Blackdog

Thanks Al. I need to give that a try. And looking forward to seeing a 335 build thread from you ! Ken is a great guy to deal with, but he's kinda busy. If you need to ask any specific question don't hesitate to shoot me a PM.

OK, some more of these poor flash point-and-shoot pictures again… (I promise better pictures will be taken with a proper DSLR and natural lighting) It's not yet finished (as in FINISHED, FINISHED !), just assembled and strung-up. A few things still require attention: - the toggle switch nut will be changed to gold. I bought a gold nut but WDMusic sent me the wrong one… - I will have to do something with the edges of the f-holes. No matter what they ended up rough, and some residue of the polish creme got in the pores. If everything else fails I can always paint them matt-black, as per modern practices. - Not happy with the fit of the pickguard. There are some gaps around the neck pickup ring that bother me so much I may even make a new one. - Obviously, a detailed setup is still to be done. The ES-355TD '59 tribute:

Thank you guys for the nice words ! Sorry I didn't reply earlier, been kinda busy with the day job.... Anyway, the ES355 is already polished, I started with the control harness stuffing-in last night but I was too tired and gave up before f'ng something up.... Not the kind of task to attempt when tired. I'll hopefully resume tonight. Scott, I always liked P90s. It's a lovely pickup for almost everything this side of metal-gain stuff. For the last couple of years I've been wanting to buy me a Gibson Historic P90 LP, because I like the sound of P90s in the LP platform very much. I guess I won't be needing one now... These are a set of SD Antiquitys I picked up in April during a visit to NY. The neck pickup is really good, both together sound also very nice. It's the bridge alone that I find a bit weak. It is probably vintage correct, though. While there's tons of info about the later Bursts, poor old Goldtops don't seem to get the same kind of attention... Information about P90 cavities' dimensions is scarce and sketchy. When I was routing the cavities for the pickups I got the information that the distance between cavities was to be 3" (border to border). It made sense, and I used that. A few days later someone at the MLP forum chimed in with a "proper" distance of 2.9". Too late... Additionally, I ended up with a small gap of around 2mm between the end of the fretboard and the neck pickup cavity. All this combined laid the bridge pickup some 4-5 mm closer to the bridge than I expected. This is not unlike many early Goldtops as I could see from pictures, anyway. Once again, specs were all over the place... It's easily solved by adding some more wire to the pickup, or installing a slightly hotter one, something I will try when I get the chance.

The first one of these is finished, the LP. The new lacquer has been impressive so far. One week and it was cured. Not just hard enough to get polished, but rock hard. And after level sanding, as you break the surface, it didn't smell to solvents at all. WIth the rattle cans it took 3-4 weeks to get to this point. Assembly used to be a challenge with the old rattle-can nitro too, anything could scratch it easily. Not this one, it is significantly harder. I'm starting to think that it's relationship with old school nitrocellulose lacquer is remote at best, but it looks and feels right ! Let's hope it's durable too. On top of the advantages of the lacquer, the proper spray equipment has made a huge difference. Very fine orange peel. In the past I would level sand with wet 800 to begin with. It took me a good 2-3 hours to get to 2000, then micro mesh. Now I started with wet micromesh 1500 directly, and polished all the way to 12000 in about the same time. Here's the 56 Flametop replica in Brockburst. There are a few details that I didn't get quite right, most of them correctable in a future build, but all in all it ended up quite well. Now I can proceed to polish the ES-355

Thanks ! Glad you decided to join ! The laminated parts were sourced from here.

Interesting. I get the impression that doing the angle on the neck pocket is easier in the end. Done at an early stage of the project, when you still have a flat surface where to mount your pocket template, it's just a matter of angling the template accordingly. Usually is what I do. Later on, only if I need a minor correction on the angle, I adjust the neck tenon. But the truth is that as long as your angle is not too dramatic (only applicable to full neck width tenons, anyway), you should not have any problem with either approach.

