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Lets build something that looks like an ES-175


Freeman Keller

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Background:

 

To understand this guitar you need to know my friend Jesse. Jesse is what I would call a modern renaissance man. He is one of the best, if not THE best, custom motorcycle painters – his work appears in many of the custom motor cycles mags (if you haven’t noticed there is frequently a motorcycle in those pictures). Here is the simple ghost flames that he put on my Sporty

 

Sportybro-1.jpg

 

And the more usual paint job on his personal bike

 

IMG_1554_lg.jpg

 

If you like that sort of thing, check out his website, if you click on the ‘helmets” page there are a few guitar that he’s painted.

 

http://www.trickpaint.com/

 

On weekends Jesse likes to take a little drive in the country

 

 

He climbs rock and ice and has been on our SAR unit, builds street rods as well as choppers, works a day job at one of our hydro electric dams and, oh yeah, plays guitar.

 

Jesse has traded paint jobs for a couple of vintage Les Pauls (gives you an idea of what his paint jobs go for) and one day I was doing some fretwork for him. He said “I don’t have an acoustic, would you build one for me?”

 

I said, sure, what do you want. He said “I want an acoustic that looks like an ES-175”. I said “not a problem” and as soon as he left, googled ES-175 to see what I had agreed to…

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Gibson ES-175:

 

The ES-175 is one of the iconic Gibson jazz guitars, played by many jazz luminaries; Jim Hall, Joe Pass, Wes, Jimmy Raney, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, among others. It is a hollow body with deep Florentine (sharp) cutaway, laminated pressed arched top and back, floating ToM bridge, tailpiece, f-holes and usually P90’s altho I guess different pickups were used. Modern ones look like this

 

ES-175.aspx

 

I haven’t played a “real” ES-175 but there are some clones on the market and I did play a beautiful hand made one at the recent GAL conference. Frankly I’m not impressed with their acoustic sound. This might be a problem….

 

I needed some clarification from Jesse on exactly what he meant by “an acoustic that looks like an ES-175”. His answer –“ it needs to be the size and shape (including depth) of the ES, with the Florentine cut, f-holes, tailpiece and bridge. Everything else is your call. Oh, yeah, it needs to be red”

 

Huh? Red – I hope you mean cherry sunburst or something like that – not candy apple red with little skulls painted all over it. “Well, my furniture is all red and this will sit out on a stand in the music room so it needs to be red” says Jesse. We’ll see.

 

Hang on, my name is Mister Toad and this is going to be a wild ride….

 

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I'll add one more thing right here. I'm having a bitch of a time posting picture and that could kill this whole gig. Normally I upload the picture to a hosting site, grab the URL and put it inbetween ... but some of these aren't appearing. Even worse is to try to use Vbulletins little image posting tool - it locks my computer up tight as can be. I've just spent a half hour trying to post a picture of a guitar (that worked in a previous thread) - that's time I should have been in the shop making sawdust.

 

If this continues I'll just stop the thread

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Oh man, somebody fix this, stat!

 

Edit: Hmmm, well it looks like that Gibson link is just the page and not an image file per se and the others you posted turned out just fine. Can you do another test from your favorite hosting site?

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Oh man, somebody fix this, stat!

 

Edit: Hmmm, well it looks like that Gibson link is just the page and not an image file per se and the others you posted turned out just fine. Can you do another test from your favorite hosting site?

 

my jpegs seem to be working fine. This was an aspx or something from the Gibson site - I had posted it a while back in another thread and it worked fine. If anyone has a nice picture of an ES-175 how about posting it here so I can talk about it.

 

I think my pics will be OK - we'll see.

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If you are using Windows, right click on the image from your link, choose View Background Image.

 

You get a new window with just the picture. Right click on this and choose Copy Image.

 

Come into your post here, right click and choose Paste.

637e796c-89c6-4876-9c22-2852ba311d89.jpg

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OK, we've got a couple of pictures, how abut the design criteria:

 

In order to make this sound halfway tolerable unplugged I need to make a more or less standard flat top – I’ll brace it with an X but more like an archtop. The f-holes aren’t a problem and while I don’t like the sharp cutaway, it shouldn’t be a problem either. I’ve got some nice stiff Lutz spruce – that should make a good soundboard and if it wasn’t for the “red” I’d suggest figured maple for back and sides, instead I’ve got some figured mahogany which makes a mahogany neck obvious. Ebony fingerboard and headplate, for right now I’m leaning towards ebony binding and pick guard but we can decide that as we get farther along. I’m going to build a fairly substantial arch into the top, but not carve or laminate it. I’ll do all the prep, Jesse can shoot the nitro (red).

 

I told him that even tho he doesn’t plan to plug in I would install a sound board transduce while the box was open – that way if it sounds crappy we can make it sound crappy and LOUD. And the ace in the hole is that we can play it in the white – if it really sounds crappy I can hog out a couple of holes in the top and drop in some P90’s.

