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So I played a baritone tele the other day and really liked the feel of the extended neck a lot. I have an old SG I really like (and that has sentimental attachment as it was a gift from my wife) that I'm not using much and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience cutting the neck off and replacing it.... how much work is involved, etc.... I'd rather source the neck and parts myself and make it a project rather than just buy a baritone, and I'd like to replace the pickups/wiring anyway.

I've been tuning my guitars BEADGC for a while now and like it a lot, which is almost the same as a baritone tuning.

Can this be done? Or is cutting the neck off an SG opening a world of pain one cannot escape?

I've never done it but just hacking off a set neck sounds like it would make for a world of problems. You can remove the set neck but that takes a lot of work. Taking it to a luthier would be the most sure fire option but will cost some coin. A quote for just resetting a set neck was around $400 when I was looking into it. You could sell the SG and look for a Buckethead studio LP (think it's baritone?) or something.

If it was a bolt on neck it would be a hell of a lot easier. With this you'd have a lot of things to have to worry about, in terms of the neck pocket, etc etc etc. Best bet would be a luthier but that would cost BANK.

trying to convert an LP copy, it's a pain. does your guitar have a vibrato bar? If you want a longer neck you may want to move the bridge down, make sure it can accommodate the change. SGs have a lot of space w/o a bigsby. sucks that it's set neck.

I would definitely recommend that you don't do this. You say this one has sentimental value? Keep it as is and build a bari from scratch or parts. You can get unfinished necks on ebay and you could either build a body, (i'm almost done with one I built) or purchase one on ebay. I see busted neck project sg's on there all the time. You would need to cut off the old neck and route a new slot for the replacement necks tenon to sit in. Not really simple stuff. If this is your first project I would try to keep it as simple as you can.

Yeah, this all makes sense. I guess sentimental is the wrong word, as the neck on it now isn't so great and there's a lot of fret buzz and dead spots, so it doesn't get a lot of use, but I can't sell it because it was a gift, so if I could make it useful again that would be great.... thanks for the feedback....

retinal orbita wrote:Yeah, this all makes sense. I guess sentimental is the wrong word, as the neck on it now isn't so great and there's a lot of fret buzz and dead spots, so it doesn't get a lot of use, but I can't sell it because it was a gift, so if I could make it useful again that would be great.... thanks for the feedback....

A setup, fret level and crown should set it straight.

also… even if you get it off [andf yes it it totally doable, there are two ways to do it] but it is near impossible to get a non 24 3/4" scale set replacement neck…