An Epiphone
EA255 made by
Matsumoku in the
late ’70s.
I go to a lot of yard sales. Sometimes I get
lucky, sometimes I don’t. A few weeks
ago, I got a little lucky. A friend of mine
was taking part in a neighborhood yard
sale and invited me to visit. I had been
going to yard sales all morning and didn’t
get there until a little after noon, so a lot
of sellers were thinking of calling it a day
by then. There were several guitars for sale
out there. One was an overpriced Ovation,
the other was this Epi guitar. It had a sign
that said “$150 or make an offer.” It had
no strings—usually a bad sign—and the
tailpiece was missing. But the seller said the
tailpiece was in the case. Aha—a hardshell
case was also included. That sweetened the
pot a little more. The tailpiece turned out
to be a 2-piece Frequensator. I’ve always
liked these tailpieces because they look cool.
LEFT: This guitar
sports Epiphone’s
distinctive Frequensator
tailpiece.
MIDDLE: Gold-plated
Grovers—cool!
RIGHT: Unlike vintage
USA Epiphones,
this thinline has a
bolt-on neck.
I carefully examined the guitar. It had
gold-plated parts, including Grover tuners—another good sign. It looked like it
had been stored in a damp environment—not a good sign—because all the gold parts
were corroded and the frets were badly
tarnished. The neck had a slight backbow,
and that worried me, too. The owner
admitted the guitar also had wiring problems,
and the jack had fallen off somewhere
inside the guitar’s body. I was about to pass
on it, but something made me want to save
this poor instrument from the grave.
So I started to walk away but offered
the seller $75, acting like I wasn’t that
interested (yep—that’s Bottom Feeder Tip
#221). He wanted to go home and took
the $75. Now, we could both go home.
A couple of days later, I took the guitar
to Jack Dillen, my go-to guitar repairman
in Asheville, North Carolina. I thought
about just selling off the guitar’s parts if
it was going to be an expensive endeavor
to restore it. Jack said we first needed to
find the jack inside the guitar and assess
what worked—if anything. Jack is such a
pro and has all these tricks up his sleeve. I
watched him methodically fish the jack out
of the f-hole, spray contact cleaner into the
pots and selector switch (without having
to remove any of them), test all the parts,
put the tailpiece back on correctly (after
researching which way to arrange it), string
it up with a set of .010s, and adjust the
truss rod (fortunately, it did turn).
Jack took a guitar that was in pieces
and had it up and running just inside of
an hour. Impressive—and my repair bill
was only $40! For $115 total, I had a
nice-playing, 335-style guitar.
Bottom Feeder Tip #2877: Get to know a
good guitar tech. They can really save the day.
The Matsumoku company made these
EA255s in Japan for Epiphone from 1976–
79. They usually sport gold-plated parts,
humbuckers, jumbo frets, lots of binding,
and a bolt-on neck. They’re not particularly
collectible, but they do have their own
sound. This one has a lot of spank and
attitude when plugged in.
So is it a keeper? Maybe. The verdict is
still out. But I’ll say this—it’s an unusual
guitar and now it plays great. Plus, I feel
like I helped bring a guitar back from
almost certain death and to a playable state
again. And that feels good. Guitars are
made to be played, not parted out!
Will Ray
is a founding
member of the
Hellecasters guitar-twang
trio. He also does guitar
clinics promoting his
namesake G&L signature
model 6-string, and produces
artists and bands at his studio in
Asheville, North Carolina. You can contact
Will on Facebook and at
willray.biz.