 

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Disclaimer:

 

I am not a “luthier” – please don’t use that term. I have too much respect for the true luthiers that I know, call me a “luthier-in-training”. I’ve built a dozen or so acoustic instruments and one electric. I make mistakes and learn with each one. I work in a small garage shop with minimal tools – with each build I try to add a significant tool to my collection. If you think GAS is bad, get TAS (‘Honey, I need a new router…”). If you want to kill a couple of hours here is the thread that I did a few years ago on my home made Les Paul

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-41/1104633-

 

I’ll be posting a few days after I do something. Most of the time there are parallel operations going on but I’ll try to linearize things – maybe show the carving of the neck all at once. I’ll take breaks, go on trips, wait for something I’ve ordered – but I’ll try to keep this more or less flowing – I won’t drag it out. I’m guessing it will take four or six weeks to build it and another four to six for the finish – we should have a guitar in October.

 

Please feel free to comment and ask questions, but remember that I am not a pro and in a lot of cases I’m just winging it. There are lots of different ways to do things – I appreciate hearing about yours but I don’t want to get into big discussions about why I do it this way.

 

Lastly, one of the reasons I like doing build threads is to try to inspire people who want to build an instrument to give it a try. I’ve got lots of resources so if this appeals to you, let me lead you astray, er, try to help you build a guitar. OK, lets build this thing

 

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Gibson ES-175:

 

I haven’t played a “real” ES-175 but there are some clones on the market and I did play a beautiful hand made one at the recent GAL conference. Frankly I’m not impressed with their acoustic sound. This might be a problem….

 

An ES-175 is not an acoustic guitar - it is an electric guitar with a hollow body.

 

An L5CES is an acoustic guitar with pickups.

 

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First setback:

 

I’ve got most of the wood stickered away in storage (on a shelf in my wine cellar) but it is all thicker than I want to work with. Normally I just take it to my local cabinet shop and they run it thru their thickness sander – I can stand there with my calipers and thump on the wood until it sounds right (whatever that means), then I go home and put it together. My cabinet shop informs me they have a fancy new sander but it won’t go down thin enough for what I need – I box up a bunch of wood and send it off to LMI with instructions on how thick I want it….

 

Oh well, this will give me a chance to make some jigs and templates and stuff. Every guitar that I build needs two pieces of tooling - the mold or jig that will hold the body while its being built and the form to bend the sides around. Fortunately they get made at the same time. I cut a piece of 3/4 MDF into 4 pieces and clamp them together with flathead machine bolts (the flat heads let them slide around on the band saw table). Trace one half of the body and cut them out

 

You get an innie and an outie -

 

IMG_1492_zps09fbd5de.jpg

 

The innie becomes the form for bending the sides in my Fox style bender - you'll see that in a few days

 

IMG_1520_zps4410a6b6.jpg

 

The outie becomes the mold or jig. I knew I needed something for the Florentine cutaway, so I made the little gizmos in the center - again, an innie and an outie.

 

IMG_1521_zpsbc24cd88.jpg

 

Part of that goes into the form for the cutaway, the other will be the bending form for the piece that becomes the cut

 

IMG_1519_zpsc0b4aefd.jpg

 

I know this stuff is really boring but its a very important part of the operation and I like to build molds that will last a while if I ever want to build another like this. Stay tuned

 

(interesting, it just told me that I couldn't have more than four images in a posting - that seems new. Oh well, at least I can see my pictures now)

 

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First setback:

 

I know this stuff is really boring but its a very important part of the operation and I like to build molds that will last a while if I ever want to build another like this. Stay tuned

 

Boring nothing,This is exactly what I want to see

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Very clean work on the jigs and such as always, Freeman. Personally, I HATE working with that MDF stuff. Even with a respirator on to keep me from hacking up a lung there's a TON of cleanup.

 

Anyway, what setback? You know what the issue is and took steps to solve. Hopefully LMI gets it right and UPS doesn't back a truck over the box on the return trip. Other than that, you probably already know that you just need things "in the ball park" with regards to thickness until it's all put together. That tap tone is an elusive that is constantly changing. Even after you're done it'll take a good 6 months before you really know what the guitar is going to sound like because the wood still wants to be a tree.

 

FWIW I happened to acquire one of those Tone Rite thingies. When you're all done would you like to use it? I put it on a couple of my guitars and it really "wakes them up."

 

3AE07AFD_zpse42d84af.jpg

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FWIW I happened to acquire one of those Tone Rite thingies. When you're all done would you like to use it? I put it on a couple of my guitars and it really "wakes them up."

 

 

Wow, sweet offer. Lets talk more when I get farther along. I've been interested in these things for quite a while.

 

Meanwhile, last night I built a little jig for the f-holes. Already had a Gibson headstock and a humbucker templates from the LP and that thingie on the right is my home made fret wire bender. Just getting every thing out of the attic.

