Andy at Andy's Guitar Shop here in San Diego said I could go one of two paths to hotrod my Gibson SG.
Path 1: Better LOOKS
- or -
Path 2: Better SOUND
I went with BETTER SOUND! So here's the result - I started with the Gibson SG Special Worn Cherry Finish model, which is a great playing guitar and doesn't have those potentially annoying edge bindings on the neck.
Then Andy added a few things:
Body close-up:
Seth Lover Model Seymour Duncan PAF-style new issue matched split pickups with all chrome steel frame brackets. Andy carefully cut new spaces in the pickguard to hold these. He also added a white top to the pickguard (just under the fingerboard, see?) that I can etch the name of the guitar across, when I finally think of a name.
The pickups are split, which people often don't know you can do with Seth Lovers. You can push/pull the knobs to get a single pickup, double, or a combination of both. I find that mixing a single on the bridge pickup, double on the neck, and vary the tones on both makes for a great classic jazz sound, better than most 'jazz' guitars get...
"Designed jointly by Seymour and humbucker inventor, the late Seth Lover. Just like the original 1955 P.A.F.s, they utilize a nickel silver cover and long-legged nickel silver bottom plate, plain enamel wire, Alnico 2 bar, wooden spacer, and black paper tape. To be completely true to the original design and tone, the pickup is not wax potted. The tone is vintage P.A.F. The unpotted cover gives a slightly honky microphonic quality."
Next - the American made hardbody-style Bigsby B5 Vibrato Tailpiece:
A floating roller bridge to handle the Bigsby yanking. Didn't even know this existed until Andy told me about it. Works great by the way, absolutely recommended:
And new tall chrome steel knobs, easy to grap and pull to switch from single coil to double on the Seth Lover pickups:
And finally a new Fender Blues Junior all-tube amp to play it through. This is the Tweed model of the Blues Junior, equipped with a 12" retro-Jenson speaker. Sounds great, really classic and clean. This is sort of an update to their original 15 watt Fender Tweed Deluxe amp that was sold 1955-1960.
