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Why doesn't make a SG style guitar?


Heritage525

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They'd have to call it something else--maybe the HG?

 

SGs are all over the place on eBay.

 

I've got an SG Supreme in Blueburst which I enjoy occasionally; I like the 24-fret access!

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I'm personally not into SG's, but but before I went Gibby, I'd get a PRS Mira- they are an awesome little guitar.

 

Try one out before buying an SG.

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I'm personally not into SG's, but but before I went Gibby, I'd get a PRS Mira- they are an awesome little guitar.

 

Try one out before buying an SG.

 

I played one of those the other day. That's the first thing that came to mind - SG.

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not especially a big fan of SGs myself..always thought they were top heavy (long fretboard)

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Around about 1990 I bought an early '70s SG from a German tourist who was in Ireland for a couple of months, got it at a real good price too.

It had the traps inlays and '57 humbuckers and it sounded great.

The only problem was tuning stability, or my technique.

I tend to palm mute quite a bit when playing and I found that I was actually warping the guitar along its' length as I played.

The whole thing was flexing like a bow with the string pulled.

The guitar also, as chico pointed out, had a tendency to drop at the headstock when on a strap and I could never get comfortable with that.

I ended up selling it and putting the proceeds towards a new Les Paul, a different and more substantial animal entirely.

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The only SG I can handle is the classic Angus Young/Tony Iommi Heritage Cherry finish.

 

Every other SG I see doesn't cut it. The old brown stain ones I think are ugly, along with any type of burst. I think the lefty thing in Iommi really inspired me early, and so I idolized his guitar.

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How about a Heritage version of the original Kalamazoo Epiphone Wilshire. Both versions; the 1960/61 with longer horns,3 on a side headstock and P90's and the later one with the batwing headstock and mini humbuckers !!!64wilshi.jpg

 

That is super cool!!! Especially with the mini-hums. But looks like it'd be a bugger to work the vol/tone with the cord jack being between them like that. I like the Tele/Strat body. Well, that's what I'm getting out of it, anyway. +1 for an uber cool guitar!

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That is super cool!!! Especially with the mini-hums. But looks like it'd be a bugger to work the vol/tone with the cord jack being between them like that. I like the Tele/Strat body. Well, that's what I'm getting out of it, anyway. +1 for an uber cool guitar!

 

The jack placement could always be moved to the body, like any solidbody Heritage or.............you could simply use an angled jack.

I'll take one in Inverness green and one in Pelham blue.

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Forgive me for being a wet blanket, but to be honest I wonder if the reason that Heritage has avoided the super-thin-mahogany body, high-fret set neck design, is that the design is inherently unstable and prone to break.  (Maybe this is why Townsend is associated with the SG!) 

 

In my years around guitars, and discussions with repair guys, there's been agreement about three chronic break points in guitars produced by top-rank manufacturers:

1. the headstocks of mahogany necked guitars ...not much to do about this one; a lot of tension at a point where direction of cut crosses grain of wood.  At least it usually breaks with the grain and can be fairly easily reglued.

2. the so-called "pickguard crack" on old Martins (fixed by redesign)

3. cracks extending from the top and bottom of the front pickguard cavity of SG type-guitars to the front of the guitar.

(Of the three, the SG crack is by far the most difficult to repair.  Opening the cracks to get glue in often caused further damage, and hiding a spline means removing the fingerboard ...and there's still just not much wood for a glue joint.)

 

During my shop days in the 70s/80s, I use to see a lot of Wiltshires and SG's ...these were inexpensive guitars in their day and many were made and sold.  A very high percentage of these guitars that had a front pickup had the pickup cavity cracks and would not stay in tune.  Those long necks put a lot of pressure on a joint where there just isn't much wood, and the necks create a lot of leverage on the joint if the guitars are dropped or banged.  (I suspect, based on my experience, that there are fewer headstock breaks on these guitars than on 3*5's and Les Pauls, simply because they break at the neck-body joint before they break at the headstock. 

 

Interesting that during the time Jim Duerloo was head of production at K'zoo, and charged by the company with fixing some of the chronic problems with the designs, Gibson redesigned the SG to extend the body out and thus move the neck joint further away from the front pickup cavity and give more meat at the neck joint.  (This was also the period of the volute, which was suppose to strengthen the headstock, though most agree it was ill-conceived and some argue that it makes breaks more likely).

 

The SG I own is from this period, and most guitar people that I've talked to say these guitars are actually more stable, but less desire-able to collectors, than the very early-60s design ... and even so, mine has cracks (finish? wood?) from top and bottom of that front pickup cavity.  (I don't think it is just an aesthetic decision that the current SG Standard has a pickguard that covers this area.)

 

So, I think there is a certain integrity in Heritage not producing these designs.  I'm guessing the 170 was the Co.'s attempt to get at the neck-access advantage while still leaving enough wood for a stable joint.  The juniors (137) are also thicker, single cut, and most don't have a front pickup.  I think there's a sort of catch 22; if you are going to attach a very long neck to a very thin body, the strongest way to do it is with bolts and a steel backplate that distributes the stress.  I think part of the heritage that Heritage almost always preserves is the set neck.

 

SG's and Wiltshire's are cool looking designs, and fun to play.  But I think they would be a real headache for a manufacturer, who would have to deal with returns and repairs ...or at least have memories of the returns and repairs that were the history of these guitars for Gibson and K'zoo Epiphone.  These were also "low-cost" designs ...again, difficult I think for Heritage to compete with ESP and the like, and maybe with Gibson, at the lower end of the quality-guitar market.  (The 137 lists for significantly more than Gibson's junior.  I'm sure it's a better guitar, esp. with the Lollar, but I still suspect that having a cost advantage is pretty important in Heritage's competition with Gibson when designs are similar.)  My 2 cents.  Neck through?  Carbon fiber?  But then they wouldn't be the same guitars.

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I've always preferred the '70s SGs with the more deeply inset neck and longer horns, both from a looks and sound perspective.  The old-style ones have great upper fret access, but there just isn't a lot of neck/body contact, and notes on the upper frets have no "pop" to them.  And then there's the whole "neck falling off" thing...  :laugh:

 

Frank Marino had a real problem on his hands when he modified his old '60s SG for three single-coil pickups.  The extra routing basically made the guitar fall apart, and he had to epoxy it all back together.  I've heard it in concert, and it still sounds great, though.  Of course, he could make any guitar sound great.

 

Personally, I would rather have an H-110 with the extended upper horn than either a 170 or a Heritage SG.  But I realize that's just my preference.

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