An SG, with a single pup, and a veneered top...

cacophony

i am starting to get the germ of an idea. just been reading a `build diary` of a bloke who assembled a single seymour duncan P90 equipped SG, from a thomann kit. now this got me thinking, as a long-term project, i`m toying with the idea of buying said kit, filling in the neck pup hole and the routing to it, then veneering the top , before fitting the same type of pickup. i`d also fill two of the `tone/volume` holes. how do you think it`d look?. my quandry is this, the SG has those `shoulders` around the body and in the `horns`. do you think that it`d look odd with those shoulders left un-veneered?. as i`m assuming the veneer would be bloody hard to get to fit properly on those angles.

any thoughts?, like i said, i`m just toying with the idea, nothing more atm, but, if it seems to be a goer... ,i really fancy building another kit, and like the look and feel of the SG, but i also like the thought of a single coil/humbucker option.

TTony

SG with a single bridge p'up??

Win.  

The rest is detail that can be worked out ...

stimpsonslostson

TTony said:

SG with a single bridge p'up??

Win.  

The rest is detail that can be worked out ...

This. My go to guitar is an SG Jr with P90. Fantastic sounding thing!

Andyjr1515

cacophony said:

. my quandry is this, the SG has those `shoulders` around the body and in the `horns`. do you think that it`d look odd with those shoulders left un-veneered?. as i`m assuming the veneer would be bloody hard to get to fit properly on those angles.

any thoughts?, 

Hi @cacophony.  To all reasonable practical intentions you are right that it would be nigh impossible to veneer the chamfers.  Depending what colour / finish you are aiming for, it could look still OK.  I had the same issue with the back of the Westone Thunder Jet I did for someone recently but it looks fine:

Andy

cacophony

hi andy,you confirm what i thought may well be the case. the colour of that beauty is one of the 2/3 options i`m considering. like i say it`s just the seed of an idea but i`m finding myself peering at lumps of wood to fill pickup holes already. if i do it it`ll be a very slow build, no rush, and hopefully i`ll achieve results which are half as good as yours.

ICBM

Veneering the top will work if you do it in either a solid colour or a sunburst which is dark enough to hide the edges, as above.

Many years ago I rebuilt one of those horrible early-70s SG200s with the single coil pickups and 'Telecaster' control plate - which had already been badly hacked for a humbucker in one of the positions (but not quite the right one!) by filling in all the holes in the body with new wood, veneering over the top, then re-routing it as an SG Standard, finished in solid cherry paint . To be honest it was still not a good guitar, but it looked OK.

cacophony

"Veneering the top will work if you do it in either a solid colour or a sunburst which is dark enough to hide the edges, as above."

i`m still undecided whether to go for a simpler veneer and stain it, or buy a better one with more features, walnut, something like that and just varnish it, choices choices.