Replacing Pickups On Gibson Kalamazoo Kg-2

[noctivagus]

First,

I know very little about the electronics in guitars.

I am wondering if it would be feasible to replace the pickups on my 69' Gibson Kalamazoo with

some Gibson p-90 pickups?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

[SwedishLuthier]

It is doable, I would advice against it. Think about all those late 50’s LP specials that have been router for HB instead of P90s. The values of those have diminished compared to if they were left unaltered. Just imagine if some new “flavour of the month” rock star arrives (think Cobain) playing a Kalamazoo. The price of those old cheepo guitars will go through the roof.

If you go ahead and decide to do this you will probably have to replace the pick guard and rout the body for the larger P90s. If you “know very little about the electronics” please take this old, possible somewhat valuable guitar to a guitar tech. Then you will have a clean and professional job done. And, please, please keep the original pickups and pick guard safe together with the guitar so that if you some day changes your mind can go back to the original look.

[j. pierce]

From the photos I've seen, the KG-2 appears to have a rather high neck, like some Rickenbackers - that is, the fretboard playing surface is raised quite high in comparison to the body of the guitar, rather than having a neck angle, to compensate for the height of the tune-o-matic bridge. I could be mistaken, I've never held one in my hands, and I don't certainly don't know the measurements. But I wonder if that buys you enough room that you could make a new pickguard and mount dog-ear P90's to the thing without routing out new cavities? I also haven't worked with dog-ear P90s, so again I'm just throwing things out there. But I'd second what SwedishLuthier says - I'd think hard before routing that body, and if you aren't comfortable doing quality work on the instrument, see about having a tech do it.