A Pair Of Gibby Tribute Builds.

[ScottR]

Man oh man, this thing's getting fun now! This is fascinating, thanks for sharing.

SR

[Osorio]

Scott make mine your words, its fascinating!!

[Blackdog]

Thanks guys ! And welcome !

I just wanted to add something I forgot to mention when I was gluing the centerblock to the rims, a bit of a critical operation as you will see.

A bit of Hollowbody trivia...

The point is that the neck joins the body at (right after) the 19th fret. The fingerboard, and hence the neck have a very specific width at that point.

This is the same width that the body needs to have at that point. But the body sides are a continuous curve from the cutaways into the tangent that would ideally be flush with the neck sides at the joint.

In reality, the highly manual nature of the construction of this guitars produced inconsistent results in these respect, and in fact the neck joint plane at the body was cut at the point where it had the right width, be it the tangent of the cutaway curve or not. This produced an inconsistency in how much the neck gets inserted into the body, and how "deep" the cutaway actually feels, which makes a sensible difference in the access to the uppermost frets while playing.

Consider these two examples, both from 1959:

(Pictures borrowed from www.es-335.net)

On the sunburst one the bottom of the cutaways easily reaches halfway between the 21st and 22nd frets. On the blonde one (even taking into account the perspective) the bottom of the cutaways barely reach the 21st fret. The effect is also very apparent in the position of the pickguard vs. the cutaway.

Of course, the pickup routes, the bridge and the tailpiece were positioned accordingly, so only the upper fret access and the looks were affected.

To some extent this effect is still seen in today's production. Consistency being a bit better (though not as much as it should) because the complete centerblock is CNC'd these days.

I took special care with this build to get a proper upper fret access, we'll have to see how successful I've been.

[Blackdog]

Today, with the aid of this sophisticated tool (and 2 hours of elbow grease), the rims were sanded flush with the centerblock.

Next step will be the installation of the kerfed linings (or the "Show of the Colorful Clothpins")

[WezV]

i am interested in the kerfing bit from a structural viewpoint

obviously the sides are thicker than a normal acoustic which actually gives you a similar glueing area to a normal acoustic side with kerfing

but then hofner didnt bother with kerfing on its 60's verithin's (their answer to a 335, but fully hollow) - and they have a habit of imploding and opening up at that join quite often

[eddiewarlock]

Oh well i don't post my projects here anymore. But what i did was to take a battered Gallan guitar copy of a Les paul custom, removed the plywood body and kept the solid maple top, which fortunately, had multiple binding. I made a spanish cedar body for it and a laminated spanish cedar neck, added ebony fretboard, block inlays and glued the neck.

That is a beautiful Custom, Eddie ! Great job. Must be pretty light with the cedar body.

A black LPC is so elegant...

not really light. It's very close to the weight of a regular mahogany les paul.

on topic. I am loving this thread

[Blackdog]

i am interested in the kerfing bit from a structural viewpoint

obviously the sides are thicker than a normal acoustic which actually gives you a similar glueing area to a normal acoustic side with kerfing

but then hofner didnt bother with kerfing on its 60's verithin's (their answer to a 335, but fully hollow) - and they have a habit of imploding and opening up at that join quite often

Interesting piece of info. I did not know that about the Verythin. Could it be that the sides are so thin that there is little room for kerfing on both sides ?

The kerfing is one of the specs of the 335 that has been reasonably stable along the model lifespan. It has always been there. In vintage days it was usually mahogany, today they use basswood.

One little aspect that changed since sometime in the early 60s is the kerfing of the horns.

These are very tight inside, and the kerfs had to be sanded in between the "blocks" to make them follow (more or less) the tight radius. Sometime in the 60s Gibson introduced a solid piece of mahogany, carved to follow the inner curve of the horn.

I used the offcuts of the maple centerblock to produce these cute little pieces. Since the match to the curve is less than perfect, I used epoxi to glue these on.

And now I'll just let the picture speak for itself...

The kerfs are slightly proud of the rims edge, tomorrow I'll sand this side flush and proceed with the other side.

[IPA or death]

Well, out of the two guitars the Les Paul looks like the easy build. And that's saying something since I know they aren't easy at all.

Really enjoying both builds here. Keep rocking.

