OP, in the long run your gonna want both types of guitars in your running collection.
to have a well rounded collection, both of these and a few more will be in there.
relax and work on this puppy a lil bit here and there until the right combination
put this jewel in good working order. if you dont, the next guy/gal damn sure will.
just chill with it, focus on the info thats been given to you on here and do a little bit at a time. you will love it when your done and it all finally comes together.
the SG is one of the must haves in a guitar collection and you have one bro. enjoy it.
trade it for an american strat? hell no, not when you have a perfectly working mim strat.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Thanks, John.

These tuners were retro-fits, installed when I had the guitar re-fretted in '99. The original machines were Gibsons, shaped as per the original Klusons but with metal keys. I'd purchased a set of the usual Rotomatics to install on the guitar but the luthier who did the work (Brian Dunn of Tucson) told me of Grover's then-new drop-in fit Kluson replacements, which don't require enlarging the headstock holes. So I picked up a set and had him install them while the guitar was on the bench. I still have the original set of Grovers that I bought for it -- I believe they're the last of the USA-made types as production moved to Korea shortly thereafter.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

SG's with a one piece mahogany neck are going to be hard to keep in tune. I had a mid-sixties SG that would be worth a lot a money now, but I would rather pay (List) for any garden variety Fender from Mexico, Korea, or anywhere else before I would take the SG vintage US model back for free.

Why? It wasted my time.

Mahogany is too soft of a wood to use on a double cutaway neck. "Rock" maple is the way to go guys.

I think think one of our more knowledgable members had some comments on this subject before, involving the "wow" in SG necks.

This is an interesting thread but what about intonation issues? Any time I ever owned a Les Paul I had difficulty intonating it. It seems like it doesn't matter if strings are old or new. It almost seems like there's not enough travel inside the bridge and the saddles can't move far enough. My current LP is an Epiphone and it exhibits the same problem. The intonation is close enough to work with but it's not yet perfect and I like to get as close to perfect as I can. I realize perfect intonation is unlikely on any conventional guitar. Perhaps on a Dingwall it might be possible. The saddles I feel need just a touch more adjustment are pretty much maxed out. This has been the same on every LP I ever tried to set up. Running nickel wound 10s, average action height, .008" of relief. Saddles in question are low E and G. I want to make them longer, further from the neck, another half turn or so but cannot. I don't notice it playing lead or melody lines anywhere but I do hear just a hint of something not quite right when chording between the 7th & 12th frets. The tuner agrees with me that its very close but not as close as I like.

Like some others have mentioned I only break stings at the saddle so I'll look into the graphtec.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

In my experience, setting up guitars at a Gibson dealership, Les Pauls were no trouble to intonate or keep in tune. The three guitars (out of all electric guitars) I remember coming out the closest to perfect on the meter, were a Les Paul Custom and two "The Paul" models. Some of you may have noticed that I don't have a lot of good to say about Gibson electrics, but Les Pauls, in my experience are very stable instruments with no design problems. I believe the single cutaway body on Les Pauls is the main difference between it and an SG. I don't think the maple top is a factor. I played a Les Paul Custom without a maple top for about twenty years and it was as solid as a rock.

I don't miss that guitar, however. I much prefer the sound and design of teles and strats.

The person who did the retro-fit did a good job; they look factory. They are also a good look for an LP Standard. I had forgotten about those old Gibson tuners with metal buttons; maybe Schaller made them for Gibson since they were also using M6s on some guitars (like the LP Customs). Seems like Henry switched them over to Grovers after he took over the company for a while. Now they are using Kluson-styles from either Gotoh or Tonepros (depending on the model).

I believe so. My '96 flametop R9 and my 2000 '62 LP re-issue both look to have the Gotohs on them.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

my first buy (when i had the cash) was an SG I thought I was gonna be another angus young HAHA....
in fact it was the BIGGEST disappointment I ever had because like yours, mine kept going out of tune too. It got to the point that I didn't even want to play it anymore.. it was sold ASAP.

Since Ive bought my strat, Ive never experience tuning problems, it rarely goes out of tune. In fact even if my Martin HD28 goes out of tune It spoils my day.... but my strat never ever lets me down. I will never ever buy a gibson again.

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"When words fail, the guitar speaks."

i think this is a one by one situation.
lets look at it this way, if it were a "gibson" issue, they would have
tamed that problem a very long time ago. gibson builds fine
high quality guitars and the SG is up front with the lespaul.
they cant afford a running issue with either models for very long.
their soul reputation has been built on them. as far as the wood
being to soft yadda yadda yadda, i would have to see it to believe it.
im sure there are a few that have rolled off the line over the yrs
but im willing to bet that the QC people have a good grip on that
by now. sure some might slip through the cracks here and there,
but i think its an excuse more than anything. if your SG does have
the soft wood issue, IF, i bet gibson would want it off the market.
bundle it up and send it to them so they can research it.
take it to a HIGH QUALITY (means more money is gonna be spent)
repair shop/luthier and have him look at it. im talking about a man with experience
not some 23 yr old guy thats been doing this for 5 yrs yadda yadda yadda.
this is a real issue on a real guitar that needs experience of hands on to fix
this problem. im willing to bet the answer is right there in front of you.
if your really serious, box that damn thing up and send it up to dan erlewine in ohio.
hes worth the extra money he charges and OEM's take his opinions seriously.
i wouldnt get rid of it over a couple things im not concrete sure on the cause of.
you might be throwing out a really nice SG.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

This is what Martian said in a thread on the Fender forum titled "Touchy Neck":

"Premising your's is not a 'technique' issue, your problem is called, "Wow" and is quite common to vintage or vintage reissue SGs and other guitars where the neck is joined to the body at a very high fret."

