Inherited this mess.
Inherited this mess.
Was planning to list it for sale somewhere, but no idea what to price it at. Any idea? Is it even worth someone's time fixing it up?
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Please educate yourself before insisting what is or is not potentially unsafe...
Why is My Guitar or Microphone Shocking Me?
Please do not take unknown electrical issues for granted.
It’s oxidation on the pickups. This will not short anything. This person has no clue what they are talking about.
A guitar pickup, wires and magnets, don’t suddenly start shocking people and shorting amps with “rust” or oxidation.
I've been looking at my trust axe sideways after reading that comment. I've been playing it and it's corroded pickups for 20 years and I'm not dead yet. So, must not be that big of a risk.
The rust was from my parents basement growing up. Our house was built into a hill and it's a high humidity environment. Didn't take proper care of it until later life. She's no gem, but she's mine.
Have you ever worked on antique electronics? I'm assuming not, but I have. The pickup coils are likely just as corroded and probably shorted from the back side with that much corrosion, which I assume from experience is from many years of age in a humid closet or basement.
I know what I'm talking about, that guitar shouldn't be plugged up until an experienced tech opens it up and at least does a basic inspection and makes sure the pickup coils aren't shorted out with a multimeter, at least to start with.
Hahahahaha this isn’t an antique guitar. Those aren’t even active pickups.
You are clueless about guitar electronics and how magnetic pickups work and are made.
Yo the dude is able to recognise a warped neck just from that picture, you better listen to him!
Also you definitely can die from corroded pickups, but only if you play High Voltage by AC/DC.
Ah shit, no wonder I just busted out of that TV...
I'm using the word antique a bit loosely here, as I don't know what year it was made. But obvious context clues tell me that the guitar definitely has some years behind it. There's the obvious corrosion, plus OP said they inherited it, meaning almost certainly the original owner has passed away.
I actually spent about 6 years as a guitar technician for a band that amongst other equipment rocked a Fender Stratocaster and dual 1000W Peavey stacks.
They'd never allow such a corroded guitar to hook up to their equipment willy-nilly without a full professional teardown, inspection, cleanup, any necessary parts and repairs, new strings, set the intonations, etc.
Maybe just maybe I've got a more professional attitude about it, from experience.
Hell, at bare minimum at least clean the old strings and spray some WD-40 into the tuner knobs and tune the thing up, can't tell much of anything about how an old guitar is supposed to sound if you don't at least try tuning it.
But I still wouldn't go plugging it into an amplifier without checking the internals first, for all I know it could end up shorting out and blowing a perfectly good amplifier.
This is an Epiphone Les Paul Pro in alpine white. Judging off the tuners and truss rod cover this guitar is from around the early 2000’s. This doesn’t have “years” behind it.
Back to the oxidation on the gold pickup covers. That is super common with any style of gold pickup covers. Oxidation doesn’t cause any issues with sound from a pickup.
It is okay to be wrong even with experience because you are misinformed about the basics of guitar electronics and how they function.
This guitar won’t short anything out. A guitar with passive or active pickups for that matter will never short out an amplifier or pedals. If there is a short in the guitar’s wiring, no sound will be produced. It won’t cause any damage to whatever device it is plugged into.
I would suggest learning about how guitar pickups and wiring work before helping anyone else out with their rigs.
I'd be much more worried about the potentiometers having internal corrosion and possibly sending a strong crackle into the amplifier, which it isn't particularly designed for. If the amplifier happens to be turned up extra high, a random crackle like that would be way louder than even plucking the strings, which would put undue stress on the amplifier transistors/tubes.
Not saying this is very likely to happen, but it is possible for such a scenario to cause a shorted amp or a blown speaker.
Aside from that rare possibility, you said the guitar is from the early 2000s. Well it's 2023, that makes it around 20 years old, so it does have some years on it.
I’m glad you admitted to being wrong about the guitar shocking someone or shorting out an amp.
A crackle isn’t going to short out an amplifier or blow a speaker either. This again speaks to your fundamental lack of understanding around guitar electronics or amplifiers.