[Blackdog]

Well, out of the two guitars the Les Paul looks like the easy build. And that's saying something since I know they aren't easy at all.

Really enjoying both builds here. Keep rocking.

It is not REALLY difficult. But it's certainly different.

The guy that provides me with the pressed laminates sells the parts kit or the completely built body. When I was re-building the damaged 335 I did before these builds, I considered buying the assembled body but decided for the kit instead just because I wanted to try something different.

I'm glad I did (though I cursed for a good few weeks while I designed and built all the necessary molds and jigs !!).

The most difficult part is matching the contoured bracing to the inside of the top and back plates. This is coming soon.

Last night the glue of the first side of kerfings was dry enough to remove the clothpins, so I quickly went with the other side. I left the sanding of both sides for today.

@WezV: In the last picture it's obvious there's not much free space between the two rows of kerfing on the 335. Being the Verythin, er... thinner, maybe that's why they had no kerfing ?

[WezV]

yeah i think you may be right - the verithin was only 1 1/4" thick!

[Prostheta]

Subscribed! This is a great thread and an excellent insight into your building techniques.

[Blackdog]

Unfortunately, very little progress to report.

Just got the two sides nicely sanded and flush....

But at least now is official: The rims/centerblock assembly is finished and all according to vintage specs.

Now the real fun begins......

[Blackdog]

Now I'll have to deal with these babies. The contoured bracing spruce blocks.

Of all the tasks involved in these builds, this is clearly the one I enjoy the least.

From a factory line standpoint it is amazing that Gibson decided to put this complicated design into production.

The rims assembly is not completely unlike those required for the other laminated guitars that the company was manufacturing since earlier in the decade. Just the neck block that had to be elongated and meet with some reasonable precision with the tailblock was the only major difference.

But the 335 was a cross breed between those archtops and the Les Paul: not quite hollow, not quite solid. And that added a huge complication.

The laminated hollowbodies were meant to be electric from day one, the bracing was usually limited to just a couple of strips alongside the pickup cavities to stiffen the already stiff top even further. In the ES3x5s the bracing has to completely fill the void between the arched plates and the centerblock.

Furthermore, the 335 is kind of a solidbody in disguise: the floating bridge and trapeze tailpiece are gone, now we have top mounted ABR-1 and stop tailpiece. This means that the top-bracing-block sandwich has to provide mechanical integrity: really needs to be tight matching and solid.

The accepted historical specification calls for A-grade, quartered spruce, kerfed on one side. The un-kerfed side has to be carved to match the 3-D inner curve of the plates, the kerfed side is kept flat and glues to the centerblock.

That said, for the early examples Gibson was obviously trying different approaches. Just like the tailblock has not always been mahogany (they seem to have used anything they had available in the scrap box), sometimes the contoured bracing was made of maple, other times it was spruce, but unkerfed. A bit of Anything Goes in typical Gibson style. The kit includes the "correct" A-grade, quartered spruce stock for these.

How exactly these pieces were done at the factory I have no clue, but I plan to profile the blocks on the band-saw (following the inner curve along the centerline of the plates) and then free-hand adjust the shape to fit on the belt sander. I have the feeling that this could be how they was done in the old days.

As of how it is done today, again I have no clue, but what I've seen on the modern 335 I rebuilt was a very sloppy workmanship. The spruce used is very poor quality, almost flat-sawn and the matching of the curved surface to the plate was very poor: lots of voids sometimes filled with thick glue and sometimes just an air pocket. Hopefully I can do better.

To be Continued…

[Blackdog]

Moving on with this project.

You have already seen the mold I used for the assembly of the rims and centerblock.

This one here is the craddle.

This one provides support all around the outline of the guitar. It has two indexing holes outside of the perimeter, along the centerline of the instrument. These are the alignment holes for the top and back plates, and the reference for the positioning of the rim assembly.

I put the back plate on the craddle, and drew the centerline and the outline using the template, referenced to the indexing holes.

I checked that the arching of these plates is still consistent to the previous ones. I made this small "ruler" for the previous build, and it still matches pretty well.

Next I split the spruce stock into the two pieces for the top and back bracings.

[Blackdog]

With double sided tape I fixed the spruce pieces to a backing block and drew the contour line using my little pattern ruler.

The two pieces were first band-sawed close to the contour.

And with the belt sander the first one was adjusted for a good fit to the arching of the back plate.