 

IMG_1523_zps6bb63588.jpg

 

Got the old go-bar out and put it together - you'll get tired of seeing this thing

 

IMG_1489_zps9a6cc12b.jpg

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Jesse said he had a guitar that he really liked the fingerboard and could I copy it. Sure, I said, and he brought this sweet little Goldtop to the shop. I've got this cool little tool that lets me make templates from almost any curved surface (works great to copy the carved top of a guitar)

 

IMG_1486_zps3efc7dea.jpg

 

Traced the neck profile and wrote down some measurements - basically the same as my LP plans but considerably deeper.

 

IMG_1488_zps37cd372f.jpg

 

Since Jesse was going off racing I had to keep the Goldie for a few days. Here it is with the Faux Paul

 

IMG_1884_zpsfb4cd266.jpg

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While we're waiting for the wood to come back lets start building the neck. At least that way we'll be working on the guitar. First, however, a little talk about truss rods.

 

Guitars need truss rods for two main reasons - first they stabilize and strengthen the neck. That can be a metal rod, carbon fiber, maybe ebony - and doesn't have to be adjustable - it simply counter acts the tension of the strings. Martin used tee and square bars of steel for years back in the "golden era", many builders today use carbon fiber. Classical guitars don't need them.

 

The second reason is to allow the neck curvature to be adjusted. The strings pull the neck into a bow shape, the truss rod allows you to adjust the amount of bowing, commonly called relief. Gibson's traditional rod is a 5/32 rod threaded on one end (the headstock) and with an L shape at the other which fits into a hole in the neck heel. The rod fits in a curved channel in the neck, tightening the nut puts the rod in tension which compresses the neck below the nut and counters the tension of the strings. It works, sorta, but really isn't a very elegant engineered solution - the torque on the nut is very non linear, the nut requires a rather large recess in the headstock, and compressing the neck really isn't a very efficient way to bend it. If you loosen the nut (counter clockwise) it eventually comes off just like a nut on a bolt. At this point the neck assumes whatever curve is built into it plus that added by the string tension (always adjust relief with tension). When you tighten the nut it comes up snug, then in a very small amount of turning gets really hard to turn. Keep cranking and something will go “pop”. Hopefully you’ve been able to achieve the amount of relief that you want somewhere before this happens. I used a Gibson style rod in my mandolin and vowed never again.

 

There are many other truss rod designs - the one I like the best is called a "double acting" rod. Basically it is a thin piece of steel bar with threaded pieces welded to each end. On has a standard thread, the other a reverse thread (like a turn buckle) - a threaded rod fits in those pieces and has a little socket for a 5mm allen wrench. Turning the adjuster one way brings the ends together and flexes the square rod out, turning the other way flexes it in. Here are two double acting rods adjusted "neutral"

IMG_1535_zps111a47d7.jpg

Here are the same rods - the top one with one half turn counter clockwise, the bottom one with one half turn clockwise

IMG_1536_zps3598b9e9.jpg

Note a couple of things about those rods - they can exert force to remove relief or add it or even add back bow. When you adjust them they get progressively harder to turn in a very linear fashion. Turn them far enough and they can exert a tremendous amount of force either against your soundboard or nut. I want to say that once more – those pictures are only one half turn. If the “luthier” at GC says “I’ll give your truss rod a crank (to lower the action)”: grab your guitar and run like hell. One eight of a turn is all you should ever do at one time.

 

Last comment – why would you want to use the T/R to put relief into the neck – doesn’t the strings do that automatically? Well, actually, you don’t but on some fret jobs the tangs of the frets push the slots apart creating backbow and you need to counter that (the strings aren’t applying enough tension). The sweet thing about these rods is that you can adjust the neck perfectly flat when you are doing fretwork (we’ll see that sometime in a month or so).

 

End of truss rod thesis…

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Next rant is about the traditional way of sawing necks out of one piece of wood. Here is a picture from the LMI site

 

NeckBlanksGraphic1.jpg

 

That is basically the way Gibson and Martin and many others do it – that hunk of wood costs a hundred and fifty bucks and makes two neck (and generates a bunch of waste). Not only that, a sawn neck is very weak right at the base of the headstock (right where we hogged out that big hole for the truss rod nut – no wonder this happens

 

IMG_1355_zpsaeae0ee6.jpg

 

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This seems like a much better way to do it. I buy a 1 X 3 X 30 piece of mahogany for $46 (which will make one neck) and cut it at 14 to 16 degress.

 

IMG_1475_zps9a143d04.jpg

 

Thin the cutoff piece down to ½” and flip it over (I’m making two necks at the same time – got another project as soon as this is done)

 

IMG_1476_zps4baaf1e8.jpg

 

And glue them together

 

IMG_1478_zps73407af0.jpg

 

Stack a few more blocks of the same piece of wood to make the heel

 

IMG_1480_zps900bd47a.jpg

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