My good friend and long time Tym guitars supporter Nick recently found this guitar on curbside cleanup. Being a guitarist he couldn't stand the thought of something like this going to landfill so he stopped and asked the woman putting stuff on the footpath if he could take it. "of course" she said, "it's been under my house for 15 years"
Nick didn't really need the guitar, he just didn't want to see it wasted so he dropped it off to me and said "can you do anything with it?
"Of course" I said.
It's a 1993 Samick Korean made Epiphone Les Paul.The Korean Samick factory made some GREAT stuff and made a lot of Epiphones until the country started bringing in fairer pay rates for workers and .... well, Gibson was gone.
The LP-100 is a SOLID mahogany body with solid carved top with bolt on mahogany neck and (REALLY nice) rosewood fretboard. The timber and build quality is excellent. There's no binding anywhere but it's still a good, solid guitar that looks kinda like a Les Paul. The hardware is typical Korean Samick which means good, but not great.
The bridge pickup had died completely so I changed both pickups for high output wax potted alnico Epiphone units I had here and cleaned all the electrics, which work well.
It also has a seized trussrod which took about an hour of heat and lube to free up.
It desperately needed a fret dress (it may need more after it settles in?) as sitting under a house for 15 years with an overtightened, seized trussrod had taken it's toll.
Anyway, after a days work it now plays and sounds GREAT so ...
Why am I telling you all of this?
Since Nick salvaged it off the footpath, and since I don't need another guitar I'm hoping to give this away to someone who needs it. So ... if you are the principal or music teacher at a state school, someone who works in any sort of rehabilitation facility, social services, youth centre, disabled facilities, prison, refugee detention centre ...... basically ANYONE who works with people that this might be something they can use to make their lives better, shoot me an email.
I'll pick someone on Sunday when I'm in the shop with it again and I'll cover postage to ANYWHERE in Australia. I'll throw in a good softcase and some Tym strings to help out with getting this guitar back into someones hands that might change their life.
If you are, or know someone who might be able to help get this to a centre or school where this will help, PLEASE email me before this Sunday.