With some beams for distributing the pressure of the clamping along the edges and the centerline, it was glued in place.

[Blackdog]

The same treatment was applied to the top plate bracing. This is the top plate with the bracing already glued on:

The bracings now needed to be brought flush with the plane of the body edges, tail end and neck joint. This is the setup I use to achieve that.

Apart of the two index holes, along the centerline, all the jigs have an array of 18 additional holes around and about 1/2" outside of the perimeter.

The mold and the craddle have T-nuts on the backs at these 18 places. I use these holes to attach different things, like the bars that held the rims down flat while gluing the centerblock, or in this jig the fences alongside the bracing to run the router on.

This operation is not complicated, but it needs to be done cerefully and in small steps. The kerfed spruce is quite fragile.

After it has been planed down it looks like this.

The black thing is a straight edge BTW, the curve you see is a camera lens distortion.

I cut the rough outline of the back plate, leaving the two tabs around the indexing holes, and this plate is ready for gluing to the rim assembly.

[Blackdog]

The actual gluing of the plate is as follows.

The rim assembly was placed flat in the mold and the waists were wedged out to the proper position. I added two long screws at the two index hole positions.

This is the caul.

it is essentially identical to the craddle, but the array of 18 holes do not have any T-nuts. The green thing you see is a neoprene padding, thicker at the tail and neck ends.

Just like the usual archtops, when gluing the plates, pressure needs to be applied all along the outline of the guitar. Normally, spool clamps are perfect for this.

But on the 335 it is also necessary to apply pressure along the centerline to ensure a good bracing to centerblock joint. I devised these set of jigs to achieve that. The caul will press the plate against the rims along the complete outline, and the neoprene padding will provide the pressure at the centerline.

I applied the glue with a roller to keep it even and to the minimum necessary. I applied it to both surfaces, lightly on one and more generously on the other. Put the plate in place on top of the rims assembly, using the index holes for alignment.

Dropped the caul on top, again using the index holes as alignment. And bolted the whole assembly together. The combination of bolts and T-nuts keep this operation reasonably fast. I'm using titebond on these, but I might switch to hide glue at one point and with that stuff you need to move fast.

And that was it for the evening.

[Prostheta]

Is there anything I can about about your builds that hasn't been said before, Blackdog? If so, I am open to suggestions on what that might be.

What is your background in the research on the ES build? Pure hard earned experience or excellent information sourcing? Either way, they appear to be paying off beautifully. In some way, I would like to know myself as I was throwing around the idea of an archtop semi back when I was doing the history on Brian May's Red Special. When I am in a position to reliably pursue a project like this, I would love to "devolve" the existing design back into its chronological roots, ie. Hägstrom, Burns, Gibson ES, Rickenbacker, etc.

Good work. I'll join you for coffee if we make our way to the Netherlands one day! Expect me to leave with a large lump under my coat however.

[Blackdog]

What is your background in the research on the ES build? Pure hard earned experience or excellent information sourcing? Either way, they appear to be paying off beautifully. In some way, I would like to know myself as I was throwing around the idea of an archtop semi back when I was doing the history on Brian May's Red Special. When I am in a position to reliably pursue a project like this, I would love to "devolve" the existing design back into its chronological roots, ie. Hägstrom, Burns, Gibson ES, Rickenbacker, etc.

Hey Thanks !

The Red Special is such a fascinating piece of history, in every possible sense ! Your plan sounds interesting and challenging.

Regarding my own ES knowledge, I can't chalk it up to personal experience. Which, in my case, would be limited to the modern construction methods, most notably from the 2010 broken one that I completely took apart to rebuild.

By far most of the info I'm relaying in this thread comes from good old internet wisdom. Several threads in a couple of sites, and some articles and factory tour videos tell a lot of the story.

With respect to threads, by far the most educational are the ES335TD and 59 LP builds by user Preeb at the Telecaster Forum. That guy is incredibly comprehensive in his research of the models before he starts a build. He strives to duplicate every single construction detail and quirk of the originals. I don't know how much he charges for his builds, but I would guess they are not cheap (and deservedly so).

What I'm trying to achieve with the builds in this thread is something more like a good reissue, hopefully a bit better than Gibson's own, while keeping the thread informative and hopefully fun.

