G&L Tribute S-500 (Indonesian; 2015?) - mods/sanding, etc

[danburne]

Hi all

This is my first post!

I've just bought a s/h G&L Tribute S-500, made in Indonesia, S/N 150313*** (which I think makes it March 2015...?).

It's had a few tweaks:
- Black Gotoh ratio locking tuners
- Back of neck sanded/sealed (so it's faster/less sticky)
- Lace sensor Red/Silver/Blue loaded tortoiseshell scratchplate - so new pots, switch and pickups

Photos attached/linked below.

It's literally just arrived and I've barely had 1 minute with it, only acoustically. Looking forward to getting it plugged in this evening, but my initial impressions are very favourable. Plays really well. I bought this thinking that it might replace my Eric Johnson strat and I think that likely. It's definitely a different flavour of strat, but is more up my street spec wise (satin neck, rosewood (?) fingerboard, prefer the trem and the locking tuners, etc).

I am am likely to:

1) Replace the pickguard and trem guard (probably with black pearl ones). I gather the standard 11 hole strat ones won't fit as the screw hole locations are different. G&L suggested google search and having a specialized pickguard maker trace the existing pickguard and make it to my specs.

2) Strip (sand?) the body back to a natural finish. Any thoughts/steers/tips/advice greatly appreciated. G&L's records say the body wood is poplar, made in Fullerton California

3) The push/pull pot was removed , so I'll either add that back (neck+bridge is my favourite stat pickup combo), or possibly consider a 10 way switch for additional series/parallel options.

4) Replace the screws with black ones. Not sure of the right spec for the pickup and the selector switch ... ?

5) Replace the knobs with black metal ones. Again, not sure of the right spec ... ?


Best,
Dan
www.danburne.com

[danburne]

So I've dug a big further on this.
It seems the electronics - including selector switch - were replaced with the Lace set, hence the missing toggle switch (or push/pull) to engage the neck. Shame as the neck+bridge is my favourite setting - I may swap out the 5 way for a 10 way for an overload of switching options!

Memo at G&L says "our records indicate this is a vintage white Tribute S500 with a rosewood fretboard over maple neck. Body wood is poplar" and that it's likely to be a 3 or 4 piece body. This, along with it being poplar, makes me a bit nervous about stripping it as it may not be particularly attractive underneath. I'm not sure how difficult it'd be to re-finish it if it doesn't look great ... perhaps some kind of stain might work, showing the wood grain, rather than a traditional smooth high gloss finish ... like someone did on this Tribute Legacy ... but a different colour (not quite sure what would look good though ...).

Given the need for a custom-made replacement, since the G&L pickguard is unusual, it could be disproportionately expensive swapping that out... But we'll see...

[danburne]

P.S. Here's mine as it currently is. I wasn't sure about the look to begin with, but it's growing on me ... !

[Tooslowhand]

Personally I like vintage white, and that guitar is in nice shape, so I wouldn't mess with it. Chandler (Pickguard Heaven) used to make the pickguards for G&L USA instruments, but no longer do. If you send them the original pickguard, or a tracing, they can reproduce it in any of the many materials they show on their website. What differentiates the S-500 from a standard S type guitar are the Strat sized MFD pickups that have been replaced with Lace sensors in your guitar. If you want to go back to the S-500 configuration you can find the MFD pickups and other parts in the G&L web store. An S-500 schematic in the knowledgebase section of this forum will show the correct parts values and connections.