NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

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nanamour
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NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by nanamour » Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:13 am

Well, this came into my possession yesterday:

Image

It's purportedly a 1965 SG Junior, with an apparent mishmash of vintage (original P90, pots, bridge, posts) and replacement (tuners, nut, pickguard) parts. The guitar is a bit rough around the edges, hence the bargain barrel price I bought it for; chiefly, an ill-fitting replacement nut, what appears to be a not-so-great refret job with some sharp fret ends, a crudely hacked route for a humbucker necessitating an oversized shim beneath the P90 cover to hide the route, and a pretty shoddy refin job, with traces of red and what appears to have been a previous Pelham Blue paint on the fret ends and on a couple of the upper frets :fp:

While it's currently barely playable, plugging it in last night I was blown away by the responsiveness of the single P90 to the tone and volume controls-- conjuring everything from meaty biting sizzle to surprisingly convincing Tele twang, to woody jazz spank was more effortless than with any other guitar I've owned, including those with twice the number of pickups. The old slab of mahogany is also incredibly resonant unplugged, and delightfully light.

All that being said, this old plank seems well worth a bit of mahogany dust and expense to get things up to snuff. Long term plans include plugging and rerouting the hackjob pickup route, plugging and re-drilling the bridge posts (which are currently leaning forward at an unsettling angle), new bone nut and proper fret dressing, and, since this is a bit of a mishmash player's guitar already, a refin in my favorite Gibson custom colour, Heather Poly.

While I'm at it, I plan on upgrading the original lightning bolt wraparound to something properly compensated for modern 3 wound/3 plain strings. The world of Gibson parts is a bit here be dragons for me, so I would welcome any suggestions the folk of OSG have for a quality bridge replacement; ideally one that maintains the aesthetics of the original (e.g. not one with adjustable saddles).

I know Larry Mal has evangelized the quality of Faber products here in the past, and I was also considering the CWT60-A from Mojoaxe which looks to be a quality, no-frills option for a reasonable price, but I'd love to hear other recommendations, experiences with replacement wraparound bridges.

And, again, given that originality is being thrown out the window, I've been giving some thought to installing a lyre vibrola, a la Rex Shelverton's Junior, as much to help balance neck dive as for actual vibrato usage...I know these can be a bit of a polarizing piece of hardware, however, so I'd also love to hear any tips/tricks/moans from maestro users out there.

Much appreciated!

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by MechaBulletBill » Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:50 am

cant complain about the mojoaxe on my firebird. just works, no bother!

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by nanamour » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:19 pm

MechaBulletBill wrote:
Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:50 am
cant complain about the mojoaxe on my firebird. just works, no bother!
Yeah, I'm leaning toward the Mojoaxe; good to hear it's done the trick for you.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by Larry Mal » Wed Dec 04, 2019 4:12 pm

The Mojoaxe is also excellent, I bought one for my father in law's 50's Les Paul Junior Special. I don't know that he's even installed it yet, but when I had it in my possession, it seemed like a hell of a piece of work.
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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by antisymmetric » Thu Dec 05, 2019 1:03 am

What a cool guitar- these were a big part of the reason for me wanting to build myself some guitars, and supplied a lot of the DNA for the first couple. Whichever way you decide to go with this, I'd be very keen to see the results. :-*
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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by mgeek » Thu Dec 05, 2019 1:10 am

nanamour wrote:
Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:13 am

And, again, given that originality is being thrown out the window, I've been giving some thought to installing a lyre vibrola,
This is GLORIOUS, theres something really magical about these one pickup Gibsons imo, almost like the platonic form of the electric guitar

As you say you've been 'giving some thought to' it rather than 'definitely', I'm (a man off the internet) here to try and persuade you not to ;)

It'd certainly look cool, but imo the main tonal benefit of a JR comes from the wraparound bridge- all those resonances have nowhere to escape to, so go right back down into the body via a lump of metal...it's simplicity is kind of like a dream situation for guitar design, and it always seems a shame to me when I see these with trems.

Another issue with the vibrola is that ideally two part trems are paired with a rocking bridge- like on the jazzmaster, and that really helps the tuning. Maybe Gibson dudes have figured out ways round this, but I just imagine the strings would grind back and forth on the wraparound, which is designed to be rock solid. I can't see it holding tuning very well.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by MechaBulletBill » Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:59 am

... again, the vibrola on my firebird - in tandem with the wraparound - just works.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:53 am

My Oceana Jrs have the Tonepros wraparound bridge with individually intonatable saddles and I love them. Very precise, just the right amount of mass, and comfortable against the hand.

Sweet guitar!

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by leokula » Fri Dec 06, 2019 5:24 am

I have a Vintage V6 Icon, an SG jr knockoff in the post, while it's not here I've been reading and watching videos of old SG juniors and they all rave about that single P90. Read all but great things about SG Jr's, you got a nice guitar there! Looks killer as well!
Jaguar > Jazzmaster :)

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by PorkyPrimeCut » Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:19 am

I have nothing to add except lots of single, vintage P90 love.
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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior

Post by nanamour » Tue May 05, 2020 7:47 am

Update!

I've finally gotten around to stripping this thing, which revealed some interesting guitarchaeology under the thick globs of paint from at least two prior refins. Apparently at some point in the guitar's past life, someone routed this Junior out for a neck pickup of some sort (perhaps a strat coil?--it appears to be just too small to house a P90), which was professionally plugged with a little chunk of mahogany. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the bridge pickup route, which ended up being even more of a hackjob than I expected, looking like someone vented some serious frustration upon it with a screwdriver.

