SG Experts - a bit of a mystery

Nitefly

Here is a pic of my 1972 SG Special:



Notice to the left of, and slightly below, the selector switch there are two perfectly circular shapes in the wood. 

I'm wondering if, at some point, a previous owner had a couple of mini-switches installed. 

Or would these have possibly been done at the factory for installation of some electronic gubbins that were later removed (or not installed at all!)?  I recall Gibson had a bit of a penchant for installing compressors and such in various guitars in the 70's...

Either way, they're quite well-disguised, with a good colour match to the rest of the guitar.

Another thing is that, between the bridge and the mini-humbucker, there is a rectangular fillet of wood that doesn't match the surrounding wood very well. 

My guess is that at some point it's had a replacement pickup, possibly a full-size humbucker, and then been returned to standard spec.

I'd be interested to hear any alternative theories, or indeed confirmation of my guesses.

I should add that I bought this second-hand a couple of years ago, and have no provenance or proof of originality, but if I ever sell it I want to be sure I'm not misrepresenting anything.

TIA for any responses  

stickyfiddle

I'm not aware of any factory models with extra switching or pots in that location. My money's on a coupe of micro-switches for coil splitting or whatever. That tallies with the replaced wood behind the pickup. 

I'm picturing someone who wanted an Alembic but really liked the feel of their existing SG...

Moe_Zambeek

Is the control cavity routed? Or under the pickguard? Might have been coil tap and / or phase switches I guess, which wouldn’t really need much extra space.

The fillet is odd though - if they put full sized hum buckers in, where are the screw holes for the rings? If the rings were within what is now fillet, why fill in such a big fillet? Iyswim...

I don’t recall any SGs with onboard electronics, maybe because they were too thin, but then there was a great deal of butchery going on back then...

Philly_Q

I think it has been modded then returned to original specs.  Looks like a tidy job, though, based on that picture.

Funkfingers

The two circular plugs are of the correct size to have previously been two mini switches.

The rectangular repair next to the mini humbucker is of the correct size to have been a rout extension to accommodate a P90 or a mini-humbucker mounted via a P90 surround. 

Philly_Q

Funkfingers said:

The rectangular repair next to the mini humbucker is of the correct size to have been a rout extension to accommodate a P90 or a mini-humbucker mounted via a P90 surround. 

But then that P-90 (or mini-humbicker in a P-90 ring) would have been half a inch closer to the bridge than the original pickup, leaving some of the original pickup routing exposed.  More likely it was a full-size humbucker, I think.

ICBM

Not a mystery... I will take a reasonably sized bet that it had a pair of full-size DiMarzio humbuckers fitted, with the Dual-Sound switches. Very common in the later 70s/80s.

The large fillet behind the pickup will include where the extra screw holes were, probably because the hole was routed/chiselled quite crudely and that was the easiest way of making a neat job of repairing it.

What's it like at the neck pickup?

merciful-evans

deja vu!

The same feller must have had my Strat

check out two filled holes below the knobs (right in pic)

I dont know what was there either

ICBM

merciful-evans said:

I dont know what was there either

Mini-switches.

Maybe it's just because I lived through the 1980s as a guitar repairer, but I find it amazing anyone doesn't recognise this!

If the neck pickup was always a single coil I would guess a coil-split or series-parallel for the bridge pickup, and a phase switch.

merciful-evans

ICBM said:

merciful-evans said:

I dont know what was there either

Mini-switches.

Maybe it's just because I lived through the 1980s as a guitar repairer, but I find it amazing anyone doesn't recognise this!

If the neck pickup was always a single coil I would guess a coil-split or series-parallel for the bridge pickup, and a phase switch.

Makes sense. It is an 80s guitar. I'm pretty certain the pickups are original. What I do know for sure is that when I bought it the wiring was a mess. It looked like a BT engineer had been at it.

guitars4you

ICBM said:

Not a mystery... I will take a reasonably sized bet that it had a pair of full-size DiMarzio humbuckers fitted, with the Dual-Sound switches. Very common in the later 70s/80s.