Hi there, I have finished my first finishing job with proper spraying equipment. I am very satisfied with the results. Still I have a question for the EU members… For these guitars I used the only product I could find with "nitro" in it's name: Clou Holzlack. I bought it from Germany along it's specific thinner. Apparently, nitro lacquers are not sold in The Netherlands anymore (only in rattle-cans). It is advertised as Nitro-based, combination lacquer, whatever that means. I can't say it behaves any different from the nitro-lacquer rattle cans I have used before, a new coat melts into the previous, and it is the same product sold as nitrocellulose lacquer by a local guitar parts/supplies vendor (Vox Humana NL). But does anyone know a little more about this product and what it really is ?? The main difference I notice from the nitro rattle cans is that it seems to cure much faster. Just a week has passed and even pressing my nose to the finish I can't smell any solvent any more. It took a good three weeks to the rattle-can finish to get to this stage. Any info at all ? Thanks.

Thanks guys ! I have to say I'm getting impatient... I need to get busy and leave these ladies well alone for a couple more weeks... I am not completely happy with the sound of the bridge P90 for the LP. It is part of a SD Antiquity set, but the bridge unit is a bit weak for my taste. I bought some PE gauge 42 wire from Mojo when I got the golden polepieces, so I will try to rig some kind of a winder and will add some more turns to the bridge pickup. I seem to like my bridge P90s at around 9-9.5K. For the 355 I was originally going to use a pair of Classic 57s. But I kinda changed my mind. On the rebuilt ES335 I have a set of Bareknuckles Stormy Monday and I am extremely satisfied with the classic tone of those, rather under wound, pickups in that guitar. I have a set of mid 70s T-Tops that are similarly under wound, so I'm guessing these will probably sound airier, woodier than the 57s in the 355. I think I will try those first. Mounting and un-mounting the harness in these guitars is a royal pain, I like to do it just once and put some RCA type connectors for the pickup leads. It makes all the difference in the world for pickup changes !

Now we wait.... I should be assembling these two between Christmas and New Year: I guess this year I'm my own Santa !

The Les Paul in it's brockburst finish: And the same thing with the serial number and signatures.

Well, I finished spraying these two. My very first job with proper spraying equipment, and I am so satisfied with the results that I wonder why did I wait so long to get rid of the rattle cans !!! My only regret is that on the 355 I overdid the amber a little, but I didn't think it was bad enough to scrape all the bindings and start over... I'll learn to live with it. The final orange peel is so fine that they almost look polished in the pictures ! The ES355 in it's vintage faded cherry: In keeping with the vintage theme I rubber-stamped the serial number, to underscore the handmade nature of the beasts we kept the signatures on the back of the headstock.

Hey Chad ! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Tele !!!! I know what you mean about the wood grain, but the pickguard belongs in there. It's not a "proper" thinline without the PG ! That's my vote, anyway...

Thanks a lot guys, most specially in my wife's name ! Indeed she does the more intricate (interesting and challenging) inlays on the guitars I build. But nowadays, the simpler (boring) ones like these traps and blocks, she leaves for me to do... Still, she is the absolute specialist with dyes. I just need to show her some picture and she comes up with a staining schedule to achieve it. She's gotten pretty good at that. I love to just watch and assist (and take pictures) while she works with the dyes ! Now she's wishing that I finally get over and done with this vintage Gibson stuff and venture again into more daring designs, where she can get creative with some aquas, greens and blues.... I think I have already mentioned that she's also very talented with stained glass (glass in lead) and Tiffany work (that's where that cute water cooled band saw came from). Thanks again, I'm indeed lucky to have her by my side.

Thank you guys ! I'm pretty thrilled myself, the burst is looking really sweet. I have a very beautiful R9, but this one may well end up being prettier. With a bit of lacquer on it the flame is already becoming deep and 3D. All the maple tops I used so far... ...came from the same supplier. Probably not the cheapest, but worth the price, I think. Also very convenient for us EU based builders.

So this is where I stand now. They just need lacquer… Now I have to practice a bit with my new spraying setup first, until I get this new thing minimally figured out !

