The
Pickguard:
When you convert
to P90's the standard humbucking
pickguard won't do. You'll need
to get one that is cut for P90's.
BEWARE: There is a potential
problem here. Gibson offered
the SG
Classic, and there are some aftermarket pickguards available for
them. The Gibson pickguard
places the neck pickup close to the
neck, but, the body is routed differently. If you CONVERT an SG,
and route the body using the SG
Classic pickguard, you'll possibly end
up with less wood in the critical neck/body joint area. This
could lead to neck joint failure. By moving the neck pickup back
a little, you don't have to touch any wood in that area, and the neck
joint will be as good as it was for your factory humbucking pickup.
You want to have a custom
pickguard cut, with the pickup routes in special places. Most
important is the neck pickup location. If you get the P90 too
close to the neck, you'll have to route wood on the body at the forward
area of the existing humbucker cavity. THIS IS A BAD THING!
The strength of the neck attachment on an SG is all in that area.
Find ANY
SG with a neck problem, and its got a huge crack on each side of the
neck, in the body, at the smallest (weakest) web of wood in the pickup
route. Trust me don't go there!
I got my pickguard from Bryan Boots,
who does a lot of custom pickguard
sales over on Ebay. Contact him thru one of his Ebay sales, tell
him what you want... and he delivers pretty quickly.
I sent him my back control
cover to
clone too, and he did a great job
with that. All of his SG pickguards come with the smaller holes
for the old ABR-1
bridge. If you have a Nashville bridge
you'll need to enlarge those holes to 9/16" using a stepdrill turned
with your hand alone (no drill motor). Its an easy chore.
Actually 1/2" holes are called for on the Nashville bridge,
but nobody is going to place the holes for that bridge "perfectly" in
the pickguard. They're gonna be off by just a wee bit, no matter
what. So 9/16th openings give it enough free play, and you can't
see the gap anyway with the bridge in place... so no biggie.
Two email addresses for Bryan Boots
bryanboots@charter.net
dazbootman@hotmail.com
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