All this talk of SGs lately...

p90fool

...and coincidentally I've been messing around with this.





Better view of the colour;



I've always liked the mid- to late-60s, Special/Melody Maker vibe more than the classic '61 Standard look so there's kind of where I was going with this.

It started life as a faded Special with open coil 490s and it sounded fine, but wasn't really what I was after.

Bonuses from a modding platform point of view are a nice chunky neck, ebony board and perfect on-strap balance. 

It's a very fun thing, and at 6.6lbs a lot more chuckable than my 10 pound Les Paul.  

guitars4you

I agree with you that the P90 based Special is a nice guitar - Interesting take and mod - Not sure on the white scratchplate but that is just me

p90fool

Me neither to be honest Mark, but I had a white and a black one in my parts drawer, the black has the pickup cutouts in the earlier position nearer the bridge and I wanted to try the late 60s style. 

The jury's out on the sound as yet though. 

guitars4you

What P90's do you have on it - I love the 'Jekyll and Hyde' character of those 2 P90's - From lush to raw and a shed loads in between 

guitarcookie1

p90fool said:

...and coincidentally I've been messing around with this.





Better view of the colour;



I've always liked the mid- to late-60s, Special/Melody Maker vibe more than the classic '61 Standard look so there's kind of where I was going with this.

It started life as a faded Special with open coil 490s and it sounded fine, but wasn't really what I was after.

Bonuses from a modding platform point of view are a nice chunky neck, ebony board and perfect on-strap balance. 

It's a very fun thing, and at 6.6lbs a lot more chuckable than my 10 pound Les Paul.  

Nice

Not that dissimilar to mine. 

https://i.imgur.com/2faVNmL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8EULvXc.jpg

Iamnobody

guitarcookie1 said:

p90fool said:

...and coincidentally I've been messing around with this.





Better view of the colour;



I've always liked the mid- to late-60s, Special/Melody Maker vibe more than the classic '61 Standard look so there's kind of where I was going with this.

It started life as a faded Special with open coil 490s and it sounded fine, but wasn't really what I was after.

Bonuses from a modding platform point of view are a nice chunky neck, ebony board and perfect on-strap balance. 

It's a very fun thing, and at 6.6lbs a lot more chuckable than my 10 pound Les Paul.  

Nice

Not that dissimilar to mine. 

https://i.imgur.com/2faVNmL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8EULvXc.jpg

Nice gents. I do like the aesthetic of SGs with a vibrola. How do find the vibrolas? 

I’ll be fitting my first very soon.

The location of the vibrola relative to the bridge isn’t an exact science - obviously.

 @guitarcookie1 would have been governed by the location of the long cover. But there’s quite a difference between the two.

I wonder if there’s an optimal distance though? 

For feel?

I’m just about to put one on an NR Firebird. I suspect the optimal placement for me will be what covers the stud holes best...

p90fool

Iamnobody said:

Nice gents. I do like the aesthetic of SGs with a vibrola. How do find the vibrolas? 

I’ll be fitting my first very soon.

The location of the vibrola relative to the bridge isn’t an exact science - obviously.

 @guitarcookie1 would have been governed by the location of the long cover. But there’s quite a difference between the two.

I wonder if there’s an optimal distance though? 

For feel?

I’m just about to put one on an NR Firebird. I suspect the optimal placement for me will be what covers the stud holes best...

Pretty much this to be honest, though most Juniors and Specials seem to have them so that the string retaining bar points more or less at the pickup selector switch. 

It's worth checking your likely string break angle very carefully before drilling, and that also might sway your decision as to how close you need to be to the bridge. 

guitarcookie1

Iamnobody said:

guitarcookie1 said:

p90fool said:

...and coincidentally I've been messing around with this.





Better view of the colour;



I've always liked the mid- to late-60s, Special/Melody Maker vibe more than the classic '61 Standard look so there's kind of where I was going with this.

It started life as a faded Special with open coil 490s and it sounded fine, but wasn't really what I was after.

Bonuses from a modding platform point of view are a nice chunky neck, ebony board and perfect on-strap balance. 

It's a very fun thing, and at 6.6lbs a lot more chuckable than my 10 pound Les Paul.  

