Couple electric tenor conversion projects

[Verne Andru]

Cruising through my local Craigslist I ran across a Les Paul PeeWee for cheap - $80. Specs say it's a 19" scale, which is why it caught my eye. Measures 9 7/8" from nut to 12th fret, putting it around 19 3/4". Fabulous neck with a working truss-rod. Takes a full size humbucker, which leaves it open to all sorts of possibilities. I'm thinking a high-gain active EMG but need to find a place for the battery. Body is an Alder/Mahogany ply, which is surprisingly heavy.

The plan, at this point, is to dress the frets on the PeeWee and see if I can't string it up FCGDAE. It currently has a set of 12's on it and a test tune got pretty close except for the high E. I'm going to try swapping out the 12 for a 10 or a 9 and see if that won't get me closer. Other alternative is to go BbFCGDA.

The fellow had the short-scale Strat-style he gave me for free saying it was a "project" needing strings. It measures 9 1/4" nut to 12, so it's an even shorter 18 1/2" scale. It doesn't have a truss-rod, but the neck is a nice piece of maple with a nice maple fingerboard. It's routed for just the one pickup ATM. Body appears to be a solid piece of poplar or pine.

On the Stat, I'm going to pull the frets, level the fingerboard [it's hills and valleys now], take a spoke-shaver to it and slim it down to a 4-string neck. The tuning machines are a 6-in-line set, so I'll pull them, plug the holes and re-drill for 4 machines. I'm thinking of routing the body for a neck pickup and a normal Strat jack-cup which should free up space on the pickguard for a couple more controls.

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Should keep me out of trouble for a while.

[Verne Andru]

I scored an EMG-85 pickup cheap off Craigslist which found its way into the PeeWee. Have tuning machines, a 25K stacked concentric pot [for vol/tone] and new bridge on order.

As it turns out PeeWee's are collectible in some circles, the Mickey Mouse version is going for $1,500 - $1,750 [https://www.justcollecting.com/musical-instruments/mickey-mouse-gibson-epiphone-les-paul-pee-wee-guitar]. No doubt the price is more reflective of Mickey's attachment than the instrument itself, but you never know so I've decided against making non-reversible mods such as cutting out the body for a battery.

Since I already have a couple guitar cables with stereo [TRS] at one end and two separate mono jacks [TS & RS] at the other, I've chosen to run the power through the guitar cable. I made an adapter allowing me to plug in a normal Boss adapter or a 9V battery clip into the RS-mono-jack. Works great.

Here's a shot comparing the PeeWee with a Fender 5-string emando through to Danelectro double with a 30" scale bass neck. For comparison, the big Strat is normal size.

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[Verne Andru]

So, I pulled the neck off the small-strat and this is what I discovered:

Sitting it down flat on a table, the headstock and neck heel are at slightly different angles. It looks like the heel was shaped so the treble side is higher than the bass. That accounts for why the neck appears to "twist" from heel to headstock.

To add even more complication, the neck pocket on the body [turns out to be a ply body] looks to have been worked on by hand with a chisel after the fact to get the neck to sit in the pocket, so it isn't square to the rest of the body, adding more tilt to the neck.

If that wasn't enough, it looks like whoever cut the fret slots did it after the fretboard was attached to the neck, and trimmed to size. Looks like they squared one edge of the neck to a miter box because all the frets are perfectly parallel to each other yet are angled slightly down from treble to bass side. As most of you may know, necks taper from heel to headstock, which looks to have escaped whoever built this thing.

My guess is the guitar was made by a carpenter, not a luthier, making this a lot more challenging than at first blush. I was going to do a refret after I leveled the board anyway, not it looks like I have to fill the old fret slots and recut them so they are square to the bridge.

Definitely a "project."

[Verne Andru]

Most of the giblets came in for the PeeWee so I spent my weekend putting things together and got my first chance to play it yesterday. This thing absolutely rocks!

Replaced the ceramic humbucker with an EMG-85, the bridge with the intoneable one and the tuning machines. Still waiting on the stacked 25K pots from EMG.

Strung it up, from high to low, .008, .011, .017, .030, .046, .056

The experiment part of this was to see how close I could get it tuned in 5ths to E, A, D, G, C, F, high to low. After breaking multiple strings trying to get the high string to E [that's mandolin E], I settled on a step down to D, G, C, F, Bb, Eb and can capo at the 2nd fret if necessary to gain those 2 semi-tones back. With a capo at the second fret the high 4 strings are mandolin.

So, believe it or not, this minuscule instrument has more range than a standard guitar! It goes a semi-tone lower [Eb] and over an octave higher, the high string putting me into mandolin "mosquito" territory.

Thin string gauges like the .008, can sound very week on normal pickups, but the EMG does a great job balancing the levels of all the strings.The bridge is very high quality allowing me to dial in the intonation, although I still have to lower the nut a bit.

