Should I Do This Or Leave It Alone?

[canoeroller]

Many more years ago than I would like admit, I bought an SG II - it was abused and battered, but it was my first guitar too - - I still have it, and now would like to hear some opinions on what I ought or ought not to do. It was a student model SG - and before I got it the many of the plastic parts had been broken, someone carved his name and social security number on the back of it (can we all say identity theft?). As a teenager, I replaced the broken plastic with wooden parts I made in my father's workshop and had to replace the original tuning machines with Schallers.

Now, I have had to recrown the frets, and this got me to wondering if I ought to try to restore it to its original low end Gibson glory from 1972, or should I ought to customize it into the SG I have always thought I wanted, this would include routing out the body for something other than the mini humbuckers it came with, refinishing it and so on, or should I leave it alone?

Your input would be very welcome.

[killemall8]

i would def go for re doing it the way you want. i hate old looking stuff. all my stuff has to look like it just came from the factory. i only like mint stuff. but its still your guitar and up to you.

[soapbarstrat]

Don't even know if that's a glue-in neck, but you have to be careful about neck pickup rout mods on set-neck SG's because sometimes doing that causes the neck to break off. At least I've heard of it happening more than once.

[canoeroller]

All I would need to do is add about a centimeter to the length of the routes, and I could replace the mini humbuckers that are there.. no need to add to the width of the route at all.

[aidlook]

To me this sounds like a seriously personal and awesome guitar with lot's of history as it is. I'd go for the re-crown and keep the guitar with the mods that it has at the moment and if you want a customised sg...build one

Any chance of some pictures?

[zyonsdream]

I’d personally leave it the way it is cosmetically. It’s a piece of your history and once you do heavy modifications you will never look at it the same again. Take it from someone who didn’t see the value of his first guitar and trashed it. There are a lot of times I wish I still had that old guitar hanging on the wall but I will never have a chance to play it again.

I understand having new and shiny guitars that play just the way you want them to but I also understand having a memento of where you came from. If you want that perfect SG then go out and buy one or build one from scratch.

[avengers63]

+1 to leaving it alone because of history. Memories are potent and important things. Messing with them is risky. Items which represent & hold our memories are often more important to us that we realize. Unfortunately, we don't realize their importance until it's too late & the item is gone.

It's ultimately up to you, of course, but I'd only do whatever is necessary to keep it working.

[RestorationAD]

Leave it.

Clean it up <without changing anything>.

Make it playable.

Get some Seymour Duncan minihumbuckers for it if you must.

And lastly, build a custom SG.

Just my opine!

--R

[ray]

i would definitely leave it as is cosmetically

clean her up

do the frets and get it playing

do not cut it anywhere - you will probably find that when you get it playing it is a fine old guitar in its own right

if you want an sg custom just build one and keep the old girl for a tochstone to your past

hand it onto your kids when you cant play it any more

its prolly worth good money

[TemjinStrife]

You can get some great replacement mini humbuckers from Seymour Duncan and GFS.