If I understand what Martian is saying correctly; the set in glue joint can be the problem. Probably not as strong a joint as a bolt-on with 4 steel screws, no?

No, that's not it. There's a whole lot more surface area doing the gripping on a set neck glue joint than there is on the narrow threads of 4 (and sometimes only 3) little wood screws. I think what Martian's comment must have been referring to is the amount of overlap between the ends of the body and the neck. That is, how far into the body the neck makes contact. Reaching farther in would make the two more solid to each other.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Which is why the "long-tenon" SG's and 335/345/355's are the preferred Gibson models.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Actually, everyone has interpreted what I said correctly (albeit, in part) . On the older and reissue stuff, a softer than say, maple, mahogany neck joins a softer, thin body way too far up, and contrary to popular belief, a bolt on neck has a hell of a lot more gripping PSI than that of hide glue and/or whatever synthetic resin stuff it is Gibson uses nowadays for gluing in/on necks.

Other thoughts now that I'm on the subject:

Gibson did indeed revamp where the neck meets the body on the SGs over the years but due to it being so thin to begin with, the "wow" will always be there. (Notice the difference in say, a LP Jr and an SG if you disagree.) From this same structural point of view, this is why all those lower end, flat finished SGs have huge, wide necks, to help with stability.

When Gibson came out with the Les Paul (SG) Custom way back when, Les Paul checked it out and told Gibson he wanted no part of it and to get his name off of it immediately. Hence, that's when the name, "SG" was created. So, even Les Paul knew it was a 'dog' from "Day One".

Believe it or not, I love the way an old SG plays and sounds, especially with hot P-90s. The necks are narrow, the bodies are thin, the guitar is light; the tension of the strings is really low and one can whip that guitar around like its nothing. However, between that impossible Vibrola and even with a hard tailed model, those ABR-1 bridges are "from hunger". As a matter of fact, when I broke my wrist many years ago, the only guitar I could comfortably play was an SG because of what I've stated above. It was killing me that I couldn't play my Strat but playing my Strat with my wrist not fully healed was also killing me. I adjusted, knowing the SG's limitations.

Just like the original Klusons, those ABR-1 bridges are subject to fatigue and breakdown. With the ABR-1s, the tracking length on the saddles are not long enough for many, many Gibsons they came/come OEM in too. This is why Gibson replaced them with the Nashville Bridge and had been ping-ponging back and forth with Grover and Schaller heads until Gotoh gave them the best financial deal. As I've said in many a thread, if a POS was a POS decades ago, it still is now but in the name of "Vintage" or some twisted notion of 'mojo' or whatever, many a player still want an ABR-1 bridge and Kluson "Arrowheads" even on their new, grossly overpriced $3K+ Les Pauls. Again, some people still love to be ripped off and feel that by paying an exorbitant amount for something, in their world and by necessity, it has to be superior; which segues me into:

Even Grover and Schaller are licensing out to the Asian market as well. As a matter of fact and for example, those who have newer Gibson SG or LP Classics, Standards, etc. with the Arrowhead tuners, pop one off and read the "Made in Japan" imprint on the base of the tuner that mates to the back of the headstock of your $2K+ "American made" guitar. My point is, I hope no one is still naive enough to believe that their "American made" guitar is composed of not only 100% American hardware but totally made here.

Food for thought: Technically, a MIM is indeed, made in America - Central America that is.

OK, I really went off on a tangent here. The bottom line is, an SG has many faults. If one is going to play one, one has to learn to deal with it. Some hardware can be upgraded, some design flaws were minimized. I say, "minimized" because if the guitar was redesigned any further, you'd wind up with a Les Paul 'flat top' of some sort. Even if someone pointed a gun to my head and said, "Believe it!", no way on this planet am I going to believe that their (especially older) SG tunes and intonates perfectly and stays that way. Lastly, any statements about an SG being comparable to a Les Paul is simply absurd.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV. OK, commence flaming!!

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You dig?

Thanks for showing up Martian.

I did not know Les Paul dissed the SG from the get go.

No flaming from me - that was a very informative post.

I spoke with a guitar tech at a non-chain, reputable music store in my area and described the issue I am having. He basically said "It's an SG - what do you expect? They are beautiful guitars but if you play a lot of leads and bend the strings a lot, you are going to have to re-tune a lot. Generally speaking, they are not going to stay in tune as well as a strat." This is an older guy who has been working on guitars 30+ years and he said he has seen this issue over and over.

I also e-mailed another reputable repair shop in my area, explained the issue and asked how much it would cost for them to work on the nut slots if that turns out to be the problem. I am still waiting to hear back from them.

At this point I am leaning towards selling it or trading it in. Even if it can potentially be corrected by a luthier, it irritates me that I have to put in the extra time and money on a guitar that was over $1000. And it would really irritate me if I had the work done and it didn't correct the issue. I am not a guitar collector (although it sometimes seems like it as I keep piling up more and more!), use this guitar at gigs, and don't like having to tune up every other song when I often can play a full set without needing to re-tune my fenders. I honestly have to say I would hesitate to buy another gibson at this point.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Thank you to everyone for your input
- it has been very helpful. I'm probably going to check out some guitars this weekend!