SG Junior to Special Conversion

John Rutherford · May 17, 2014

Fed up waiting for Gibson to produce a definitive Pete Townshend Model SG [ the white one is fine

but the wrong colour and the wrong pickguard, the signature model was ok but WASN'T a Cherry finish ]

So I decided to make my own one.

I bought a nice 2006 Junior for a bargain price, not pristine but all in working order. The wiring cavity

for the Junior is the same for the two PU model, so that's OK.

The real tricky thing is cutting the pickguard, I bought one of those Dremel rotary things

but found out quickly that it doesn't cut the plastic but melts it via high speed friction

so I resorted to old fashioned fret saw, files and sandpaper. It's not easy, takes hours

and the result wasnn't 100% perfect but it's damned OK if I say so myself.

Next rout out the pick up cavity, once again, chisels, files and sandpaper rather than

high speed tools, takes an hour or two and causes a real mess so don't do it in the lounge,

sawdust and wood chips everywhere. It need not be perfect as the batwing pickguard hides everything.

Cut a groove from one cavity to the other for the braided wire.

Next drill the holes for the toggle switch and extra tone and volume pots. Then out with the soldering

iron and get busy

I had a spare P90 for the conversion but during the mounting operation I must have

damaged it as the output was pathetic, so I took a P90 out of one of my other SGs and completed

the job, even fitted the little pointer things on the pots. I'm rather happy with the result and it

sounds great.

Hope you like the snaps I took while doing the job.

sellen · May 17, 2014

Looks very cool [thumbup] and i would think you like it even better when you have done all the good work yourself

pauly · May 18, 2014

Looks good, the knob pointers are a neat touch too. The satisfaction of doing a project like that is a reward in itself.

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