The guitar itself can’t be from older than 2006. The sticks on the guitar are both from bands who started around 06/07. This production for this model stopped in 2012. If you think things that are 12-17 years old have “some years on them” maybe avoid school zones.
I have personally blew out 3 speakers with a crackle from a messed up volume pot. Had my bass plugged into a cab that was already turned way up and a band mate decided he was gunnu play with knobs on my bass while playing and the crackle of the volume knob going up and down blew out 3 speakers in an 8x10 cab.
It was his own hardware not mine tho lol.
Also you can be shocked through a guitar or through an amp. Heres a copy/paste from something else I posted here:
So a guitar (or mic) isn't going to shock you, but the equipment a guitar is connected to could provide enough current to noticably shock you. If that amp or whatever has a ground fault or had its ground lifted, it could be a shock hazard as bigger amps can hold a lot of voltage in their chassis.
Some in this thread have said that you straight up can't be shocked by a guitar and that is blatant misinformation.
An example of how to get shocked is in live sound, you'll likely have all your amps and stuff plugged into some kind of power supply or generator. That power supply is providing current to your amp. Let's say that power supply has a ground fault, If your amps ground is good, it's probably fine. The current in your amp that should be flowing to ground, is doing so. If you lifted your amps ground cause it was buzzing or something, that current from the power supply is now running wild in your amp. That current can and will travel up the 1/4in jack into your guitar and into the pickups. Making a circuit that electrifies everything as there are no grounds for that current to disapiate into. Now, when you pick up your guitar and press down on a string, that string potentially makes contact with the pickups sending current through the metal strings into your body and potentially through your body into the ground as you are now the only ground in the circuit. This shocks the shit out of you. And considering that a power supply can be very high voltage this could easily be fatal.
So the story is nice but you are talking about speakers and this has been about how @Over_clox wrongly stated that plugging that guitar into an amp would blow the amp or shock the player. The guitar itself can't shock anyone or destroy any equipment it is plugged into.
If a faulty amp with a bad ground causes a shock through the guitar, it is from the amp and passed through the guitar. So the cause of the problem and the shock is the amp. Not the guitar.
If an amp is dialed to 10 and you plug in a guitar and play a chord and blow the speakers, did the chord you play come through so loud that it blew the speakers? Nope! The amp is driving the speakers past what they can handle. Again not the guitars fault. Same could be said about scratchy pots, switches, etc.
But let's bring this back to the thread, OP was given an Epiphone Les Paul Pro. Someone assumed it was wet and had corrosion. The oxidation on the pickups and parts are normal for gold hardware from Epiphone. Having a 5w practice amp to test would be more than enough. Cause again, the guitar isn't shocking anyone or destroying any amps!
Can amps shock you or break speakers? Yes. But in in your speaker example you didn't get shocked. The amp didn't even break. The speakers did and it was due to human error. Those crackles didn't damage anything until it was at full volume.
I didn't assume it was wet and had corrosion, I know it was. Or a long time in a humid basement. It's called years of humidity, and even possibly long term exposure near salt water and/or a swimming pool with chlorine.
Some of us know what TF we're talking about, others don't...
The person you just responded to knows even more than me, and confirms the potential risks.
I don't believe Over_clox said anything about the guitar blowing out an amp or being wet, just that it was corroded and would electrocute someone.
If an amp is dialed to 10 and you plug in a guitar and play a chord and blow the speakers, did the chord you play come through so loud that it blew the speakers? Nope! The amp is driving the speakers past what they can handle. Again not the guitars fault. Same could be said about scratchy pots, switches, etc.
Can amps shock you or break speakers? Yes. But in in your speaker example you didn't get shocked. The amp didn't even break. The speakers did and it was due to human error. Those crackles didn't damage anything until it was at full volume.
I never mentioned the speakers getting shocked or that, that is what I thought the issue was.
