Epiphone #1 - '58 reissue Korina flying V'

Not a new purchase, I bought this before I even started the blog but it's been on loan to a friend for about 18 months.

I've always liked flying Vs and when I was a student in the late 80s I had one of those enamel guitar pin badges which I eventually lost at some gig or other. I'm pretty sure that was of a '58 Korina V because I remember the colour and V tailpiece.

There have been a few different generations of these with minor differences, this is one of the old Korean made models with Grover machine heads instead of Kluson copies. Nowadays they're made in China.

I did a bit of reading round the subject before buying and it seemed these ones had a really good reputation but were know for slightly iffy electrics.

When I collected it I could tell immediately the electrics were dodgy. It suffered from bad microphonics and the pots were nasty. Nevertheless it's a very pretty lump of wood. I've seen some that are made of three pieces and joined untidily but this is nicely done down the centre line. The grain runs roughly parallel to the sides of the V so meets attractively in the middle instead of being horizontal like some I've seen.

Due to the crummy electrics I rewired this with some Kent Armstrong alnico Rockers and decent pots. It now does the twin humbucker classic rock guitar thing very nicely. The pickups are lively without being out and out ceramic metal monsters.