
I'd love to own an old ES one day.

I was having a conversation with a guitar playing friend at the weekend about this topic - and also that Gibson, like Fender with the Telecaster, got it mostly right first time (let's leave to one side the '58 ES335 with a three ply top like a Gretsch that's prone to cracking at the jack, and the early ones with no binding and too shallow a neck angle). The ES335 has been in continuous production since 1958. Not a bad indication that the design was right pretty much from the start.sookwinder wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:35 amSo they developed a series of models using laminated tops, with far less bling, but at the same time took on board features and ideas that the musicians of the time were saying were good. (location of volume/tone controls being one of them). Introduced a pickup that would not have suited the jazz guitars (guitarists) of the time in the HBs, but again suited the up coming (rock/blues) player of the 50s.
So we now covert not the most expensive carved top archtop electric guitars that Gibson manufactured in the 50s and 60s, but we lust after the lower level models (let's face it a 355 is just a tarted up 335, with added bling and apart from a varitone no real additional features that make it sound any different to a 335). Why? Because almost everything about their design and function works. An added bonus is that in general the quality of the builds was also good and robust enough to still be desirable 50 years later.
And for me there is one additional feature that I like about the 50s and 60s Gibson and Epiphone ES guitars, that being that there is an old world feel about them in that unlike the strat and teles which were of a new age in the 50s from a manufacturing perspective, by virtue of the hollow/semi hollow design the ES guitars were still manufactured like they had or would have in the 30s. There is something magical about looking inside an old ES guitar and breathing in the smells and the ghosts of the past.
Totally possible Yannis. ES345s (in particular) are hugely undervalued and tend to be quite cheap. There's a lovely '67 ES345 in sunburst that's doing the rounds here on local adverts boards that I've played before (someone I knew had it - but he's a guitar flipper so I knew it would go back out there). That guitar has a huge chunky neck, and though it has the narrow nut you honestly don't feel it. The other thing I suspect about that guitar is that it has pre-t top patent numbers (when they changed to enamel wire, but otherwise had yet to go to the full t-top construction). They sound very very close to earlier pickups ... and it's for sale for not much more than the price of a reissue. A guitar like that is massively under valued for what it is.
Despot wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:04 pmTotally possible Yannis. ES345s (in particular) are hugely undervalued and tend to be quite cheap. There's a lovely '67 ES345 in sunburst that's doing the rounds here on local adverts boards that I've played before (someone I knew had it - but he's a guitar flipper so I knew it would go back out there). That guitar has a huge chunky neck, and though it has the narrow nut you honestly don't feel it. The other thing I suspect about that guitar is that it has pre-t top patent numbers (when they changed to enamel wire, but otherwise had yet to go to the full t-top construction). They sound very very close to earlier pickups ... and it's for sale for not much more than the price of a reissue. A guitar like that is massively under valued for what it is.
Despot wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 12:33 amThat 345 is a glorious guitar Yannis. It really is.
The neck profile is a little more slim than your SG ... but not much. It's as loud as an acoustic unplugged and it's solid as a rock. Frets were also done just before I got it and it plays beautifully. The only issue with it (in my view) is that the neck pickup is so much louder than the bridge pickup. The bridge is actually quite quiet by comparision. If the pickups had matched I wouldn't have sold it. The neck pickup is like your SG ... just with more ... more. The bridge is a lot lower output.
If I'd have kept it I would have taken it out and replaced it with something that would have matched the neck pickup. I'd naturally have kept the PAF (as it is, after all, the original guitar pickup) and been sure that photos were taken of it throughout the process in case you ever wanted to sell it (so it could be proven to be original to the guitar). I think something loud like a Bareknuckle Mule might have matched well with that neck pickup - or else put something like a later '60s Patent number in there.
In the end I realised that it wasn't the one for me. I still miss it - and it's a better guitar in some ways than the '64 ... but the '64 is better suited to what I do. I always wanted a '59 mono ES355 with a bigsby - instead I got a '64 ES335 with a bigsby that has a neck profile that's probably the same as a '59 ES355! I'm very very happy with it - and I've finally scratched that last itch.
Stew Mac makes a tool that is specifically designed to level one fret in relation to it's neighbors. It does a fantastic job. After leveling, you just need to recrown and polish and you are all ready to go! For a small investment, you could be set up to perform some minor fretwork forever. If it is really slight, you may not even have to recrown. Some polishing may be enough, (especially if the frets are similar to my old '65 ES330... low and wide). My Guild X170 Manhattan had a couple of high frets around the neck to body joint. Rather than do a complete level, I just addressed those ones specifically and it plays much, much better. It was nice not to have to ship it out and wait (and pay to ship it, plus the cost of the job itself). Something to consider.Despot wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2019 11:28 pmthe only place where there's a slight buzz is around the second fret - it only seems to cause issues when playing an open A chord (there's a little buzz). It's not as pronounced through an amp - so for the moment I'll leave it alone, but I might see whether getting that fret replaced and crowned/levelled to match the rest is an option.