As a player, after a PRS(-ish) period (which was also reflected in my builder approach) I pretty much rediscovered my first love for the Gibsons.

I always loved the LP, and I'll never be without one (or several), but now I am a bit fascinated with these semihollows. I think it is the most versatile design that came from the Gibson company.

I like that it has always been a bit of a difficult child, complicated to build in a factory environment, which produced a lot of inconsistencies along the years. It doesn't have much nobility in it (I mean, come on: plywood !! soft maple, plastic bindings...), and still is a professional grade instrument that gets the job done every time.

Right now, my reconstructed 335 is my number one. I'm expecting these two to join it pretty soon (the LP is completely assembled, though unfinished, and it plays great and sounds amazing).

[Blackdog]

Build update. More pictures.

Opened the oyster and this is the back plate gluing result. This jig really works well, there are no glue lines, neither along the outline nor at the block/bracings joint.

With a flush-cut bit at the table routing jig the plate got trimmed flush with the rims. The body was riding on top of the doughnut you see. This is the same height as the arching of the plate.

The back plate is now flush, notice that I still kept the two indexing tabs.

[Blackdog]

I applied the same treatment to the top plate, seen here with the bracing already leveled.

Now the two long indexing screws got installed on the craddle, I will not be needing the mold any more. I put the body back assembly in the craddle, aligned with the tabs, and bolted it down.

The rough outline of the top plate was band-sawed (again, keeping the tabs), and now it can be aligned to the body back assembly using the index holes.

At this stage two paths can be followed:

I could go ahead and glue the top to the body assembly, trim the excess flush, get rid of the tabs and route the neck mortise on the completed body, or…

I could move the indexing of the top inside the outline (by means of dowels where the pickup routes will go), get rid of the tabs, route the neck mortise with the top removed (easier on a flat surface), and glue the top afterwards.

I don't know about the oldies, but on the modern ones the mortise is CNC'd on the centerblock beforehand, as a matter of fact the bottom of the mortise is parallel to the centerblock plane. In my previous 335 build I was reusing the original Gibson neck, so routing the mortise before attaching the top was the obvious thing to do. On this one I have to route the mortise at a rather precise 5 degree angle, and I think I will use the second method anyway. It's always easier to route the mortise with a flat surface to support the template (be it at an angle or flat).

[Prostheta]

What is your background in the research on the ES build? Pure hard earned experience or excellent information sourcing? Either way, they appear to be paying off beautifully. In some way, I would like to know myself as I was throwing around the idea of an archtop semi back when I was doing the history on Brian May's Red Special. When I am in a position to reliably pursue a project like this, I would love to "devolve" the existing design back into its chronological roots, ie. Hägstrom, Burns, Gibson ES, Rickenbacker, etc.

Hey Thanks !

The Red Special is such a fascinating piece of history, in every possible sense ! Your plan sounds interesting and challenging.

Regarding my own ES knowledge, I can't chalk it up to personal experience. Which, in my case, would be limited to the modern construction methods, most notably from the 2010 broken one that I completely took apart to rebuild.

By far most of the info I'm relaying in this thread comes from good old internet wisdom. Several threads in a couple of sites, and some articles and factory tour videos tell a lot of the story.

With respect to threads, by far the most educational are the ES335TD and 59 LP builds by user Preeb at the Telecaster Forum. That guy is incredibly comprehensive in his research of the models before he starts a build. He strives to duplicate every single construction detail and quirk of the originals. I don't know how much he charges for his builds, but I would guess they are not cheap (and deservedly so).

What I'm trying to achieve with the builds in this thread is something more like a good reissue, hopefully a bit better than Gibson's own, while keeping the thread informative and hopefully fun.

As a player, after a PRS(-ish) period (which was also reflected in my builder approach) I pretty much rediscovered my first love for the Gibsons.

I always loved the LP, and I'll never be without one (or several), but now I am a bit fascinated with these semihollows. I think it is the most versatile design that came from the Gibson company.

I like that it has always been a bit of a difficult child, complicated to build in a factory environment, which produced a lot of inconsistencies along the years. It doesn't have much nobility in it (I mean, come on: plywood !! soft maple, plastic bindings...), and still is a professional grade instrument that gets the job done every time.

Right now, my reconstructed 335 is my number one. I'm expecting these two to join it pretty soon (the LP is completely assembled, though unfinished, and it plays great and sounds amazing).

