Chibson "Angus" SG Mod.

[DrNomis_44]

Here we have one of those infamous Gibson (Chibson?) counterfeit guitars that were being manufactured over in China before Gibson started doing something about it.


So, why am I modding it?, basically to make it play better, here's what I'm planning to do:


1, Rip out the stock nut which causes the high E-String to buzz like a sitar when tuned to pitch, and replace it with a white Graphtech Tusq XL nut.

2, Replace the stock bridge with a new Nashville Tune O Matic bridge (the original bridge also causes the high E-String to buzz like a sitar).

3, Replace the stock tuners with a set of better quality replacements, each of the original tuners exhibited 1/4 turn of backlash rendering it very difficult to accurately tune each string to pitch.

4, Level the frets near the body end of the neck to get rid of serious fretbuzz/choke on the high E-string.

And finally....

5, Replace each pickup with new Entwistle HV58 pickups.


Here's a couple of pics of the guitar:

[stan]

great plans DrN

Chibsons are still being made, regardless of the big G...

i think this will be a killer axe when complete

[DrNomis_44]

great plans DrN

Chibsons are still being made, regardless of the big G...

i think this will be a killer axe when complete

I'm hoping it should be too, the new tuners and bridge are supposed to be arriving in the post sometime tomorrow afternoon.

[keloooe]

Should be awesome Nomis!

[stan]

I'm hoping it should be too, the new tuners and bridge are supposed to be arriving in the post sometime tomorrow afternoon.

if the basic construction is sound then you can easily make a great player from it

[DrNomis_44]

if the basic construction is sound then you can easily make a great player from it

Apart from one pickup route being a bit out of alignment, the body and neck actually look in reasonably good nick, I tried sighting the neck to evaluate the straightness and it seems to be pretty good, the truss rod works and doesn't feel overly tight', so I'm pretty confident about it.

I should be receiving the new tuners and bridge in the mail any time today according to what it says when I check DHL postal tracking, I was a bit concerned that the new Nashville bridge wasn't going to fit the original bridge post holes so I took the original TOM bridge off the SG and compared it with the Nashville bridge on my Les Paul Studio, apart from the original bridge being slightly smaller than the Les Paul's, the post holes looked like they were the same distance apart so that was good news, the new Nashville bridge comes with all the mounting hardware with it so all I need to do is remove the original threaded bushings and put the new ones in, feeling pretty relieved about that for sure.


Update:


Guess what just got delivered right to my front door?......my sanity..lol...j/k......yes, the new set of Tuners and Nashville bridge, will post an unboxing pic shortly....stay tuned.



The new Tuners and Bridge unboxed:



There's only one small problem with the new bridge, the threaded bushings are too small in diameter to fit in the original bridge post holes so I have two options, either fill the holes with dowel and re-drill them to the correct size, or, slightly enlarge the post holes on the new bridge to fit the original bridge posts, I have some Titanium coated drill bits so I might just do the latter, on the other hand the new tuners look like they should just drop right in the holes on the headstock.



Update 2:


Just found out that there's a much simpler solution to the bridge post hole size dilemma, the new bridge has two smaller threaded inserts and they are just small enough that I can simply gently hammer them into the larger threaded inserts.



Update 3:


The new tuners feel alot better than the original ones, exhibiting minimal Tuner Backlash, and will fit the holes on the headstock but I'll have to slightly enlargen the holes so that the new ferrules will fit.

And all the mounting holes on the new Tuners all line up with the mounting screw holes on the back of the headstock.


I'm happy with that.

[DrNomis_44]

Update 4:


Just as I was in the process of re-stringing and tuning up the SG in order to do a quick before mods recording one of the original tuners broke and was rendered useless, the tuner felt very stiff before it broke, basically what happened was that as I tried to turn the stiff Tuner knob the cream plastic knob broke off forcing me to install the new tuners sooner than I had planned to, oh well at least the original pickups still work.


Since the headstock holes were a bit too small for the new Ferrules, I had to use my trusty calibrated Rat-Tail File to enlarge the holes till the new ferrules gently press-fitted into them, then I installed the new tuners, they felt much smoother than the old ones and were practically a Drop-In replacement.

[keloooe]

Kluson-style tuners?

[DrNomis_44]

Kluson-style tuners?

Yep, the new ones looked alot like the old ones but were slightly lighter in colour, I've been getting into those old style klusons ever since I bought my Les Paul Studio guitar in December last year.

[stan]

glad it's all working out. better post up some pics!!