:
The new bridge came with new threaded posts and threaded inserts for the body. I had assumed that one of a few things would be true: either the new T-Bridge would drop directly down over the old posts, the new threaded posts would be the same size and thread as the old threaded posts, or the inserts for the new posts would be the same size as the old inserts. None of these were true. The new posts were much smaller in diameter than the old ones, which prevented the T-Bridge from mounting on the old posts. The threads on the new treaded posts were tiny compared to the old ones, which prevented them from threading into the old threaded inserts in the body. The new Threaded inserts were tiny compared to the old, so if I had removed the old, I would have been left with very big holes and very small inserts. The instructions that were included were nothing more than a warning that the T-Bridge should only be installed by a trained professional and a wiring diagram for the summing board. I was pretty quickly at a loss until I noticed that the O.D. of the new threaded inserts was only slightly smaller than the I.D. of the old threaded inserts. I have no idea if it was designed this way or not, but I know I was faced with a decision. I could hammer the new inserts into the old ones and know there was no turning back, or go for a much more drastic approach and remove the old ones, fill the holes, drill new holes, then press the new inserts in. I went for the quick and risky option. (This whole process was before I had decided to chronicle the process, so I apologize for the lack of pictures.) They fit right in:
Closer detail:
It was now time to drill the hole for the wires from the piezo pickups in the T-Bridge. Each pickup has it's own wire, so there are 6 wires in total. I decided to drill the hole directly below the center of the bridge to minimize the visual impact of the new bridge and hopefully hide everything.
The posts were spaced at 2 15/16" between centers, which gave me a center of 1 15/32":
It's important to use the right tools on something like this. A bradpoint bit is a drill bit designed for use in wood. It has a sharp point (hence it's name), but it also has raised cutting edges to ensure sharp cutting surfaces for the wood fibers. A standard point tip drill bit is made for metal and though it will work for drilling wood, a brad point gives a straighter, cleaner hole:
After cutting through the finish and top veneer, I angled the bit towards the pickup cavity. A pretty steep angle is necessary to help the wires feed without kinking or too many sharp bends as they have very thin insulation:
Using my finger to show the approximate depth of the hole. I was actually slightly below the bottom edge of the pickup cavity at this point, but was already at the sharpest angle I could manage without having the hole show beyond the edge of the bridge:
I then drill from the inside of the pickup cavity out towards the hole I just drilled down from below the bridge and met the hole under the surface of the face:
Next I dressed the 6 wires through the hole 1 at a time until they were all 6 directed below the bridge and into the pickup cavity:
Next I routed the 6 acoustic pickups wires through the hole the magnetic pickup wire was wired into the main electronics cavity accessible from the back:
The view from the electronics cavity with all 6 Piezo wires routed:
Some views of the face of the guitar with the humbucker back in place and the bridge mounted:
Now it was time to start installing the volume knob for the acoustic bridge, and the jack. The T-Bridge kit comes with a stereo jack and wiring instruction for wiring both pickups through the stereo jack. I had two problems with this installation: 1st - I hate that the jack sticks out the front of an SG. I know it's the way they're made and the way that they're supposed to look, but I don't like it. 2nd - even though I could have used a stereo to dual mono cable my T5 is set up to use a dual mono cable and I don't want to have to switch cables to switch guitars, or convert the T5 to stereo jack since both it's electronics systems are active systems and use stereo jacks for switching on the electronics already. So I decided to just use the old hole from the jack for the volume pot that came with the T-Bridge and add two jacks on the bottom of the guitar using LP style jack plates. It was slightly more work this way, but it suited my needs better. First I needed to remove the jack and prep the hole for the pot:
The original jack and all it's simplicity:
The hole that was used for the jack, that will soon be used for the Volume pot for the T-Bridge:
The O.D. of the jack was slightly smaller than the O.D. of the volume pot, so I needed to drill it out:
Because there was an existing hole I used a standard tip 3/8" drill bit to enlarge the hole:
The bit measured slightly less than .375" which is 3/8", but because of the way a drill bit walks a little bit I knew it would be sufficiently sized for the volume pot:
I started with the bit as centered as it would get itself because of the taper on the tip. I started with the bit out of the hole to keep it from tearing up the finish any more than was necessary:
The hole after being drilled:
A test fit of the volume pot:
A detail of the finish right around the hole. I expected the brittle nature of the finish to have some tear out and fortunately it wasn't so much that the washer, nut, and knob wouldn't cover it:
If you'll notice the the new volume pot for the T-Bridge does not fit flush into the old depressed section for the jack:
