ES Build

Dave Black

Member
Messages
638
Location
Central PA
I was finally fortunate enough to have someone pay me to build one of these. I think it turned out well.IMG_0880.jpgIMG_0882.jpgIMG_0893.jpgIMG_0898.jpgIMG_0901.jpgIMG_0902.jpgIMG_0918.jpgIMG_0925.jpgIMG_0934.jpg
I laminated the bent sides over a male mold the pressed them with an air filled hose inside a female mold during the glue up.
 
I did a wood electronics cover, which I really ended up liking. It has an electronics cavity because I installed a piezo bridge with a preamp for it which would not fit through the F hole, or pickup holes.
 

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Awesome! And the access cover for the electronics is a great idea. It is a MAJOR pain to wire a semi hollowbody through the F holes.
 
Always good to see your builds Dave. Excuse my ignorance but is the idea of the hollow body to reduce the weight of the guitar or is there some functional musical reason i am not aware of?

Did some googling to understand but it did not answer my question found this site you may find useful there is info on it about wiring the electronics http://www.doctorvintage.com/ check out white papers.

This guy speaks to Vaughns point and your idea of having an access
http://guitarkitbuilder.blogspot.ca/2013/08/12-string-335-wiring-it-up.html

Looking forward to the rest of the build thanks for posting.
 
Always good to see your builds Dave. Excuse my ignorance but is the idea of the hollow body to reduce the weight of the guitar or is there some functional musical reason i am not aware of?...

It's pretty much just a tone thing. It has a different tone than a body made of solid wood. There is typically a solid block running through the center of the body. (That's why they're called semi-hollowbody guitars.) They can still end up being quite heavy. My semi-hollowbody is one of the heaviest guitars I own.

I've been trying to figure out what ES meant?

The Gibson model that popularized this design is the ES-335. You'll see them referred to as ES style, or 335 style, or semi-hollowbody style.
 
Looking just great. Are you going sunburst like the early 1960's TD's or will it be that eye catching cherry red? I saw a blue one once; it was disturbing. Don't go blue. ;)
 
I may have missed it in the text somewhere, but what does ES stand for, and why couldn't you spell it out in the title? Some of us are just plain musically ignorant.


Because reasons... :D

The Gibson model that popularized this design is the ES-335. You'll see them referred to as ES style, or 335 style, or semi-hollowbody style.


I don't know that it necessarily spells out -- my best guess is "Electric Semi-hollow" but only because they also make one called the "SG" which i think stands for "Solid Guitar". It's a model number, though, so "ES" is how it's identified anyway - it'd be abnormal to spell it out :)
 
ES 335 style guitar build

Sorry I titled this thread a little mysteriously, when you learn guitareeze you sometimes forget that others don't speak it, Vaughn knows what I mean. As others have mentioned the semi hollow body produces a certain tone. This guitar is a little different than other ES335 style guitars, the neck is a 3 piece maple neck with thin walnut strips. It also has a piezo bridge in addition to the hum buckers which are seymore duncan seth lovers.
 

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Heres some more.
I realized on this build that its much easier to do inlays with the correct tools, I made a router base for my dremel and bought some small inlay downcut bits for it.
 

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and some more
 

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Red it is, I went with straight transtint bright red, but that ended up a bit neon so I sanded back a bit and added a little black. I sanded up through the grits and redyed after each grit, I stopped after 400 grit which gave me a super smooth finish and great grain definition.
 

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