The large fillet behind the pickup will include where the extra screw holes were, probably because the hole was routed/chiselled quite crudely and that was the easiest way of making a neat job of repairing it.

What's it like at the neck pickup?

I'd endorse those comments

Nitefly

ICBM said:

Not a mystery... I will take a reasonably sized bet that it had a pair of full-size DiMarzio humbuckers fitted, with the Dual-Sound switches. Very common in the later 70s/80s.

The large fillet behind the pickup will include where the extra screw holes were, probably because the hole was routed/chiselled quite crudely and that was the easiest way of making a neat job of repairing it.

What's it like at the neck pickup?

Thanks for the replies, gents, interesting ideas.

@ICBM I just had a close look around the neck pickup, and there is no visible sign of any sort of interference.  Mini at the neck and full-fat at the bridge?

@Philly_Q it is quite a tidy job, thank you - whoever did it matched the finish really well.  Unless of course the whole guitar has been refinished!

*edit* I haven't looked inside recently and I can't remember what the wiring looks like, but I'll take the cavity cover off later and have a look.

ICBM

Nitefly said:

@ICBM I just had a close look around the neck pickup, and there is no visible sign of any sort of interference.  Mini at the neck and full-fat at the bridge?

Yes, must be - that makes the two mini-switches more likely to be a Dual-Sound (or coil-split) and a phase switch, since the original neck pickup cannot easily be split as it only has a single-core cable. These sorts of sounds were very popular in the late 70s.

You see filled mini-switch holes from that era everywhere if you look closely - commonly on Les Pauls between the knobs, SGs where yours are, Strats in various places... push-pull switches were not easily available and it wasn't thought wrong to drill holes in old guitars!

OilCityPickups

Like @ICBM I worked as a guitar repairer in a music shop in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and as one of the only two 'proper' music shops on the Isle of Wight we were inundated with requests to 'rip out that old crap and fit DiMarzios'. SGs, old Les Pauls ... many fitted with PAFs, even, as I recall a 1965 Strat that had a 'swimming pool rout' done to fit three DiMarzio humbuckers!
What you have thee is quite a mild 'mod' :-) So many poor Fenders got brass scratchplates, clunky brass bridges etc, DiMarzio even did replacement twin humbucker Strat bodies ... there was very little respect for the 'vintage'.

In a way the large pile of vintage pickups we had kicking around in our workshop was the inspiration for me doing what I do now ... I took them apart, measured them and worked out what made em tick. 

p90fool

It was a very common mod, but as far as full disclosure for selling it is concerned it would be interesting to see the rest of it to see if it's a full re-fin. 

Nitefly

Mystery solved! (at least partially...)

I took the pick-guard off to have a look underneath, and discovered some crudely-engraved names etc.  I made out the name "P Hudson", an address "Wigan Rd Leigh", the word "Raven" and a picture of a bird with an olive-branch in its beak.  There was also, in the space that was left, the name "C Curbishley" and the band name "Fat Chance" and some other bits I couldn't make out.

Wigan Road, Leigh, is about 3 miles from where I live.  A week or so later I was relating all this to a couple of mates in the pub, when one of them says "P Hudson?  That could be Huddy from Leigh... I'll ask him if he remembers it".

Long story short, last night Huddy was here cradling his SG that he was given as a teenager in 1983 - his first "proper" guitar after learning on the usual suspects.  He showed me a couple of pics of him playing it on stage at the age of 15, in his band "Raven". 

It looked a slightly lighter shade of brown, but I'm putting that down to the age of the photos - he confirmed it had always been brown, not cherry faded out.

It was he who took a drill and chisel to it, to install a DiMarzio Dual Sound humbucker (good call, @ICBM ! ) with the associated switches.

The look on his face was absolutely priceless!

Funkfingers

Yay! Did you get pics of the reunion?

pintspiller

Quite an elaborate mod compared to mine! I was never much of a wood-worker, but chiseled out the pickup routing at the bridge a bit to make room for a cheap dogeared P90.

Nitefly

Funkfingers said:

Yay! Did you get pics of the reunion?

I did, but only on his phone.