Sometimes it’s hard to believe what is on my desk.  Gibson only made SGs with front accessible controls in 1969.  It should have a bigsby trem, and a scratchplate.

It should also have a fingerboard.  What a mess.  This customer bought the guitar as is, as he knew that this could be a very valuable guitar with a lot of work.

The neck has been cracked a number of times, and I’m pretty sure that Gibson didn’t offer this model in cheap, badly applied black finish.

So, lots of work to do.  I started with a new fingerboard, and made a surface to glue the new fingerboard.  After this, a full refinish, sorting out the horror around the tailpiece posts (these had been replaced with cut off screws) and filling and tidying up the previous repairs on the neck.

This is the result.  New hardware. I made new scratchplates.  Note the Les Paul shaped scratchplate specific to this model.

The customer wanted a particular tone, and I was able to suggest my favourite combination of pickups:  Seymour Duncan 59 in the neck position, and a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge position.  Great tones.  Bassy and rich for rhythm, and hot and powerful in the lead position.

I’m confident that this will be one seriously happy customer.