Custom Mini '61 SG Les Paul Jr.
This little gem was contracted with us by a lefty player of "appropriate stature" who had trouble handling full scale instruments and desired a quality Gibson-style instrument. Something, needless to say, tough to find in short scale, let alone left hand. It is proportioned down to 22" scale using photo reduction to keep the shape unmistakable and accurate to a 1961 SG Les Paul Jr.

With heavy strings on it, the scale length is just enough to keep it feeling properly resonant. We kept the neck joint minimal like the original to retain as much resonance as we could take advantage of for the short scale, but with just a little more support so it wouldn't be "delicate" and easily breakable like early 60's construction nor chunky and ugly like the 70's models. It is otherwise faithful to its Gibson origin in construction of all premium mahogany.

With the DiMarzio DLX pickup and "stop bridge" this giant slayer really cranks with a great "hooked up" feel and tone. The P-90 style DLX and proper kluson style keys keep things looking somewhat "correct". The pickup is switched for full humbucking operation and a special method of coil tapping I've taken a shine to that makes a bridge position humbucker sound a bit like the bridge/middle sound of a Strat.

When we had it ready for the paint room, I actually tried to talk the customer into letting us go full bore on the SG mini reproduction theme (we really wanted to), but he had us stay on his desired layout with his artwork decoupaged onto the surface.