freestompboxes.org

Here it is... I opened one up for a local shop. A guy had his painted (!!!) and the painter hacked his wiring up, shoved it into the control cavity and gave it back to him. Duh, my guitar doesn't work. So the lack of available schematics etc. made this one a little more than your average rewire. The little board on the back of the varitone pot has all the connections labeled though, so tada, here it is kinda half wiring half schematic.
right click on the image for full view:

Cool...so that's the correct cap & Inductor values for their original Vari-Tones (I love those things ), thanx.

Yep. Correct as far as the chinese made Epiphone... but it matches the little bit of info I could find from ancient xerox copies of the Gibson... and it actually works pretty well too.

The pickups are different but Blueshawks have (I think) the same Varitone as the other Gibson/Epi models.
http://blueshawk.info/circuit_diagram.htm
http://blueshawk.info/official_gibson_schematic.htm
If you're just interested in the Varitone part this is good info.

Sorry did a little housekeeping...
Here it is again.
https://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z3 ... ucille.jpg Getting ready to do a stacked Vol/Tone and a Varitone on a friend's P-Bass. No new holes in the pkgrd but all the tonez.

That's a great idea (for the P-Bass)...I did the same mod, on my P-Bass clone (an SX, short-scale-30")...except that on mine, I've got a 1meg volume, a 6-way "Vari-Tone", and a passive "Overdrive" mod (just 2 paralell Shottkeys (BAT46), wired to an on/off mini-switch). It really gives the bass more tonal variety...and the Shottkeys give it that extra growl, whenever you need it. The only thing I'd change, would be to add an inductor to the "Vari-Tone" ...otherwise, it's way more fun to play now, than before the mods were done. I'd love to see pics & sound clips you've got any.

Oh yeah...I've got several different inductors ordered (1.5, 1.2, and 1.8 Henry), so I'll be heating up the soldering iron ASAP ...then, I'll post the results when I finish everything.

Hi Carl, thanks for the schematic.

Unless you had a different version of the Epiphone Lucille Varitone, I found R6 and R7 to be 10K, not 100K.
I also found that the bridge pickup side of the Varitone circuit did not have the .22µF capacitor (C1). This was a new guitar, so all stock.

As I am crap at reading schematics can someone tell me or show me where the pickup wires connect in this circuit please? I want to remove the original ones and install Gibson 490s in my epiphone.
thank you all

anthony466 wrote: ↑15 Mar 2022, 07:50 As I am crap at reading schematics can someone tell me or show me where the pickup wires connect in this circuit please? I want to remove the original ones and install Gibson 490s in my epiphone.
thank you all

As long as your just swapping pickups it should be pretty easy once you open it up without need of a schematic. It's only 4 wires and 2 are ground.

It looks to me from the picture that the pickups are the smaller black wires connected to the rotary switch and not the board.

Take a picture of the way it's wired before you take the old ones out to make sure you rewire it the same.

There is a red sheathed cable and a black sheathed cable coming from bridge and neck pickups. You can see in the photos that each contains two smaller cables that appear soldered to the board. I was thinking of snipping the cables at about one inch and soldering to the remainders rather than touching the board. Thoughts? BTW this is a chinese made Epiphone and could be different from the inital korean made ones. Quality is great btw.

Oh yeah that's a newer board.
The inductors are in cans on the one I worked on so long ago.
LOL that guitar is still hangin' around the shop
I'll get some new gut shots.