In my nice story I mentioned that my bass was already plugged into a cab, the cab was cranked up and my bass was at its max volume. My idiot band mate started playing with knobs, to listen to my basses active EQ, while the whole band was playing together. They fucked with my bad volume pots knob, cause they were confused on what that knob did. My basses volume being lowered with that bad pot caused it to crackle very fucking loudly. Blowing 3 speakers in an 8x10 cab. It was very dumb lol.
I mentioned that story again because you claimed before that crackle can't kill a speaker and I wanted to clarify that yes the crackle broke the speakers. This had nothing to deal with electric shock, that's why I didn't mention it. The amp wasn't driving the speakers too hard, it was faulty electronics in the bass that caused the excessive load on the speakers. So yes, it was the guitar and bad pots fault. And yes, also a healthy amount of human error; moving pots while plugged into an already very loud cab.
Hopefully that puts us on the same page.
Just to finish it out. We fixed that cab, it was like $120 per each speaker that needed to be replaced and I took my bass into a shop and got a new pot. No more dumb issues now. We all know better lol. This was awhile ago, I haven't played with that group in about 4 years.
But let's bring this back to the thread, OP was given an Epiphone Les Paul Pro. Someone assumed it was wet and had corrosion. The oxidation on the pickups and parts are normal for gold hardware from Epiphone. Having a 5w practice amp to test would be more than enough. Cause again, the guitar isn't shocking anyone or destroying any amps!
I think you're just repeating information that has already been established and understood.
I'm not taking Over_clox's side in making assumptions about the guitar itself. They made an assumption that the guitar was a shock risk and y'all dragged them hard, through the mud for a pretty reasonable assumption. Reading through the chain, to a degree, the way they reacted might've warranted it. But checking to ensure electronics are in order is best practice.
I think all of us have agreed that the guitar isn't really a shock risk, but I went out of my way earlier to explain how it could be tho. I did that especially cause a couple mentioned that there was no way you could get shocked through (or by) a guitar, that's demonstrably false. I don't want someone to think that they are perfectly immune to electricity when messing with electric guitars and their potentially high voltage equipment.
Not like I'm helping to make this civil at this point but, I mostly made comments here because there is hostilely and hastily made misinformation, half thoughts, and insults being put out into this chain.
I'm so glad most of you folks throw safety to the wind, when I also have over 18 years of experience repairing wet/corroded electronics. I don't fuck around, I don't take chances plugging up rusted electronics. I dunno, maybe I value my life more than the rest of you folks.
I'll stand by my words to the day I die, better safe than sorry
But since I can't express the potential risks well enough for others to comprehend, this other fella expressed his comment in this thread quite eloquently...
https://lemmy.world/comment/4368756
TL;DR - Clean and maintain your junk. Would you plug in a rusty toaster?
"I don't fuck around!" hahahahahaha I know you don't. I love that you keep dropping your credentials to "backup" your wrong claims. How many years have you been doing guitar center repairs?
I dunno, how long have you been passively testing rusty guitars rather than actually at least inspect, clean, and tune them?
You're acting as if I'm wrong for doing things with a professional priority of order of operations.
Honestly I'm done with this conversation now. Please don't bother me anymore. You can do things half-ass if you want, but I don't take liability for half-ass work.
that amongst other equipment rocked a Fender Stratocaster and dual 1000W Peavey stacks.
This is a weird flex.
You can literally short the input to the amp and be fine. In fact, cheap cables do this all the time. There would have to be a major issue with the amps isolation between the preamp and power amp to have an issue. This is possible, but a rusty pickup is not really the issue. You're simply ill-informed. It happens to the best of us.
Have you ever studied Samuel Goldwasser's PhotoFacts?
I have. I've actually studied it so many times that I know the typical failure mode of electronic components in almost any situation.
Amplifiers are powered by transistors (or tubes back in the day, not much difference). When they happen to be stressed to the point of failure, they practically always fail as a short circuit.
Short circuits aren't fun, that's why they invented the Variac to properly test suspicious devices.
Edit: I hate to repeat myself, but would you plug in a rusted toaster? Do you not value your life, or would you rather test the components and clean things up first?
