Putting a Tele pickup in an SG

[alexri]

This is something I'm interested in.

 

What I'd like to do, is put a legitimate Fender tele pickup in the bridge, and keeping the stock 490R in the neck position.

 

I know there would be some wiring alterations to deal with (replacing pots I believe?)

 

I would compensate the difference in size by just buying some pickguard material off stewmac and making a custom pickguard :)

 

How do you think the tele pickup would sound in an SG?

[Silenced Fred]

well, through my experience playing the tele deluxes with a tele bridge pickup and a wide range hum bucker in the neck, there's a BIG, and I mean BIG difference in volume between the two pickups.

 

IMO, for like 200 bucks on craigslist, you can get a used mim tele. even cheaper around 100 would be a used squier tele. just my opinion

[Searcy]

Something else to think about is fitting the Tele pickup into the SG body. The space between the poles on a Tele bridge pickup is wider than on a Gibson SG so you would have to twist the pickup to make the poles line up. This might require you to start removing wood in the bridge pickup rout to make the huge base plate of the Tele pickup fit in the hole.

[stein]

Something else to think about is fitting the Tele pickup into the SG body. The space between the poles on a Tele bridge pickup is wider than on a Gibson SG so you would have to twist the pickup to make the poles line up. This might require you to start removing wood in the bridge pickup rout to make the huge base plate of the Tele pickup fit in the hole.

Good point, I am sure no one would even think about that until they bought one and tried it.

 

So, could one just mod the base plate a little?

[Jeff-7]

IMO, for like 200 bucks on craigslist, you can get a used mim tele. even cheaper around 100 would be a used squier tele. just my opinion

This.

[alexri]

well, through my experience playing the tele deluxes with a tele bridge pickup and a wide range hum bucker in the neck, there's a BIG, and I mean BIG difference in volume between the two pickups.

 

IMO, for like 200 bucks on craigslist, you can get a used mim tele. even cheaper around 100 would be a used squier tele. just my opinion

 

That is true but then I'd be cheating on my SG :)

 

Stupid, I know, but she's the only electric I've ever really had and don't want to change that if I can help it.

[alexri]

Something else to think about is fitting the Tele pickup into the SG body. The space between the poles on a Tele bridge pickup is wider than on a Gibson SG so you would have to twist the pickup to make the poles line up. This might require you to start removing wood in the bridge pickup rout to make the huge base plate of the Tele pickup fit in the hole.

 

Damn I hadn't thought of that.

 

If I can somehow manage to fit it in there, then the only other issue is the pots, right?

 

Perhaps I could even attach the baseplate to the underside of the pickguard, and just ignore the pickup cavity completely? I'm not sure how tall the pickup is though. I like the treble pickup to be relatively high anyway.

[pete c]

how about a coil tap?

[Twiz]

Try a P-90? Or look for one of these?

[milod]

It looks to me as if the possible advantage to the general Gibson style of separate volume and tone controls for each of two pickups would aid melding the two different pickups, and one might wonder about the wisdom of cranking a Tele pickup to fit the Gibson string width at the bridge.

 

Seriously, though, it struck me that an inexpensive "clone" SG - such as some of the new Epi versions - might be a better place to experiment than going right to a real Gibbie. But then I tend to be rather cowardly about messing with better guitars. It's your cash.

 

m