MIMF

I have a beater epiphone crestwood 290 with full sized humbuckers.id like to goto minibuckers and set it up as a dedicated slide guitar. Id like this to be a non invasive type mod.are there modified trim rings available im open to all suggestions.
Also how much taller than a standard nut would you cut a nut for slide. ?

Greg,

Doing a quick search on Ebay I see there are mounting rings that do just this. That seems like the easiest way to me.

I'm stoked on minis right now too. My latest in progress build I'm using three of them. I haven't had standard minis in a guitar since the first guitar I ever owned, an Epiphone Nighthawk.

I found those too on amazon,guess i should have looked first ,they are readily available,who knew.

There are several places that will make you wood ones as well via laser, check eBay. Also it seems like I've heard that a national chain of copy centers now has 3-D printers available or maybe I just dreamed that.

Greg Martin wrote:...Also how much taller than a standard nut would you cut a nut for slide. ?

Greg, it looks like your pickup conversion question is answered. As a pretty dedicated slide player I would try to address your setup question by asking a few more.

When you say "dedicated slide guitar" do you mean that you will not play any fretted notes? All single note lead stuff or will you play barres? Will you play it Spanish or lap style? What tuning(s) and string gauges do you plan to use? What kind of slide (cylindrical, curved, Shubb/Stevens...)? I assume it has a ToM, do you want to stick with the 12 inch radius? What action do you plan down the neck (12th fret)?

It would be helpful if you pointed towards a player who you wanted to emulate (Duane Allman, Bonnie Raitte, Dave Hole, Muddy Waters, Joanna Connor......

Hi, to the pickup ring question .i saw a few on line and they are the firebird flat style,but with the fullsize outside size. I think what im looking for is a ring exactly like a full sized humbucker ring set taller for the bridge small for the neck, but with an in side cut out for a gibson style mini humbucker.its possible allparts has one but i havenet checked yet.
This epiphone will be used mainly for blues/rock slide,tuned accordingly,played with a glass slide,some fretting ,some slide ala Dwane Allman. The player doesnt use slide to often, but wants a dedicated guitar to be setup and ready if needed.
So should The action be adjusted higher at the bridge only or also at the nut? How much ? Is the truss rod set to be flat or with relief What is a starting point. ? Should a tall nut be remade or the stock one shimmed shimmed, guess that depends how much hieght is required. ????

Greg Martin wrote: This epiphone will be used mainly for blues/rock slide,tuned accordingly,played with a glass slide,some fretting ,some slide ala Dwane Allman. The player doesnt use slide to often, but wants a dedicated guitar to be setup and ready if needed.
So should The action be adjusted higher at the bridge only or also at the nut? How much ? Is the truss rod set to be flat or with relief What is a starting point. ? Should a tall nut be remade or the stock one shimmed shimmed, guess that depends how much hieght is required. ????

Greg, it sound a little like the player is not you - if that is so you should discuss their slide playing likes and dislikes. If its you then you know the answers.

There are really two ways to play electric slide, Duane did them both. The first is standard tuning and mostly just playing single string lead stuff, maybe with the pentatonic scale - that's fairly common with rock players. For that style you basically just substitute the slide for what you would fret with a finger - instead of bending the note you slide sharp (or flat). A fairly light slide might be helpful - Duane used his famous Coricedian bottle. For that style of play you really don't need to do anything to the guitar but if I were setting up a guitar especially for it I would raise the action very slightly at both ends (maybe a couple of thousands at the nut, maybe 10 thou at 12). I would up the string gauges a couple of steps - if you ordinarily play 10's I would go to 12's.

The other way to play it is in some open tuning. Most electric players tune up to A or E (due to tension concerns most acoustic players tune down to G or D). Open E is probably the most common electric slide tuning - lots of classic blues/rock songs like Dust My Broom. In open E you can still play the lead stuff on the first couple of strings but now you can play partial or full barres - most commonly at 5, 7 and 12. Big problem with that is the radius of the fretboard on an electric means when you're comfortably fretting the outer strings with your slide you are dangerously close to fretting out on the inner strings. Some people will use a curved slide, some will raise the action so high that you don't hit the frets but then its difficult to play finger fretted notes, or you can simply not barre all 6 strings. Acoustic players do the full barre a lot in finger style play, not too many people play an electric the same way. Fwiw, I like a heavier slide for this kind of play - I think I have more control over the vibrato.

If I were setting up a dedicated guitar for open E tuning I would still raise the action slightly at both ends and I would up the gauge of the first two strings (3, 4 and 5 will go up because they are tuned up). If I was really serious about making this a dedicated slider for my style of play I would consider pulling the frets, sanding the f/b as flat as I could get it within constraints of the saddle, probably 16 inch, and filing the middle string slots in the saddle to a flatter radius. In that case a new nut would be required. However, even in this style of play there is a lot of finger fretted stuff - many open E turn arounds are played on the middle strings in the first 5 frets so for me the action is still just a hair above normal.

I do play slide on all of my guitars, I can get by with 16 inch radius but my preference is even flatter than that. None of them have particularly high action - even my resonators are fingerstyle friendly. You want slight higher tension to keep from fretting out, you want about the same relief as normal to keep fretted notes from buzzing. I think you really need to discuss this with the person you are building for, or if its for yourself then experiment with some other guitars before you commit.

Yes im doing the conversion for Andy at proguitarshop.com. Im not the player ,i have callused carpenter mitts!!
the guitar a 70s epiphone 290 cresent burst. It has been in the stable for years but rarely used . the stock buckers are weak and dull, so ill swap them for 70s Gibson mini buckers. The idea now is to get cnc rings in mapleto match the stock ones but with the mini cutout. Ill spray them with a vintage amber lacqure. Pots and electrics are fine,may swap out the caps after he plays it , maybe not. ill do a fret dress and setup as well ,thats why i would like to get info on nut height and string height. Andy already plays with heavier strings so ill let him deal with that. It will be great to see that guitar used on PGS pedal demos for when slide is required. I think ill post the project pics on my site after the Christmas vacation.

Mojo tone demo Andy did prior to the death of Johnny Winter,using the Winter mini buckers.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69MWJ7ZE-aE

Holly is a good creme-colored wood without a lot of grain to distract and it's easy to finish. Boxwood would be even nicer but harder to find.

Might give guitar fetish a gander.
I believe they have adapter rings.