Gibson weirdness SG P90 mounting....

[Possum]

If anyone ever contacts you wanting P90 pickups for Gibson SG reissues be warned they have a custom made baseplate in there and a mounting that is freaking strange, check this photo out. The pickup has been unBOLTED from the baseplate. The pickup ends up having TWO baseplates, this has gotta be the most screwball thing I've ever seen....

[David Schwab]

Weird! Maybe they were trying to get the shielding closer to the coil?

[Manlius]

Yeah, Reverend sells something like this on their site that I copied for the few customers who needed something like it.

http://www.reverendguitars.com/rever...0_bracket3.JPG

[Possum]

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No, they were trying to boost the pickup itself UP higher. Does anyone know how the original SG P90's were intalled? This method is really cheesy, especially having TWO baseplates, creating eddy currents. Were the vintage ones just installed and adjust like normal soap bars were?

[J S Moore]

It's an upside down dog-ear baseplate. I've done a few of those, although I don't use the regular soapbar baseplate when I do it.

[Possum]

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I know why they did it. Vintage SG's didn't do this, the SG's they are making use a single body with larger routs so they can do bucker or P90's. The routs are probably too deep to install P90s soaps the correct way, they came up with this dumb ass idea, double bass plates, typical Gibson shoddy work....

[Manlius]

I have an SG Jr. with this route, and it really isn't big enough for an HB, so I'm not sure they use a universal route on the SG. It's close, but I'd have to have short base legs, and clip a little wood out of it to make it fit. I also have an SG Standard with normal HB routes.
I think it is simply a manner in which they can attach the pickup to the pickguard, and perhaps they think the extra ability to change the height of the pickup is a positive?

[Possum]

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I looked all around to see how an actual vintage one with P90s set in the pickguard were done but no luck there. The goofy part is they use a soap bar pickup with baseplate, then put the keeper on the bottom, probably a keeper inside the pickup as well, then put it on top of another baseplate, its kind of a mickey mouse idea. I suspect real vintage ones had baseplates made for that guitar.....maybe someone knows....

[J S Moore]

I don't think it's a vintage design. The SG Classic is the one that uses this particular method. The pickups mount right in the pickguard. Very prone to microphonics.

[jason lollar]

it is a vintage design used on some of the bat wing pickguard SG's
check out the 67 SG jr halfway down this page or three guitars down- first one photoed on the right Dr. Von Zuko's Guitar Museum The Gibson SG Jr.
they are not super common and the problem is the height adjustment screw spacing is not consistant- I have 4 different spacings cataloged.
I have made many of these- we call them bat wing pickgaurd mount P-90 soapbars.

[Possum]

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Thanks Jason. I did find some photos showing those guitars with adjusting screws on the sides, but never any photos showing exactly how the vintage ones were done. The current Gibson one in the photo I posted seems ridiculous, TWO baseplates, and are there TWO keepers as well? It would seem to me they would have just used one baseplate upside down and mounted the pickup that; thats the only sensible thing to do. I scoured the web looking for photos of the backside of that guard but zero luck. Gibson does weird shit sometimes. I rewound their regular soapbar set years ago, they were bending the baseplates in a V shape, maybe to hold the magnets better, that would leave a gap under the keeper probably and make it squeal.

[jason lollar]

oh I see- yeah that is mounted wierd, the best photo I have of a vintage one is attached- not alot of detail but I know they dont look exactly like what you have shown but it wouldnt suprize me to see variations!

[Possum]

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Thanks Jason, thats awesome. It does look like they did exactly the same thing, I think I can see that extra brass baseplate from the soap bar in there too. Do you know what size screw/thread those adjusting screws are, they look fatter than bucker mount screws.....

[Sweetfinger]

In the non-pickguard mounted sg's they adjust with wood screws through the pickup and into the body just like a LP special.

[Possum]

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Yeah thats a much better method, though those SG's are pretty thin, I wonder if you could actually screw the adjustment screw right through the back of the body...