I decided to replace the tuning machines as 2 of the stock Epi's were questionable. To help with tuning stability I went with a set of locking Vintage Style, 3 x 3, Plastic Keystone Buttons, Nickel, 15:1:

https://www.allparts.com/assets/images/products/TK-0735-001-web.jpg

I'm really impressed with these machines and highly recommend them to people wanting to upgrade a Les Paul.

The bonus to all this is the combination of lighter tuning machines on the headstock and heavier pickup and bridge on the body has eliminated just about all the neck dive. The PeeWee now balances pretty good on a strap. Not perfect, but I'm no longer struggling to keep it level.

I'll do pics when I get the EMG pot in there and it's all done.

[Verne Andru]

EMG stacked pots came in yesterday, so the PeeWee is now offically "pimped."

In addition to what's noted above, I put on a set of Dunlop strap locks in the hopes of eliminating the last of the neck dive. I also did a "speed neck" treatment to it, which entails lightly sanding the back of the neck with course sandpaper to create a matte-like finish that I prefer over the sticky poly finish.

As threatened, here's the final pics [the headstock and neck had some chips and stuff in the finish when I got it].

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[whatitis]

I'd love to see a video of the peewee in action.

[whatitis]

I'd love to see a video of the peewee in action.

^ That doesn't sound quite right does it? :redface:

[Verne Andru]

I'd love to see a video of the peewee in action.

~:>

Not setup for video ATM but an audio clip is doable.

I've been spending a fair bit of time with the PeeWee, getting a feel for what it's capable of and getting used to the scale. Unlike a standard tenor, most mandolin chord, arpeggio and scale shapes fit nicely under the hand. While the tuning may seem a bit odd at first, considering the open notes as approach notes instead of roots puts all the standard keys within easy reach and leads to some wonderful new sonority's.

I've fiddled with capoing at the 2nd fret to get into the more traditional FCGDAE range. Doing so lead me to a couple discoveries - 1] the nut has been placed too far back so capoing at the 2nd causes all the notes to go a few cents sharp and 2] I really prefer EbBbFCGD as FCGDAE feels like my 5 string mandolin with an extra string. While that may not be a bad thing, I'm quite digging the new sounds with it uncapo'ed.

If I'm playing in a situation where I have to be in FCGDAE, I can tune the open strings a bit flat so when they go sharp with the capo, they come into proper pitch. Unless I have to capo during a live set, it's not an "end of the word" issue ATM.

Intonation issues aside, I'm very pleased with the way this turned out.

[Verne Andru]

They're breeding...

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This Zakk Wylde PeeWee followed me home the other day. Another Craigslist find for not much more than the original. This one came with most of the bits that went into the pack when originally sold. Missing is the cable and the Zakk Wylde picks.

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If you'll notice, it comes with a Marshall stack!!

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My first Marshall LOL. It's actually a pretty rocking little amp when plugged into headphones or other amps. Love the kickback legs!

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It's really interesting comparing the 2 PeeWees. Without a doubt, the Zakk Wylde version is superior in every way.

The mahogany neck is proper 19" scale, not 19.5" like the other. It is a bit wider so the strings go over the pickup pole-pieces properly and shaped so it provides a proper tilt angle so neck shims no longer required.

The ZW body is thicker and made of a solid slab of mahogany, the other is a mahogany/alder laminate. Headstock is bigger on the ZW and the tuning machines are really nice 14:1, unlike the junk on the other.

And to top everything off, the inside of the electronics cover is shielded with silver foil! Gotta love it!

The ZW case is nicely padded and allows for 2-strap backpack carrying, the other has minimal padding. The Zakk Wylde guitar strap is as nice as any mid-to top priced straps. The one with the Epi is really flimsy.

And you just have to love that Marshall stack. All controls work as they should and it belts out a righteous tone when not hampered by it's internal speakers - which are fine for what they are, just don't let the tone of the amp shine through.

I scored an EMG-89 off Craigslist cheap, so that's going into the ZW. It's the same as the EMG-85 I put in the other, with the addition of a Single-Coil mode. I ordered a Seymour Duncan Triple-Shot pickup ring that has 2 x DPDT switches on it, which I'll use to switch between humbucker and single-coil mode.

I'll probably wire the other one as an 11-switch - that is, switch the output of the pickup directly to the output jack bypassing the volume/tone [I'm doing the EMG stacked again]. That usually gives a nice volume and treble boost when just that little bit more is needed.

Since the Zakk Wylde PeeWee is shorter scale, I'm going to do it as the double-extended range tenor [EbBbFCGD] and might even be able to coax it into FCFDAE that the first one couldn't. Then I'll relocate the nut on the Epi PeeWee and string it up in E standard with a set of 12's and have a great set perfect for traveling, etc.