1966 Gibson SG Jr repair and restoration
A very extensive repair and restoration for this highly modified ’66 SG Jr. By no means a ‘vintage correct’ restoration, the main focus for the owner was to restore the guitar to be as good as new WITH all of the mods included. As the modifications were done by the owners father, it was very important to keep them intact, which was absolutely no problem!
The main area of concern was the neck/headstock transition, where a repair was previously attempted decades earlier. The original fibreglass resin(?) repair was performed sometime in the 80s after the headstock was completely broken off. As ugly as it is (was hidden under black lacquer) it held up for over 30 years! But it was starting to crack and separate – so was time to do it right!
The aim for this repair was to replace all of the fibreglass resin from the previous repair with matching mahogany. All without removing the headstock for a second time – luckily there was just enough strength left in the joint. By first securing two ‘ribs’ either side of the neck to bridge the two separated sections together (headstock and neck) and then adding a ‘back-strap’ across the entire area to tie all segments together – the headstock, neck and ribs are all connected with the same piece of mahogany for the most strength and stability possible.
Once the headstock was securely in place, the rest of the restoration was standard including full re-finish, body cavity clean up, re-fret, re-wire, custom pickguard, new nut and full set up!
Also whipped up a custom mounting ring for the bridge humbucker out of a P90 dogear cover!
A lot of work, but well worth it for such an awesome vintage instrument. Especially one with so much sentimental value to the owner!
