# Smokehouse SG resurrection (pics, pics, pics!)



## theruley (Oct 24, 2011)

Hello everyone! I have been signed up for a while but I think this is my first post. 

This is about a guitar that I had found through a person my dad works with. They were talking about music and she mentioned that she had been taking care of an old man on his death bed, before he had passed away he left his old guitar with her...a Gibson SG

Needless to say I was immediately interested when my dad told me about it, so she gave it to my dad to bring home for me to have a look at. I was confronted with this.


























After some inter-netting I found that it was an SG-1 from the early 70's. Sort of like an SG Jr, only with a mini humbucker and a lot uglier. 
The guitar appeared to have spent most of its life hung by an extension cord noose in a smoke room of some sort (the noose was still tied around the neck when I saw it). Literally every square inch of the guitar had a thick film of tobacco tar on it. It was nasty...you would have to wash your hands after you touched it and it also looked like someone at some point had scraped around the gibson logo and serial # to see if it actually did say "gibson" under the tar, then hung it back up and let it smoke for another ten years >.<

The neck was arrow-straight though and there were no signs of any headstock breakage or repair jobs, so I made her what I thought was a fair offer for it, and took it home.

The first step was to thoroughly clean it and remove as much of the tar as possible, It had to be done to get it in any way playable. This involved much trial and error with different products. Because the tar was so thick and stubborn (there was dust embedded in it too!), just about everything I threw at it either wouldnt do anything, or would start to take the finish off with it too.










































First six hours and it was starting to look like a guitar again!


----------



## theruley (Oct 24, 2011)

Buckle rash!

























I really wish that whoever did this DIDDNT DO THIS!


----------



## theruley (Oct 24, 2011)

In total it was about a ten hour job to strip 95% of the junk off of it. To get the last 5% would probably be another five-no thanks!

Then my bridge finally arrived. It needed a bit of filing to fit on the old posts but that was about it. I stringed it up and the neck still diddnt move (score!) I thought it may have had a broken truss rod, which could have been why it was written off in the first place, but thankfully that wasnt the case. 


























I plugged it in and just played an open E...BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldnt believe how good it sounded! The rest of the day was spent tweaking the setup and just thrashing on it! I wasnt expecting too much from it-mostly just a fun little project, then maybe sell it and at least get my money back, but this is definitely a keeper! 

After a while I decided that the mini humbucker just wasnt it, so I threw in a gibson p90 (I am a certified p90 freak). This required a 'bit of wood removal. but its still reversible if I want to put the minihum back in. I also added a tone-bypass switch. Mostly just because I had a switch and wanted to use it for something, but I am finding it to be quite practical. You can go from fully jacked to your sweet spot without having to fish for it.


















































The sound is just about what you would expect out of a Jr style guitar, but it has a very "eager" quality to it-you pluck one note and you can feel the entire guitar tremble and quiver, You can almost hear the guitar screaming "MORE!" as you are playing it.

It now gets played regularly and it pretty much has a permanent spot in my collection. I couldnt imagine ever getting rid of it because I dont think I could ever find a suitable replacement for it.

Hope this was interesting for somebody. I would hate to think of what would have happened to this guitar if my dad hadnt found it for me.


----------



## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

Amazing job and a lot of work. I have a 1971 SG Deluxe that is the same walnut colour and has a similar looking neck joint. Super fast and skinny neck on these models.


----------



## keto (May 23, 2006)

Nice project!

I bought an old 60's Japanese sorta-Strat 4 pickup thing at a pawn shop in North Battleford in about 1995, that had a similar layer of tar buildup all over it. I forget what I used, or how long it took me, but it was loooong I remember that much. Still have it here, but never play it because it makes a vintage Tele baseball bat neck look small by comparison. The pickups are amazing, great single coil tone.


----------



## Maxer (Apr 20, 2007)

Nice story & great pics. Fantastic to hear of a once-abandoned guitar resurrected with so much patience. It looks awesome. I kinda like the headstock logo, to tell you the truth. Gives it a rough, punk vibe. It looks like a well-seasoned beater guitar with mojo to spare.


----------



## fredyfreeloader (Dec 11, 2010)

Nice restoration, you took a piece of crap and brought it back to life. Now you just tell people who look at it kind of strange like, that many people pay big bucks to get a new guitar that looks like that, they think it adds character to new guitars when they looks really old. Great job.


----------



## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Did you play Smoke on the Water yet?:rockon2:


----------



## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

Awsome man..love to see this old garl ressurected..


----------



## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

those pics of the tar coming off were disgusting! i probably would have gagged the entire time.


----------



## Loudguitars.com (Jan 29, 2011)

*Nice Job*

Cool Story and nice Job!!!!!! Score!!!! largetongue


----------



## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

_On top of old smokey .. la la la la _

Nick named ******* maybe ?


----------



## georgemg (Jul 17, 2011)

Lots of character and history in that guitar. Definitely a keeper now.


----------



## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Very cool. I love doing stuff like that.


----------

