Century Goldtop Upgrades

[Tonray's Ghost]

Century P90 Gold Top planned mods:

Switch pickups to Wilkinson Vintage Ceramic P90s
Replace all wiring, POTS AND Switch
Switch all plastics from Cream to Black

Parts beginning to arrive:

Will update thread as progress commences

[golem]

Not sure what the Century P90 is but I've been pleasantly surprised by every Wilkinson pickup I've tried (e.g., in Vintage brand guitars). P90s are definitely one pickup where I often like the brightness a ceramic magnet provides.

[Tonray's Ghost]

Not sure what the Century P90 is but I've been pleasantly surprised by every Wilkinson pickup I've tried (e.g., in Vintage brand guitars). P90s are definitely one pickup where I often like the brightness a ceramic magnet provides.

In all fairness, the stock P90s sound decent. Ceramic also..neck 8k and bridge 10k..pretty close the the Wilkinsons. But my hope is the Wilkinsons will have a bit more chime..existing pups are a bit dark but certainly not bad by any means.

[golem]

Not sure what the Century P90 is but I've been pleasantly surprised by every Wilkinson pickup I've tried (e.g., in Vintage brand guitars). P90s are definitely one pickup where I often like the brightness a ceramic magnet provides.

In all fairness, the stock P90s sound decent. Ceramic also..neck 8k and bridge 10k..pretty close the the Wilkinsons. But my hope is the Wilkinsons will have a bit more chime..existing pups are a bit dark but certainly not bad by any means.

You're literally describing what I like about ceramic P90s I've tried: bringing some chime back. Hopefully that's what you get.

[Tonray's Ghost]

The remainder of the parts arrived today....but I realized I have no solder ....so trip tomorrow to get some solder...and then likely Wednesday....will transform GoldTop Cream into GoldTop Black with Wilkinson P90s.

Stay Tuned....

[Tonray's Ghost]

Upgrades complete...strings later
.exhausted as I'm the worst soldering person in the world. What an ordeal..but it works !

Old:

New:

[mozz]

Where did you get the p90 black pickguard?

[AnotherJim]

Let us know how you like the sound. I love gold top guitars, mine being an Agile 3010SE. Now when I see a gold top of any LP style, my eye is drawn. Looks like you have yourself a nice guitar on the cheap!

[Tonray's Ghost]

Where did you get the p90 black pickguard?

From a local shop (Thailand) that sells mainly origiinal Fender and Gibson parts but they had this and were very careful to say it was 3rd party. It's single ply and frankly a bit cheap looking and eventually I'll replace but it'll do the job for now.

[Tonray's Ghost]

Let us know how you like the sound. I love gold top guitars, mine being an Agile 3010SE. Now when I see a gold top of any LP style, my eye is drawn. Looks like you have yourself a nice guitar on the cheap!

Will do. The funny thing is I played it for 2 hours yesterday so I'd remember how it sounds under various scenarios and truthfully there's nothing wrong at all with the stock pickups. I think it's very hard to make a bad sounding P90. But I know the Wilkinsons will sound at least as good. I will use the old pups down the line in something else.. They were pretty good too..I'm hooked on P90s now...just awesome.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Will do. The funny thing is I played it for 2 hours yesterday so I'd remember how it sounds under various scenarios and truthfully there's nothing wrong at all with the stock pickups. I think it's very hard to make a bad sounding P90. But I know the Wilkinsons will sound at least as good. I will use the old pups down the line in something else.. They were pretty good too..I'm hooked on P90s now...just awesome.

I like the blackout, and agree... most P90s just sound great. I only have only ever played one guitar with bad sounding P90s.

[Tonray's Ghost]

Ok...some Questions for the more experienced wiring guys here: (keep in mind single coil P90s)

The guitar wiring harness and pickup upgrades installed...but some anomalies.

1) The Middle position and Bridge position...seemingly dead quiet (no 50/60 cycle hum)
2) The Neck position has what one would consider normal 50/60 cycle hum
3) The Neck position is much louder than the bridge at same POT volume levels..(this is before strings..just tapping with screwdriver)

Any thoughts ? The resistance of the pickups is correct so I know I did not swap them accidentally. Neck at 8.5K and Bridge at 9.6 (per specs0

Puzzling...all seems to work...volume and tone smooth...what is your verdict ?

[Partscaster]

you could try to take a grounding wire to solder onto all 4 pot backs.
Runs around perimeter like a big "C" shape connecting all pots. Assuming bridge post ground wire is connecting to pot and bridge well.


could leads coming from switch be hitched to wrong volume pots?

if both the above were true, bad pot grounding, and switch hitch is backwards, I could see your symptoms occurring.

[Partscaster]

I sometimes like black out, with keeping gold knobs.

[mickey]

Middle position the two P90's are acting as a humbucker.
Put some strings on it & call back.

[Tonray's Ghost]

you could try to take a grounding wire to solder onto all 4 pot backs.
Runs around perimeter like a big "C" shape connecting all pots. Assuming bridge post ground wire is connecting to pot and bridge well.


could leads coming from switch be hitched to wrong volume pots?

if both the above were true, bad pot grounding, and switch hitch is backwards, I could see your symptoms occurring.

I guess anything is possible but this was a pre wired Epiphone harness. The switch quick connects to the POTS. I'd assume they come correctly wired at the factory. I can't imagine screwing it up so terribly ad all I had to do was solder pickup leads to the volume pot lugs and ground to the back of same pots. It was a tight fit as the cavity seemed to be routed out for not much more than the dime sized original POTS that I swapped out. Maybe when I jammed them in I crossed some wires...I'll see about that.

As Mickey said..put some strings on it and see what we got. Have time Monday to check it out in more detail.. Road trip tomorrow to a local floating market..eating and more eating.

[BatUtilityBelt]

With a P90 or other single coil guitar I have heard 60 cycle noise from, when I already have it opened up for electronic changes, I go ahead and shield and ground the cavities. With some guitars, that has made a huge difference in the noise floor.