any gibson sg experts in? neck angle question

pickerg

Hi, I have an early 70s sg that has had a few things done over the years, refin, trem removed etc.

What came to light recently was that I was going to trade an amp for a hard case for it, but it didn't fit because of the neck angle, on mine It's pretty much level with the body, Fender style but the case needed it to angle slightly back. Would this be because It's been reset at some point (wrongly?) Or were some like this? Does it make any difference?

Cheers.

MattG

I have no idea about anything else but that means the headstock is less likely to fly halfway across the room should it get the slightest of knocks, which is something that ive always been paranoid of with mine.

Andyjr1515

Most likely to do with what bridge is / has been retro fitted.  What bridge type is on it at the moment?  The standard Tune-o-matic / Stop Tail arrangements certainly need a neck angle due to the height of the ToM.  A Fender doesn't because the bridge is only a few mm higher than the guitar top.  A Tune-o-matic is more like 20mm.  It sounds like someone put on a low bridge at some stage and reset the neck angle to suit.  

Anyone else got a view?  

Andyjr1515

Maybe I stand corrected - this thread refers to some zero-angle SG's from the 70s

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/gibson-les-pauls/129134-les-paul-no-neck-angle.html

ICBM

SG neck angles varied widely in the early 70s, and some even came *originally* with the wrong case angle. I wish I was joking, but having repaired a friend's SG headstock three times and eventually traced the problem to the pressure the case was putting on it - which oddly wasn't obvious with the case open, it was the angle of the neck relative to the body that was actually bending the case slightly as the catches tightened - I'm really not! I thought he was just clumsy, but I was doing him an injustice.

Iamnobody

Headstock and neck angle all come into play. I've tried to capture the differences below. The top one is a 79 & the bottom is a 92.

WezV

some 70's ones had raised necks and practically no neck angle, so i would say it is probably as it left the factory

compare under the fretboard on this 74

http://i33.tinypic.com/2hcnswm.jpg

to this 69

http://i34.tinypic.com/296p0g2.jpg

WezV

here is a pic of a no-neck angle one i have just snapped from Melvyn Hiscocks book

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/temporary_zpscf62c7ef.jpg

OilCityPickups

No neck angle ones usually have reduced body contouring ... as you can see in the pic in the cut aways.
In this 1971 SG200 pic you can clearly see ... no neck angle and no contours ... that spread across the range for a while.

ICBM

^

For those blissfully unaware of these horrors, and in spite of it looking like a very cheap Japanese knock-off from the late 70s, yes that is a genuine Gibson SG.

OilCityPickups

And there are some people who will pay £700 quid for em ... cos they is vintage innit. Actually they didn't sound awful ... but you can understand why they weren't that popular. About the only guitar that you could vomit on and improve the looks

Skipped

From the book shown......

The Seventies.
A major modification was the insertion of the neck about an inch farther into the body; it now joined at the 20th fret and was set at a "90 degree pitch" to the body. This phrase quoted from Gibson literature of the time is technically a misnomer. as the alteration mounted the fingerboard parallel with the body (previously it had pitched slightly backward) and raised it higher above the body than had been the style before. There was a large heel block that began to taper into the neck at the 17 fret.....



My advice would be don't buy any case that you have not seen (even if is the "correct case" for your guitar)  Better to buy a generic case with some tolerance.

ICBM

Skipped said:

From the book shown......

The Seventies.
A major modification was the insertion of the neck about an inch farther into the body; it now joined at the 20th fret and was set at a "90 degree pitch" to the body. This phrase quoted from Gibson literature of the time is technically a misnomer. as the alteration mounted the fingerboard parallel with the body (previously it had pitched slightly backward) and raised it higher above the body than had been the style before. There was a large heel block that began to taper into the neck at the 17 fret.....

He goes on to say that they were "probably the low point of Gibson solidbody development" if I remember right.

Although I disagree...

That "honour" goes to the Sonex series.

Skipped

ICBM said:

Skipped said:

From the book shown......

The Seventies.
A major modification was the insertion of the neck about an inch farther into the body; it now joined at the 20th fret and was set at a "90 degree pitch" to the body. This phrase quoted from Gibson literature of the time is technically a misnomer. as the alteration mounted the fingerboard parallel with the body (previously it had pitched slightly backward) and raised it higher above the body than had been the style before. There was a large heel block that began to taper into the neck at the 17 fret.....

He goes on to say that they were "probably the low point of Gibson solidbody development" if I remember right.

Although I disagree...

That "honour" goes to the Sonex series.

Shortly afterwards he says:
The oversized SG 100 series probably represents the low point of Gibson solidbody development with the late-1971 Custom, Deluxe and Pro vying closely for this distinction.
:-O
ICBM - (as usual) I am impressed......

Skipped

In 71-72 there were 10 different models of Gibson SG case (5 for the old neck angle and 5 for the flat neck angle). The new (shaped) cases were flat topped to accomodate the bridge on the so called 90 degree neck pitch (flat pitch) models.

ChrisMusic

Norlin buggered Gibson.

Too much uninformed cost cutting across the whole range.

Bean counters over common sense.

I give you the 1970s...

(but that's proper vintage innit)

ICBM

Norlin made some very poor decisions, yes - and some horrible models - but they also made a lot of very fine guitars in among them, and the overall quality was in many ways higher than it is today on anything below Custom Shop level. The biggest problems are more in the styling, weight, and in many of the personal-taste things like the choice of neck wood, which offends purists even though it was undoubtedly an improvement.

By comparison Fender made fewer poor models but lowered the quality of the ones they did make further, in general. Although even then there are a lot of good ones, at least in the earlier 70s.

OilCityPickups

A mate of mine has a fugly seventies SG Special ... no contours to speak of ... nasty big headstock ... cheap looking, front routed control plate. Thing is, it plays like a dream and sounds awesome ... like many seventies LPs in fact. Not all  Norlin Gibbos were shite by a long way.

ChrisMusic

The 70s recession obviously made a lot of companies look at cost cutting measures for survival.  Fender always ran their designs for low cost production and low capital investment, where as it seems to me Gibson were yoked to the traditions as part of their brand image, and as has been pointed out in several discussions on here, were heavily critisised for stepping away from that expectation.  They did try to implement several cost cutting measures which Fender people are perfectly accepting of, not all of which were bad, just different, and engineered to help the company survive.

They did do some horrendous things back then though, just in the name of cost cutting.

As you said ICBM, just as now cost cutting 'cause all we want is cheap, so maybe it's us that are worse for driving that.

But I have to admit my previous comments may have been just a little over the top.

But that seemed to sum up the 70s - oil crisis though to London with the pavements shoulder high in rubbish, tough times to survive, rings a bell somehow doesn't it.

ThePrettyDamned

TheGuitarWeasel;61141" said:

No neck angle ones usually have reduced body contouring ... as you can see in the pic in the cut aways.

In this 1971 SG200 pic you can clearly see ... no neck angle and no contours ... that spread across the range for a while.

Now where is Bucket and his badger gif when you need it...

WezV

you can see the one i posted in the 3rd pic with no neck angle  has the las paul style plate which makes it more like  one of the 73-74 weird SGII's with separate controls on a front mounted plate, although it does have full size humbuckers

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b209/asat4life/1972%20SG%20II/1972GibsonSGII9.jpg

tbh, whilst i don't think its the right choice for an SG, i don't generally mind less neck angle with the neck raised higher of the body.   It doesn't work on the SG because too much of the neck is free of the body, makes it feel like a very long guitar,rather than hugging you like a proper gibson does