modding a sg jr

[vtpcnk]

anybody tried to add a neck pickup to a sg jr - a p90?

or any idea if there would be any issue? or what is involved?

i saw something similar on the web but where apparently such modding had cut into the 'wide tenon' or something like that. i know what long tenon means, but do sg juniors have that or is that what was referred to - i am not sure about that.

appreciate any insights.

 

[Mor Paul]

I wouldn't worry about cutting into the tenon. Sg Specials have two pickups, and they have a deeper routing, I think.

 

[Cagey]

anybody tried to add a neck pickup to a sg jr - a p90?

or any idea if there would be any issue? or what is involved?

i saw something similar on the web but where apparently such modding had cut into the 'wide tenon' or something like that. i know what long tenon means, but do sg juniors have that or is that what was referred to - i am not sure about that.

appreciate any insights.

I did, a very long time ago. I had the first year issue of that guitar - a '61. It was my first Gibson. Got it out of a pawn shop for $100, and it was a wreck. Looked like this, but had a bright red lacquer finish that had spiderwebbed all to hell...

Back then they weren't worth anything, so I modified the hell out of it. Stripped the finish, refretted it, changed the hardware and bridge pickup to a humbuck, adding one for the neck position and losing that miserable vibrato, and turned it into a nice guitar. Played that thing for a long time - probably 15 years or so. Longest I ever owned a guitar. Can't remember what happened to it now.

Anyway, I didn't have any trouble result from routing it for the neck humbuck. In order for it to fit you have to be back far enough from the neck that I don't think you run into the tenon. But, this was so long ago that even if I did run into the tenon, I probably wouldn't have given it any thought, not knowing any better. I was just a kid.

Hehe! The more I think about that thing, the more memories come back. I remember my dad didn't have a router, but he had one these "Portalign" attachments for a drill motor...

So, I just bought a mortising bit, chucked it into the drill motor, and used that Rube Goldberg setup to route me a pickup hole! LOL! It's a wonder I didn't destroy something.

 

[vtpcnk]

they weren't worth anything? !!! i wish i had picked up my passion for guitar a few years back then!

btw on a sg jr is the bridge pickup mounted closer towards the neck than a normal sg bridge pickup? looks that way. is that intentional? to get a more effective/different sound?

 

[vtpcnk]

this is the one i saw where the guy had modded the jr :

http://cgi.ebay.com/1991-Gibson-SG-Junior-Electric-Guitar-Project-/200479047580?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Guitar&hash=item2ead7b7f9c

 

[Cagey]

they weren't worth anything? !!! i wish i had picked up my passion for guitar a few years back then!

Well, they were worth $100 anyway. Probably could have gotten it cheaper on the street. Contrary to popular opinion, most of those old vintage guitars weren't that great, at least not compared to what you can get today. The bridges and tuners were especially bad, finishes and pickups were inconsistent, and so on. And those were the Gibsons. There were a lot of wannabes from other manufacturers that were just pitiful, so a Gibby was the thing to have. Even new they weren't too hard on the wallet. An new SG Custom could be had in the $300-$500 range, and Les Pauls were only $100-$200 more than that. By the time me and my brothers and friends were buying them, the aftermarket for parts to remedy the deficiencies in the standard fare from Gibson and Fender was just starting up, so you could get what was considered the best guitar available used at a good price, and fix it up to where you didn't want to smash the damned thing every time you picked it up. A couple people were even making aftermarket pickups, although the Seymour Duncans and Dimarzios of this world had yet to appear.

btw on a sg jr is the bridge pickup mounted closer towards the neck than a normal sg bridge pickup? looks that way. is that intentional? to get a more effective/different sound?

It's been too long for me to remember that kind of detail. But, generally speaking, given the same pickup you can get pretty dramatically different sounds out of it by moving it back and forth between the neck and bridge. In fact, I seem to remember a design or two from other manufacturers where that kind of movement was designed into the pickguard. That's one of the reasons Leo put three of them on the Strat. Today, those are considered magical locations and Leo is given all sorts of credit for finding those positions, but I'd bet dollars to donut holes he just spaced them conveniently and called it a love story. That is worked out as well as it did is just a happy accident <grin>