Quality control you say?
My 2018 SG Special in natural finish with mini-humbuckers came almost perfect from an online order except for these little things :
- The holly on the head stock is 1/4 off center toward the bass strings.... ok. We can probably stop here with enough evidence of gibson hiring unskilled, pathetic workers to make premium guitars, but let's continue for fun!
- The block inlays are 1/8 inch too high toward the bass strings.
- 2 of the 6 gibson 'deluxe' tuners came DOA. The #@*($& tuners don't work right out of the box. They bind and the pole wobbles back and forth. I had to buy new tuners on day 1 for my BRAND NEW guitar.
- The satin finish is very uneven. It's nice on about 75% of the guitar then some areas look like the sprayer maybe zoned out for a minute and just left the gun running in a few spots until it was twice as thick as others. Nice work!
- 1 of the 4 screws that hold on the service plate is half the size of the other 3 and does not catch threads. Good job, champ!
- The moronic PCB electronics that gibson uses in an attempt to hire even less skilled workers to make guitars was useless from day one. When you plug in the guitar the input jack contacts the service plate and pushes it out in one corner about 1/8 inch.... just seriously... how long have gibson been making SGs and they can't even make the #$*()& input jack work. Yes - i had to rip that junk out and put in normal pots and in input jack that actual functions without making snaps and pops from contacting things when you rub against the back plate while playing.
- There is a big knot in the wood. This body should have been paint grade - not natural finish grade.
- Huge dent on the side of the body in the leg cut, like a hammer hit.
Other than that it's great!
The pickups it came with are mini buckers - modern minis. They sound like absolute trash unless you want a bridge pickup with 26,000 output resistance for some strange reason. I had to swap them out for p90s to make it sound nice, but the pickups did function, so they got that going for them.
Did I send it back? NO WAY. The neck is absolutely awesome. The robots cut a fine fret board and saved the guitar despite the workers best efforts to produce a pile of garbage.
This is my 3rd gibson. My first was an early 90s Les Paul studio that had no faults at all other than weighing about 20 lbs. My second guitar, which became my main guitar for the last 20 years is a late 90s Les Paul Special and this one has many little flaws, like tuning machines screwed on at 6 completely different angels and a real hack job on the rolled binding, but I love that guitar.
I'll buy more gibsons, probably, but NEVER online and blind. Gibson CQ is nonexistent in my experience.
My favorite part of my new SG is the 'We worry about the details!" QC card inside. LOLOLOL. Enjoy your bankruptcy, Gibson.