Yes, I recognised Gil's jig for routing the angled cavity base from his amazing '58 Les Paul replica thread. If you said "like that" in your comments, I would have screamed plagiarism!

I have a lot of respect for people who can analyse the historical construction techniques (for better or worse when it comes to Fender, es. sideloaded frets) however I think that pragmatic licence is better than slavish copy work. If you're building one ES-335, then I think it is fair to ditch the techniques which were optimised for the production line in favour of the care and attention we give to one-offs. In that respect, I can't see why you shouldn't be able to make your ES superior and/or unique.

The RS idea has been on the boil for a long long time with me, and I almost decided to push on it last year however I doubt I would do the project justice at this point. Especially with a semi archtop. It will be looked at again sometime however!

[Blackdog]

Yes, I recognised Gil's jig for routing the angled cavity base from his amazing '58 Les Paul replica thread. If you said "like that" in your comments, I would have screamed plagiarism!

I have a lot of respect for people who can analyse the historical construction techniques (for better or worse when it comes to Fender, es. sideloaded frets) however I think that pragmatic licence is better than slavish copy work. If you're building one ES-335, then I think it is fair to ditch the techniques which were optimised for the production line in favour of the care and attention we give to one-offs.

I agree with you.

When we talk about a replica, we are talking about copying what essentially were factory products of their time. We venerate a 1959 LP, but I don't believe for a second that ALL of them were stellar. But some of them certainly were, and what one should try to approximate in a replica is the spirit of the good ones in a hand-made quality instrument. In contrast with the reissues, that are "official" replicas, but still a factory product.

In construction, I would use whatever method works for me and produces the expected results. But if the original method is still reasonable in a garage-builder scenario, then why not ?

That said, I can certainly appreciate Gil's approach. A no excuses, completely un-compromised replica, is certain to sell for a very different price in the proper market. He is very talented, and passionate. Certainly very good at delivering that.

In that respect, I can't see why you shouldn't be able to make your ES superior and/or unique.

Superior, I don't know... But unique ? That's my specialty !!

[Blackdog]

Little update but no pictures, sorry.

I have been busy solving a small issue with the fretboard.

After fretting it ended up with a very significant back-bow. I saw it happening as I was fretting, I should have stopped, but I didn't . What worried me was not so much the bow, but the unusually high force that was required to press it flat on a table. The board was going to cause me troubles if glued like that on the neck.

This problem obviously came from very tight fret slots and the hard ebony. I'm using a japanese saw for this and it cuts 0.5mm slots, a bit tight for the StewMac wire tangs.

Now, I've been using that saw for fretting for quite some time, as I replaced the original StewMac fretting saw, which was a pretty poor product.

But until these two builds I always fretted the boards already installed on the neck. I have been adding this back pressure all the time, but never noticed it (God bless the CF bars !!)

Anyway, I decided to rework this board. After all how difficult could it be to pull the frets out, resaw/clean the slots, and fret it again ? Binding proved to be easy enough, and I have an almost unlimited source for tortoise side dots...

Removed the binding, this went well, came off clean and easy.

Started pulling the frets off, heating with the soldering iron as I used a bit of titebond in the slots. This was hell !! The chipping of the ebony at the slot edges was killing me !! I did it as carefully as I could, but I still had to fill some small areas with epoxy and ebony sawdust. Mostly all of the touchups end under the new frets anyway, but I decided to delay the decision to use this board or start over until the refretting was done.

Yesterday, the epoxy fillings had hardened, so I re-sanded, re-polished, re-slotted, now with the new StewMac japanese fretting saw (pretty good for the job, and the proper cut width), and re-fretted the board. And I even managed to file the sides flat before the evening was over. Now is ready for binding again, and the back-bow is very minimal, almost non-existent. Cosmetically, it looks like nothing ever happened. I'm very relieved.

[Prostheta]

Ack. Never a pleasant thing, forced backbow. For all its faults, the Stewmac fretsaw does at least cut nice comfy slots. I bolted a couple of pieces of Perspex onto each side of mine to make depth stops, hence consistent radiused slots. I should really get myself a Japanese pull saw for frets....thanks for reminding me.

You know....I might actually try fretting off the neck on my current bass build, or I will at least consider it.