ccbryan

You'll have at least one potential issue that I can see. If in straightening the fretboard you plane/radius the slots away, you'll have a very hard time reslotting accurately with the fretboard attached to the neck. I would even say that if you lost more than 1/5 of the slot on each side reslotting would be iffy. If you take the fretboard off you'll be able to get it flat and firm and jig it so your slots will be straight across. If you can straighten the fretboard and keep your slots, then I really don't see a big problem. With an archtop the loss of a millimeter or two off the fretboard can be compensated for easily at the nut and bridge. Chandler

I have three reference sources for flattop construction and of course they have three different procedures for attaching the bridge: 1) Glue it on before finishing, 2) mask the bridge area with tape during finishing, and 3) finish the whole guitar and scrape away the finish under the bridge. I'm weighing the options... what are your thoughts? Options 2 and 3 obviously involve finishing the bridge separately from the guitar. I'll be spraying lacquer... how would you think that would influence the decision? Thanks for your feedback...

Good heavens Jammy, that thing's clean enough to eat off of! Mighty tidy work. I'm just a bit ahead of where you are with my acoustic, just finished gluing on the linings today, finish gluing top braces tomorrow. Cheers... Chandler

Clear nail polish will also do the trick. Just dab it around the rattling area. It dries hard and will just break off when you need to adjust the saddle using the screw. Keep it off the finish though. Chandler

Hi folks. I have gotten some momentum going on my first attempt at an acoustic instrument and I think I have enough about it now on my website to warrant giving you a heads up. I'm making an OM sized mahogany bodied guitar from plans purchased from LMI and construction guidance from a mixture of Irving Sloane's and David Russel Young's books. Here's a teaser: Acoustic in progress Read all about it at www.geocities.com/ccbryan/BuildAcoustic1 This is my second guitar... my first was a Les Paul that I mentioned here when I completed it a couple of years ago: Handmade Lester Read all about IT at www.geocities.com/ccbryan/BuildLesPaul Geocities is stingy with bandwidth so don't get discouraged if you get a 'temporarily unavailable' message, just check back later. Thanks for looking!

Duplicate post.

Or.... there's always the Bay... there are two 135s sporting P-90s on the slab right now. (Neither of them mine...)

Well, what I meant to say was that P-100s and regular humbuckers would sound similar; P-90s would give it a quite different and delicious flavor. Maybe worth the bucks...

Eek! Please allow me to apologize for shooting my mouth off without knowing what the hell I was talking about. Chandler

D'oh! You'd think I'd read the page before I throw it up there, wouldn't you? Ok, P-100s are humbuckers sized to fit in p-90 slots, not the other way round. Soooooo... the 137 will be a good bit closer in sound to the 135 than I thought, since both sport humbuckers.

Luthier's Mercantile (LMI) has padauk for backs and sides, quite reasonable prices too. Here ya go... http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts....odHeader=Padauk Chandler

Epiphone Dots and 335s aren't hollow...

Possum, I'm pretty sure archtops aren't generally braced. The arch gives the top sufficient strength by itself. Also, with a tailpiece the stress on the top is much less than with a glued-on bridge. And tune-o-matics on archtops are common... http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp...top_Guitar.html Chandler

Feedback at moderate to high gain is the reason solid and semihollow guitars were invented in the 50s. Hollowbody and real loud just don't mix unless you're a long way from your amp or you take steps to make the guitar act a good bit less like a hollowbody, and then why would you need a hollowbody? Gibson invented semihollows to reintroduce some of the resonance (amplified) of a hollow guitar, but the reason hollowbodies are relatively loud unamplified is that the top is free to vibrate. It's the vibration of the top, not the strings, that makes the volume. That's also, mostly, why they feed back: sympathetic vibration of the top in all its resonant frequencies. So any kind of contraption that hinders the top's vibration is going to 1) reduce feedback, and 2) kill unamplified tone. Sadly you can't have it both ways. By the way, it's not only the top's vibration that leads to feedback; I have a custom-made semihollow where the center block does not extend all the way to the back. The back's freedom to resonate gives the guitar a super tone, but it's way more prone to feedback than my ES-335 -- and way less so than my hollow Casino. Good luck... Chandler

Well...from what I can figure from Gibson's website, both the 135 and 137 have a center block. That takes them both much closer to the 335 family than the 330/Casino family. So the sonic differences between the two will come down to the pickups and the tailpiece. A trapeze will theoretically have less sustain because the strings don't press down as hard on the bridge as with a stop TP. As for pickups, the 135 model described here... http://www.gibson.com/products/gibson/Classic/ES-135.html ...has P-90s, not P100s. P100s are P-90 type pups designed to fit humbucker holes. Either way, its a single coil vs. humbucker choice. Basically, I'd say that the 137 is essentially a downmarket 335 (center block, stop TP, humbuckers). The 135 with single coils would be a hybrid -- semihollow with single coils (a tantalizing prospect!). For hollowbody action (trapeze TP required)you'll have to fork over 5 or 6 grand for a 330 or head over to Epi Land. Good luck... PS. I just noticed you said the ES-137 was available with P-90s... If so, cool! but the models currently showing on the Gibson website both have humbuckers. Chandler