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New Turd Day - 1961 LP SG

Phatfrank

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Joined
Feb 5, 2015
Messages
309
Asked some questions on this guitar in another thread, but the seller agreed on a very reasonable price and I am now the caretaker of one beautiful and awesome turd:). It’s a rather early ‘61 and has Throbaks and Grovers, as well as the Original case. Aged Klusons from Crazyparts are already in the mail. It was advertised with both neck and heel breakes, but as far as I can tell it has a longitudinal headstock fracture (not neck) and no obvious fracture at the heel. Will have it properly checked tomorrow, but for now I am really pleased. Plays and sounds wonderful, and the wear on this thing is just like I like’em. Also, this turd apparantly belonged to Allan Hinds so I guess she will have to get used to a slighly less skilled caretaker:laugh2:

I have an all original 1964 ES-175 that actually has PAFs (it was priced and bought as a PAT guitar), my first thought was to perhaps switch pickups but for now the turd will remain as is. No point in carving up original soldering on the 175.

really happy with my new turd!









 

Anje

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Jan 3, 2002
Messages
1,170
It looks fantastic congrats, love this kind of player guitar :salude
 

J.D.

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May 24, 2006
Messages
10,030
That has sort of a "bottom of the lake" patina :hee
 

jb_abides

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Apr 6, 2005
Messages
5,276
That's some perfect poop right there, down to the reflectors and grovers! Enjoy in good health :salude
 

K_L

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Sep 11, 2014
Messages
566
Looks like it`s somehow related to 'FunGus'
 

Elmore

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Jul 10, 2003
Messages
1,853
Just beautiful. Nice acquisition! A real face melter with a Marshall.
 

zhivago

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Sep 29, 2004
Messages
1,417
This puppy has been played, and most likely for good reason!

Awesome SG! :salude
 

corpse

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Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
4,876
Wonderful find. Throbacks are great and I bet she peels paint. Tell us about the wear on the neck- nice rolled edges- plenty of room for high and low strings to bend? Not that low E's get bent much. Sometimes those necks are narrow.
 

brandtkronholm

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Joined
Dec 3, 2006
Messages
2,737
That is a very cool guitar! Congratulations!

I like the flipped neck pickup. It looks fun!

How is the fretboard? Has it been planed? (Maybe this question is answered in the other thread?)
 

Phatfrank

Active member
Joined
Feb 5, 2015
Messages
309
Thanks for the kind comments, guys.

The neck is on the thin side, and the fretboard appears to have been planed quite a bit - the inlays on the 19th and particularly the 21st fret are almost worn through. The binding also has some issues, but the guitar plays really good. Truss rod works fine. I brought it by my luthier today, and he confirmed that it has had a neck break as well as a slight break at the heel, both are sound and ok repaired. He did want to replace the binding, fix the fretboard (possibly replace some of the inlays or even the entire fretboard) and refret, but for now I want to enjoy her as is. A good luthier is like a good doctor - they love carving and fixing things, but sometimes they are better left alone:). Lots of beatiful wear on the neck, will get some pictures.

The pots and caps are original, but someone did a fantastically horrible job of soldering them. Apparantly it has had a small routing under the pickguard for a small switch - you can see a small plastic cap where the hole in the guard was. They even carved s small heart (!) at the bottom of the routing. The resoldering in the rear cavity looks horrible, they even managed to melt part of the bumblebee. Jeez.

All in all I'm extremely pleased with this turd. It is what it is - a mauled good ol' LP SG full of issues and ment for playing. Love it:).

edit: some pics















 
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garywright

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Joined
Aug 17, 2002
Messages
15,583
Autumn might be a good name for that one ..the different shades of orange,brown and red on that top are spectacular :salude
 

MapleFlame

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Jul 3, 2005
Messages
14,044
Absolutely love abused and lived guitars. I happen to have logged flyer miles on bastardized guitars. I'm sure she sounds awesome
 

Gold Tone

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Apr 2, 2002
Messages
6,825
I love SG’s, my first real guitar was a ‘68

That thing is awesome! Great find!!!

I’d pretty quick ditch the Asian Grovers and get some nice milk bottle USA Grovers from the 70’s. They’re cheap and easy to find...that beauty deserves that little tiny change
 

marshall1987

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Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
3,278
Name your guitar "Trench Foot"...like in WWI, Western France, the entrenched Scottish "highlanders" are pounding the enemy.

If that was my guitar, I would consider replacing, as you have alluded to, the heavily "worn" fingerboard with an equivalent Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard, in order to restore/enhance the guitar's playability. :fc
 
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