The ES355 cherry was indeed achieved by staining the wood in the originals. I will be applying a light coat of amber on this one. This will soften the white of the bindings and headstock pearl inlays and should make the body just a tad orangey, as the old 59s have generally aged. The neck was done in the same way of the Les Paul's. Masked so that just the neck is exposed. Just a note on masking: For the body binding I used 1/4" fine line 3M masking tape. A rather expensive stuff, and the results were far less than great. I had to work a lot to scrape the binding clean of stain afterwards. This last saturday, I found a similar product in a local paint shop, now from an unknown brand and much cheaper (1/3 of the price). This one worked amazingly well ! The bindings on the Les Paul and the 355 neck hardly needed any cleaning at all !! (I have to go and buy some more of this tape) Tinted pore filler applied: And stained cherry afterwards:

Next the back and neck. Here we tried to stick to vintage-correct protocol as much as possible. The originals were pore filled with a cherry-red colored paste. This was applied liberally to the wood with a creamy viscosity and the excess was removed by rubbing with a piece of burlap while still wet, without sanding. This filled the pores with the colored paste and stained the wood at the same time. Then it was clear coated. I am using the Rustins pore filler, and it can be colored by the Rustins Wood Dyes, but there's no such thing as cherry red…. And it won't take the aniline dyes, so we did it in a two step approach. First the pore filling, with some Mahogany Red color added: And when dry, an additional cherry red stain was applied directly to the wood. The final result when removing the binding masking tape is quite accurate to the vintage look: The clear coat will hopefully add depth to the finish while still keeping the slightly faded appearance.

It was not easy to convince myself that the Les Paul needed to be disassembled… It was such a sweet playing and sounding thing… But every guitar needs a finish, right ? So, time to do some damage…. Everything ready. Final sanded, grain raised a few times and masked for this operation and the following ones… We decided to go with the darker, more reddish of the two finishes. And since we I'm new to spray equipment I'd like to keep it simple this time. The burst is rubbed on using StewMac Dyes. This is obviously not vintage correct, though. As per a request from the artist, we're not going to reveal the complete process… But let's just say it's an amber(ish) base… And three additional sunbursting operations to get to this point : Not exactly like the pictured finish, it would require darker rims, but I kind of like it better this way.

Thanks Osorio. Yes, both are very warm.

More color tests... I told my wife that for the Les Paul I wanted something like this: ...or something like this: (the colors of the thumbnails appear a bit warmer than the zommed pics, at least in my monitor, and are closer to real life) I think she got them both pretty close !!

Hey Chad ! This thinline is going to be amazing ! So classy ! I specially like the fact that it will have the official Tele pickup combo. IMO as soon as you use different pickups it is not a Tele anymore... Good luck with the job situation !

And because it looks so cool, baby !!!!

The days of the whiter shade of pale are counted. Time to start color testing. I prepared a couple of pieces of mahogany, one from an off-cut of the neck blank and another from an off-cut of the LP body. Sanded them down to 320 and handed them to my wife (she's the one dealing with the pore filling and color staining). We also tested the cherry for the ES-355 maple body on a piece of laminated plate. The LP will be some variation of darkburst, and the ES-355 will be cherry. But I want to achieve a vintagey look, not too shiny red. So we aimed for the washed/faded cherry shades for the mahogany. After some tests we're pretty happy with the colors we obtained for the mahogany: the LP back and neck, and the ES355 neck. Here's a comparison against my own Gibson R9 back and neck. No flash. Flash. No flash. The neck is pretty much spot on, the body is not identical, but mostly where I want it anyway, i.e. a bit more brownish. The two different pieces of mahogany react very differently to the colors... For the color of the maple body of the ES-355 we're not quite happy yet. We will try some more. And we have to begin testing the colors for the LP top. I have to locate a piece of the proper maple (this top was cut 3 years ago !) and prepare it for the tests.

Hey, thanks Jaycee ! Clearly we share this point of view on the subject.

Thank you very much, guys !