In our top 5 “LP” style guitars for under $500.00 one of our recommendations was an SX EH3 as an excellent guitar at a ridiculous street price of $395.

We also mention that it’s not only a great guitar for beginners but many seasoned players are buying these guitars with a view to “pimping” them up with name brand parts and pick ups. The necks and bodies on these guitars are really well finished and feel very nice, where the manufacturers save money is on the parts and pickups and even though these guitars are fine as is, you can vastly improve them with better quality components as well as personalising and customising a guitar to suit your exact needs and budget. 

At this point we need to point out that even though you are spending money to improve your instrument and adding brand name parts this generally will not improve the resale value so think of this as your own custom shop instrument and build a guitar that suits you and want to keep.

In the mean time we are going to give the SX EH3 the right royal treatment as we do feel this is a guitar worth investing in.

As referenced earlier it’s not worth it to swap necks and bodies as you may as well buy a whole new instrument. The first changes you may want to consider are pickups, the bridge and tailpiece system and machines heads. The selector switch and output jack are also candidates here, however, we recommend to only replace these if they fail as they are not as integral to the sound and playability of the guitar.

The SX EH3 LP Style Guitar

As the SX EH3 is based on a classic late 50’s Les Paul what we are trying to achieve is to bring this guitar up to a standard reaching at least an equivalency of an Epiphone Les Paul guitar which are essentially Gibson’s more affordable production range. The parts we are going to use are all quality brand name parts like Grover machine heads which are used on Gibson guitars and there are a range of styles and grades available. We are trying to give this guitar as an authentic vintage vibe as possible so we are choosing our replacements based on this brief.

One of our product specialists JB has spec’d this one to his personal taste and requirements.

Guitar - EH3WT in Alpine White 

Street Price - $395.00

Discover our range of SX LP Style EH Series.

Grover Vintage Locking Machine Heads (GRO553K)

Street Price - $143.00

Discover our range of Machine Heads and Knobs.

Seymour Duncan Pick Up Set SH4 SH 2N

Street Price - $293.00

Discover our range of pick ups.

Graph Tech Resomax NVT Tailpiece Assembly

Street Price - $72.00

Graph Tech Resomax NVI Tune O Matic Bridge 

Street Price - $92.00

Discover our range of Guitar Bridges.

DiMarzio 3 Way Toggle Switch

Street Price - $36.00

Total Build - $1031.00

The best thing about this process is you get to choose exactly what you want and replace the parts you are not happy with. You could go with official Gibson pickups, there are also DiMarzio options and our amp tech Jamie swears by Roswell pickups which are a very affordable option. JB has gone with Grover locking machine heads, however, Schaller and Gotoh also make some great options as well as making great tailpieces and bridges. As a bonus, you can also discover our range of Guitar Nuts for your modified machine.

The idea is to mix and match to your requirements and only replace what you feel you need to.

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