My Gibson Sg Neck Bends Too Easy

Wow, thanks for the great responses everyone – much appreciated.

I wouldn't recommend doing that to the neck a whole lot, but it's nothing to do with your guitar being faulty, just the design of the SG in general. It's mainly to do with the fact that the neck on an SG is set right at the last couple frets, so there's a bit more leverage on it than with a Les Paul or similar guitar that has the neck set at roughly the 16th fret. This is also why SGs can feel like a very long and plank-ish guitar if you're not used to playing one.

When I had my G400, the pressure of my hand resting on the headstock turning the tuning machines was enough to change the pitch of the strings, so I'd have to tweak the tuner, then take my hand away so my tuner could register the actual pitch, and I could tune the thing accurately.

Right on, Swoop! This condition is very common, and not only on SG's. Some Gibson's with the slim taper 60's necks are easily pulled out of tune from hand pressure. I've even owned Fender's where the maple neck was made from such a rubbery piece of flexible wood you could do the same thing. Sometimes it is just the design of the guitar, like an SG is prone to this. If it is a softer piece of wood, sometimes as the guitar ages it will stiffen up. On your SG, your neck mounts to the body right at the last frets, and has only a small tennon of wood inserted into the body, which has been made thinner to mount the neck pickup. Although some SG's can be worse than others, most all of them will have this "trait" to a certain degree.

Glad to hear someone else has had a similar issue. I suspected it might have had something to with it being set so low on the neck. Hopefully that's the root of the problem and I'm just being paranoid. Thanks for the help both of you.

Hmmmm.... have no real experience with the G400s other than trying an acquaintance's a few times, but did not notice the neck being particularly "flexible," as it sounds your is ....or perhaps you just have the strength of 10 mortal men???

Only thing I noticed was it being more "neck heavy" than my Epi LP, but not terrible in that regard. The 400 is set neck - does the neck appear to be fully set into the body???..any sign of finish "cracks" at the joint area, denoting a loose joint, perhaps? I dunno, just grasping at straws, here..... is your truss rod perhaps completely loose or broken?

If the problem is THAT easily noticeable, sounds like something ain't quite right...but, as stated above, I'm not particularly G400 savvy. Hopefully more knowledgeable sorts will help ya out, here....good luck, as it doesn't sound like it would be fun to thrash a guitar that is that sensitive to normal playing pressures/movement.

I, of course, do have the strength of ten mortal men . Hopefully with what Swoop and Strat have said there isn't a truss rod issue. Would there be a rattling or something perhaps if the truss rod was snapped? (Not experienced one myself.) I've not noticed any neck warping visually - although the mid point of the neck does seem to a slightly higher amount of fret buzz than I'd expect... On the topic of cracks there is a crack around the neck joint but I've given it a thorough look and it looks like a finish crack to me, which is why I didn't mention anything. It's not following any grain and doesn't budge in the slightest when I apply pressure to the neck.

Would there be any way to perhaps sure up the neck or reduce any amount of neck 'flexibility'? The strings currently on the guitar are a slightly heavier gauge than I'd use typically. Could that affect it? Thanks for the help again everyone.

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Source: https://forum.gibson.com/topic/61985-easy-note-bending-via-neck-pressure/

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