I also discovered a number of additional holes had been drilled into the control cavity, with some pretty nasty tear out to the mahogany on the front of the guitar :fp: . These were plugged with some sort of grainy wood filler that more or less dissolved away with the paint covering them.

Good news is that there doesn't appear to be any evidence of any neck breaks, and the bridge, P90 (aside from it looking like some sort of bluing agent was applied to the baseplate), and pots (both dating to Jan 1965) all pass muster for plausibly being original.

Pics (not for sensitive viewers):
Image
Image

I just received a pickup plug routing template from Potvin Guitars that should be just large enough to clean up the pickup route for a proper plug to be fitted and re-routed for the dogear p90. I've also got some mahogany dowels of assorted sizes on the way to plug the overbored tailpiece stud pits and extra control holes.

Finish-wise, the plan is still to do the body in a solid metallic, Heather Poly, to hide the guitar's past carnage, but now I think I'm going to give the neck a natural finish, sort of a la the Tweedy SG. The neck is an especially nice piece of minimally molested mahogany, and it feels a shame to cover it up entirely.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by Maggieo » Tue May 05, 2020 8:59 am

marqueemoon wrote:
Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:53 am
My Oceana Jrs have the Tonepros wraparound bridge with individually intonatable saddles and I love them. Very precise, just the right amount of mass, and comfortable against the hand.

Sweet guitar!
My Oceana has a straight-bar bridge, that has a sculpted top to aid intonation:

Image
Paul Rhoney Guitars Oceana Jr., March 20, 2020 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

My Tele-Sonic has a Wilkinson wrap-around with an intonatable bit, and it works aces:

Image
Fender Tele-Sonic, December, 2009 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr
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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by Sweetfinger » Thu May 07, 2020 7:14 pm

That neck rout might have been for a dummy coil or maybe something like a Tele neck pickup. Who knows?
As far as bridges? My go-to has been the dirt cheap "lightning" wraparound that comes on the budget Epiphones. It's a lighting bridge, just intonated for a plain third instead of wound. Of course, your SG originally had nickel hardware, which would necessitate spending more than eight bucks for the Epi, that I've only seen in chrome.
Some advice on the dowels and unpleasantness around the controls:
If you dowel those, even with the wood grain oriented correctly and matched visually, eventually you will see the outline show in the finish, particularly if it's a metallic or pearl finish like a Pelham Blue or Burgundy Metallic.
If that was mine, I'd dowel the holes, then sand a "dish" into the top over the dowels, then glue a mahogany veneer into the dished area, then sand the top flat. What you get, is a wider area of mahogany with a feathered witness line that if/when it does start to visually show in the finish, isn't a bunch of circles and rectangles.
IIRC the last repair I did to something like that was an old Ibanez copy-era Firebird. The control area had extra tomfoolery and the jack had torn out a couple times.
We simply found a close-enough veneer and laminated over the entire treble "wing". Since there's that ridge on a Firebird body, with a slightly darker finish, you can't tell unless you're really looking for it.

If you need a much more correct looking pickguard, let me know. I just templated a '64 Junior. Pickguards are what I do.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by nanamour » Fri May 08, 2020 9:30 am

Sweetfinger wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 7:14 pm
That neck rout might have been for a dummy coil or maybe something like a Tele neck pickup. Who knows?
As far as bridges? My go-to has been the dirt cheap "lightning" wraparound that comes on the budget Epiphones. It's a lighting bridge, just intonated for a plain third instead of wound. Of course, your SG originally had nickel hardware, which would necessitate spending more than eight bucks for the Epi, that I've only seen in chrome.
Some advice on the dowels and unpleasantness around the controls:
If you dowel those, even with the wood grain oriented correctly and matched visually, eventually you will see the outline show in the finish, particularly if it's a metallic or pearl finish like a Pelham Blue or Burgundy Metallic.
If that was mine, I'd dowel the holes, then sand a "dish" into the top over the dowels, then glue a mahogany veneer into the dished area, then sand the top flat. What you get, is a wider area of mahogany with a feathered witness line that if/when it does start to visually show in the finish, isn't a bunch of circles and rectangles.
IIRC the last repair I did to something like that was an old Ibanez copy-era Firebird. The control area had extra tomfoolery and the jack had torn out a couple times.
We simply found a close-enough veneer and laminated over the entire treble "wing". Since there's that ridge on a Firebird body, with a slightly darker finish, you can't tell unless you're really looking for it.

If you need a much more correct looking pickguard, let me know. I just templated a '64 Junior. Pickguards are what I do.
Thanks for chiming in Sweetfinger, really solid advice all around. I ended up opting for a nickel reproduction lightning wraparound from Mojoaxe, which seems like a quality piece of hardware.

Good suggestion re: veneering over the control area carnage to avoid witness lines. I ran into that very issue after finishing over repaired holes on a Jaguar body I painted in a similar metallic a few years ago.

Certainly interested in eventually getting a more proper looking pickguard for this one, the thick one-ply was bugging me to no end. I'll shoot you a PM shortly.

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Re: NGD 60s SG Junior+wraparound bridge recs

Post by Sweetfinger » Sun May 10, 2020 8:16 am

If you're doing heather poly, an off white might look good. I can cut these in a ton of different colors.
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