Nice

Not that dissimilar to mine. 

https://i.imgur.com/2faVNmL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8EULvXc.jpg

Nice gents. I do like the aesthetic of SGs with a vibrola. How do find the vibrolas? 

I’ll be fitting my first very soon.

The location of the vibrola relative to the bridge isn’t an exact science - obviously.

 @guitarcookie1 would have been governed by the location of the long cover. But there’s quite a difference between the two.

I wonder if there’s an optimal distance though? 

For feel?

I’m just about to put one on an NR Firebird. I suspect the optimal placement for me will be what covers the stud holes best...

I fitted mine so the long cover was as close to the edge of the body as possible, cos that’s what it looks like Gibson do when I googled pics. 

I think the vibrola is possibly my favourite tremolo, feels very positive to use, no slack and it stays in tune well (this one anyway). 

HerrMetal

I'll commence Crowdfunding for a black pickguard for you. The current one has the aesthetic of brand spanking new white UPVC windows on a twee 500 year old thatched cottage.  It's as deserving a cause as I've seen lately.

p90fool

Haha thanks @HerrMetal I already have a couple of black ones, one for humbuckers and one for P90s, though not in the same position as this one. I'm not sure I like the sound of where these pickups are positioned anyway, but I'll give it a couple of weeks. 

Iamnobody

p90fool said:

Iamnobody said:

Nice gents. I do like the aesthetic of SGs with a vibrola. How do find the vibrolas? 

I’ll be fitting my first very soon.

The location of the vibrola relative to the bridge isn’t an exact science - obviously.

 @guitarcookie1 would have been governed by the location of the long cover. But there’s quite a difference between the two.

I wonder if there’s an optimal distance though? 

For feel?

I’m just about to put one on an NR Firebird. I suspect the optimal placement for me will be what covers the stud holes best...

Pretty much this to be honest, though most Juniors and Specials seem to have them so that the string retaining bar points more or less at the pickup selector switch. 

It's worth checking your likely string break angle very carefully before drilling, and that also might sway your decision as to how close you need to be to the bridge. 

Cheers - I’ll keep that in mind. 

p90fool

@Iamnobody I've just copied my post from the SG thread so you can see some of the process involved.  I'd been hankering for a late '60's style SG Special for some time, with the P90s closer together than the early ones, so I grabbed a more recent SG with humbuckers and converted it.



In case anyone in curious, this was the process. 

I had to rout out about a quarter of an inch of the forward face of the bridge pickup rout, and just knock the corners off the neck pickup rout. I also glued and screwed in a block of scrap alder as the bridge P90 mounting screws won't reach the bottom of the cavity otherwise. 



I've mounted them directly to the body as I didn't want to carve any more wood away than necessary and only had Soapbars anyway. I put dummy screws in the scratchplate afterwards.
 


I also didn't have a small drill bit long enough to reach the control cavity from the Vibrola screws, so I ran a hidden ground wire from there forward to one of the now redundant tailpiece holes, then cut down and slotted a tailpiece stud to trap it in there, to act as a string ground. 



When screwed all the way in it's near as dammit flush with the body. 



The Vibrola is an aged nickel Crazyparts one and it's excellent, way better than modern Gibson or Allparts versions. The design is correct, giving a good string break angle, and the spring is properly heavy duty. 


Currently for me it's one of those had-to-be-done guitars, and for first Black Sabbath album or Live at Leeds tones it absolutely nails it, but I'm not really sure whether it's going to stay as it is. 

I'll certainly keep the guitar though, as now the work is done, tone-wise I can pretty well turn it into any SG I'm in the mood for whenever I have the strings off. 

Kittyfrisk

^ Very neat solutions there. I have some oldish bits of mahogany that you can have, should you find the Alder affects the purity of the tone negatively 

Iamnobody

Cheers @p90fool. I mounted the short vibrola today and early signs are I didn’t make a massive balls up of it. 

I’ve gone for nylon saddles, and domed wheel nuts to try and assist with tuning stability. Once it’s all put together I’ll also take it to a tech for a final tune up. 

Nice solution to the earthing on yours - mines a bit cruder just running the wire out the treble side stud hole and trapping underneath the spring. It’s all hidden though and allows me to fill the tail piece holes with some mahogany plugs.