I could have taken a chisel or dremel to the inside of the cavity and made it a little larger, but in order to preserve the looks of the flat black cavity and frankly because it was much easier I decided to take the pot itself to the shop and hit it with the belt sander to knock off the excess of the board that was hitting inside:
Here's what the pot looked after a touch on the belt sander:
Installed from the backside, and front:
And with the nut installed. Notice the finish tear out is already covered up:
Now the next step was strictly optional for me. The old jack was slightly taller than the other jacks that I had. I decided that to keep the protrusion on the outside of the jackplate to a minimum I would go with the new jacks for both the acoustic and electric. A detail of the differences in height:
These are the jackplates I ordered from Stewmac.com (Stewart MacDonald). They're made for Les Paul style guitars, but I hoped I'd be able to make them work on the SG:
A dry fit of the jack into the plate:
The plan was to drill a hole big enough for the entire jack to fit through and let the plate cover any imperfection, so I measure it and the jack was just slightly smaller than .750, which it 3/4":
This is the mockup of the two jacks made by placing the jackplates in position and marking their centers with a pencil:
This is a 3/4' brand point bit. It's hard to grasp the scale of it unless you look at the neck of the guitar that's also in the picture. It's a big chunk of steel and works fairly well, unfortunately, it's a little wild to use and has a tendency to walk a little bit. This is unacceptable on such a project requiring such precision:
Instead of the giant brad point, I went with a forstner bit. A forstner is useful for drilling into uneven surfaces or when you need a precise hole. It has a sharp center point to start and then sharp cutting edges all around the diameter. The straight surfaces help to hold it straight in the hole:
The next few pictures show the progress of drilling with a forstner. It's a messy ordeal. I did most of this project on my guitar bench instead of in the shop so I enlisted my oldest son to hold the shop vac and capture all the sawdust after a bit:
All that work and now the jack won't fit it. The sections of board keep it from fitting smoothly into the hole. Unfortunately you can't just grab the next size forstner and size it up like you can with a standard drill bit:
I could have sanded or filed out the interior of the hole until it was large enough, but I chose to go back to the belt sander:
It fit now, so I drilled the other hole:
And now I had a new problem. The contour fit on one of the jack plates, but the body of the SG was just too flat for the second jack. I could have just gone with it and left a little bit of a gap, but I wanted it to fit a little better:
I put the jack plate inside of the nearest magazine and them put it in the bench vise to flatten it out:
It took a few tires and a lot of force, bit I managed to get it flattened out enough. Here's a comparison to the other one. I forgot to take a picture from the other angle, but it sits flat on the contour now:
It was now time to solder everything in place before mounting the jack plates. The soldering included the summing board for the piezo wires, the volume pot, and both jacks. In order to protect the body of the guitar I used the box that it shipped in to cover it: and the summing board:
Setup for soldering with flux and solder:
The first wire soldered on the positive side:
The negative (shield) side of the first wire:
2 wires done:
4 wires done:
All 6 piezo wires done, plus the 7th which takes the summed signal to the pot:
I forgot to take a picture of the shielding process which involved covering all the contacts with an insulator, and then soldering a copper shield over the top. I then wrapped it all with electrical tape to keep the shielding on the wires (which was bare metal) from shorting any of the other connections in the electronics cavity:
The shield of the wire serves as the negative side, so it is soldered on to the casing of the pot, which will be joined with the rest of the ground signal in the electronics cavity:
The old lead wire from the electrics magnetic pickups is soldered on to the new jack:
The hot lead from the acoustic jack is attached to the far right terminal on the pot:
Each jack is dressed and ready to install in the jackplates. I chose to put the acoustic on the top jack (when holding the guitar to play) since my T5 is set up the same way:
Each jack (starting with the electric) is then held in place, predrilled, and screwed down. One corner is predrilled and then a screw is put in. The opposite corner is next with the same process. Finally the other two screws are predrilled and put in place. The process is repeated for the second jack plate:
The finished electronics cavity just needs to be dressed and closed up:
A couple pictures of the finished volume pot and jacks, as well as the bridge and overall project:
It still needed to be strung and setup. I have finished all of that process and I must say I am completely in love. With just a little bit of processing (either through my A2.1u, or now through my iRig Stomp and the Peavey AmpKit App) you can get very bright and clean acoustic tones from the T-Bridge. The knobs allow for on the fly blending of signals into two signals on a P.A. or into my board as I intend. I will post a follow up in the next few days with more pictures of the final setup as well as a video of the guitar in action. I hope this will serve as a help should you be looking to make your SG sound like a J200.