If you don't understand the difference between a toaster and the front end of an amplifier, then you've outed yourself.
Also, no. Nobody tests their toaster when they plug it in.
No, everyone tests their toasters when they plug them in. Only the dead don't report results, so the results are biased towards the living.
Please tell me WTF is your problem with maintaining a guitar?
Lol. If someone plugged in a shorted toaster, it would trip a breaker at worst. But survivorship bias is an awesome mental gymnastic. 8/10.
And nobody is arguing against maintaining a guitar. Just that you are being dumb. And maybe are a troll.
You mean you have no respect for electrical safety? None whatsoever? So you'd be okay if someone threw a live toaster in your bathtub?... 🤔
Bruh, get real, you have no respect for electrical safety. Go screw an outlet if you're so confident..
Gee, the bathtub isn't the same as plugging it into the wall. Is it?
No, it's not. And you know it's not. But you probably don't know why it's not.
Or you are a troll.
Or perhaps there are already videos about such risks?
I've built multiple amplifiers from scratch, both tube and transistor based. But go off.
Good for you, awesome! Have you stress tested your circuits with corrosion to see what may or may not fail first?
Nobody asked you what you could build from fresh scratch, I'm asking you what you'd do with electronics that have 15+ years of salt water vapor damage...?
Yes, I have experience with old electronics as well, and guitars, repair work, the whole lot. And I have an bs in EE.
But none of that matters because what is really happening here is that you are wrong, and instead of learning and moving on with a better understanding, you are tripling down and pulling the wool over your own eyes.
And you and all of your friends are dismissing safety. Fuck all that, I respect safety and always have. You've got mains going into the amp, the cable going into the guitar, and metal wires on the fingers. Oh, don't forget about the metal whammy bar...
Although the risk of electrocution is minimal, it still exists. My folks had a rule to not fuck around with sketchy equipment. What the fuck is your deal with cleaning and maintaining a goddamn guitar?
Lol. Nobody is saying to not maintain a guitar, wtf. What a wild stretch. You must be defensive.
They are just saying that you are wrong that a rusty/shorted pickup is some serious safety risk. Because it is not, and you are acting self-righteous, ill-informed, and paranoid.
Yeah, and the guitar only has 5 of 6 strings, and some nitwit asked how it sounds...
Get real, lemme ask you how a 6 cylinder engine would sound with a dead cylinder. Lemme ask you how a motorcycle would drive with a broken spoke or two...
Nothing that relies on timing is gonna sound right without proper maintenance. I mean goddamn, at least WD-40 the existing strings and tune them first, how TF anyone gonna judge the sound of a corroded guitar without a basic checkup and cleanup?
Holy shit you are going to die on this hill.
You won't even explain how in the fuck this could actually happen. Give it up already, your amplifier is not sending all the power through your guitar, if it was, it still wouldn't matter if your coils are corroded or not.
My buddy John Fields, legendary electrical engineer for Peavey Electronics (he has done work on the 5150/6505), has told many people who have spread this myth that they are full of shit. If you are getting shocked while playing, it is not your guitar, it is the fucking thing giving it power.
Yes, the thing giving it power is the amplifier and the electrical circuit it's plugged into. And unless the guitar itself is wireless, the guitar is plugged into the amp...
It's entirely possible to plug a messed up guitar into a perfectly good amplifier, and then the next thing you know you've got a shorted amplifier. It's called a cascading failure. No it's not all that common, but it can and does happen.
Is it so much of a stretch of the imagination to be better safe than sorry, not take any chances, and treat the equipment with a little respect and at least inspect the internals before plugging it in?
It's not going to happen with corroded coils.
I'm an electrician and a guitar player. You're a fucking idiot. Stop posting misinformation.
If you have a multimeter, you could safely check all contacts on the guitar, and ensure it has been properly grounded via a brief disassembly.
If you decide to do this basic due diligence before posting I'm sure you would be able to approach this with a more tolerable attitude.
If you just want a price, without restoration, you'd be lucky to get $100usd shipped.