A resurrected SC-1: The Blue Meanie

[tonito]

I've always loved the simplicity of the SC-1 design, and especially love Robert Poss' modifications. But there's no way I could afford one in anything near original shape at current market values (is it me, or has the used guitar market gone insane over the past year?). So when a cheap opportunity to pick up a restoration project popped up recently, I had to give it a shot.

This SC-1 has been through some rough hands over the years. Tody was routed (and not particularly well) for HH configuration at some point, with custom pickguards made to accommodate the route cavities and the extended control route. Originally viking blue, by the time I got it it had been refinished in a dark navy metallic, and shows heavy relicing. Looks very similar to what a pricey MJT refinish job would yield, actually, but this appears to be genuine wear. The neck is a gem. Grovers have replaced the original tuners, but the neck is otherwise all original, and I'd eyeball the frets at about 75% life left in them. Electronics were a mess--none of the pots were wired correctly, the switch had some sort of thick goo all over it, and the humbuckers were mounted in slanted rings that would have been too tall on a Les Paul. As a result, it passed a signal through only one pickup, with neither potentiometer having any effect. And the strings had a lovely tendency to bounce off of the too-tall pickup rings with anything other than the lightest strumming. Still, I saw a diamond in the rough here.

Took it apart, cleaned it up as best I could, used some high-temp auto paint to touch up the color of the funky plastic guards, and put in a nice set of hot wound P90s (Bootstrap Skookum Mean 90s--these are awesome) and new aluminum rings. New pots, .022 oil in paper cap, all new cloth wiring throughout.

It's no show prize, but I'm really happy with the result. The neck is GREAT, and at 6.6 lbs it's easy on the shoulders. I set it up with .12s, and am kind of blown away at how well it plays. Not a dead note on the neck, sustains nicely, and set up low and comfy.

Once I had it put together and realized how the new color scheme held together, there was really only thing left to do. The decal was the finishing touch.

Behold the Blue Meanie!

Blue Meanie 1 by Antonio Ramirez, on Flickr

Blue Meanie 2 by Antonio Ramirez, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kZKyrZ][img]htt ... .jpg[/img]SC-1 electronics by Antonio Ramirez, on Flickr[/url]

[Elwood]

Too cool!
Nice job bringing one back into service.

The decal brings it home

Elwood

[suave eddie]

Reminds me of mine which started out as an SC-1 also. I bought this new from one of the early G&L dealers. He had taken 3 SC-1s and had his Alembic trained tech add a humbucker to what would be the "middle position. Each of the three had different pickups. So the Seymour Duncan '59 pickup you now see at the neck was in the middle and the original MFD single coil was at the bridge. At some point I had the same tech replace the MFD with the Duncan JB at the bridge and space the pickups out more traditionally. The jack was moved to the side of the body and the pickguard was fabricated to hide all the router work.

[tonito]

Thanks for sharing those photos, suave eddie. Love the pickguard on yours--looks like you had something close to a Fallout ahead of its time...

[sam]

Very cool!

From another mod fan, if it gets where yer wanting to go rock on!

[suave eddie]

Thanks for sharing those photos, suave eddie. Love the pickguard on yours--looks like you had something close to a Fallout ahead of its time...

Yeah, I always thought he did a great job designing the pickguard.