Another 335

[Freeman Keller]

A local musician brought an old Martin to me for some repairs. He said he bought it in 1960 for a hundred bucks, had it hanging on the wall and when it fell off it got some cracks. Could I fix it?

 

(lets see, a 1940 Martin for a hundred bucks hanging on the wall......)

 

Anyway, I fixed it and I was telling him that I tried to use materials keeping with the character of the guitar - I had some Brazilian that I made some splices out of and I used hide glue. He thanked me and told me that he regretted selling his second guitar, an ES-335, that he had also bought in the '60's. (Wow) I told him I had just built a 335 and showed him some pictures of T_e_l_e's guitar.

 

A couple of days later he called me and thanked me once again for fixing the Martin. He said, "its my birthday and I thought I would buy myself a present. Would you build me a 335?" (Well, OK)

 

I'm not going to do a build thread, I'm tired of those and its pretty obvious that only a few people really care. But I thought that from time to time I'd just post a progress picture - basically when I send one to him. So here is 335 #2 in the mold on wash day

 

[mistersully]

cool... i look forward to seeing how it turns out

[thatsbunk]

Dude, your build threads are the best things on this forum. Post away!

[t_e_l_e]

keep us posted

 

have you already had some talk regarding finish? any special wishes? any major changes compared to my guitar?

 

tomorrow will be my first gig with the es335, we are good rehearsed and looking forward to it.

if i get hand on some pictures i will you post them

[Freeman Keller]

Finish will be red lacquer, very much like yours (unless he changes his mind). Only other significant changes will be to NOT use the wire ties like I did on yours and I'm going to do the center block a little differently. Gibson glues a kerfed piece of wood inside the top and back to conform to the arch - I couldn't really figure out how they did that so I carved the center block on yours to match the arch. I think I understand the Gibson method now so I'm going to try it.

 

Pickups are undecided at this point - he is a jazz musician but hasn't decide what sound he wants from this. Are you happy with the pups in yours?

 

And yes, please post the pictures. I'd love to see them.

[Freeman Keller]

Thanks, I'll post progress pictures at significant points in the build. Doing the whole step by step thing gets to be a real hassle.

[t_e_l_e]

i really like my pickups. the bridge pickup is not too bright and not too shrill and the neck pickup is not too dark and not too bassy.

 

on my lp i cannot play on the neck pickup in band situation cause i get sonical too much in the way of the bass. and the bridge pickup feedbacks too easily in a not so nice shrill way.

 

for a rock and fuzz player the pickups you put in mine fit very well to the guitar.

i'm not a jazz player but i get nice clean warm tones from the neck pickup which your client might like, but jazzer might think complete different than me

[mrbrown49]

Freeman, love your progress pics, keep em coming!

 

What do you use to steam the wood before you drop it in the mold?

[DeepEnd]

. . . I'm not going to do a build thread' date=' I'm tired of those and its pretty obvious that only a few people really care. But I thought that from time to time I'd just post a progress picture - basically when I send one to him. So here is 335 #2 in the mold on wash day . . .[/quote']

There may be only a few folks who comment on your build threads but that doesn't necessarily indicate lack of interest. I enjoy them even if I don't have much to say.

[billybilly]

There may be only a few folks who comment on your build threads but that doesn't necessarily indicate lack of interest. I enjoy them even if I don't have much to say.

Yep.

 

I appreciate a build thread. I can't do them, you have to courteous to your audience while your building and Ii'm too selfish.

[gardo]

Thank you Freeman. This gives me something to look forward to. Even though I've followed several build threads I never get tired of seeing the work in progress

[Freeman Keller]

I have both a hot pipe and a Fox style bender. When I make the mold (out of MDF) the inside part becomes the mold for the bender. I used to do all the sides on the hot pipe but now I save it for small projects - bindings, Florentine cutaways - stuff like that.

 

The hot pipe uses a wet rag to apply the steam, the Fox bender has a heat blanket in between two thin sheets of spring steel - I spritz the wood before putting it in the sandwich.

 

However these sides, tops and back are all laminated in the traditional Gibson method by a guy with a 10 ton press. In other words, for this guitar I bought them already bent.

[mrbrown49]

Thanks for the info freeman. Interesting stuff!

[Freeman Keller]

The 335 is a particularly difficult guitar for a home builder like me to clone. The molded laminated top and back and the center block are unlike any other guitar and require some special equipment to make. I did discuss this fairly extensively when I did the thread about T_e_l_e's build.

[Freeman Keller]

Thanks to everyone for the nice and encouraging comments. I will post a few progress pictures, I'm just not going to show every little stroke of the chisel.

[badpenguin]

Mr freeman, I LOVE your build threads. keep them coming!

[papaschtroumpf]

We love your build threads but I do understand it gets tedious to post every step. Everything you decide to share will be welcome!

Being a 335 player myself, the previous thread and this one are of particular interest to me.

[t_e_l_e]

here is the only pic i have now from mine at her first gig, don't mind the bald guy. the guitar looked, played and sounded fantastic

also some guitar friends had similar comments

 

 

 

[mrbrown49]

^ that trans red looks great under the stage lights!

[Freeman Keller]

I know I said I wasn't going to do a build thread (and I'm not) but the operation that I did over the week end was kind of cool and shows how and ES-335 is different from most all of the other guitars. Also, I did this one a little differently than T_e_l_e's and so I'll show the difference.

 

​First, understand that a 335 is a "semi hollow body" (or "semi solid body" depending on whether you like wood or air). It is a slim body, roughly the same thickness as a Les Paul or many other electric guitars and has a solid block of wood in the middle, but the rest of the body is hollow and build somewhat like an acoustic. The top and back are arched like an arch top, but instead of being carved they are laminated out of three thin pieces of wood (usually maple, at least on the show face) and the arch is made by pressing the laminates together in a giant hydraulic press. So its truly a plywood guitar...

 

Remember too that these things were built in the 1950's and 60's when Gibson didn't have fancy cnc milling machines and all the technology that they do now. So how did they make these guitars? And how does someone like me clone one without a 10 ton hydraulic press and all the molds?

 

I'm my case I found someone who had gone thru the trouble of making the molds and actually making a few tops and backs, then wanting to amortize the investment, sells tops and backs on the internet. I bought a few sets, made the one guitar above and put the rest in storage.

 

The plans I had showed a big block of wood in the middle that went about 3/4 of the way to the end block. I found a thread showing someone carving that block to fit the top and back, I had carved a few guitars so that's what I did glued it in and started carving

 

 

Made some template to fit the curve of the top

 

 

This worked just fine, but I knew it wasn’t how Gibson did it.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Back in the ‘60’s, without CNC, Gibbie sure as hell wasn’t going to hand carve every 335 internal block. They had a rather ingenious idea. The made the main block in the center of the guitar one be flat hunk of wood that was basically flush and level with the sides, then they made little kerfed pieces to fill the curved parts of the top and back. Easier to show than explain.

 

Here is the previous picture of the sides with a block of maple in the middle – it extends from the neck to the end block, and is the same depth as the sides

 

 

Here is the filler, in my case a piece of spruce but Gibson used mahogany and bass wood also. It is kerfed (cuts are made in it on one side) and has been contoured to the top. Its upside down in this picture

 

 

To make it I took two pieces of plywood, screwed them together, traced the shape of the top curve (long way) and cut them out on a band saw. Looks something like this.

 

 

Screwed them onto the sides of the spruce blocks that had the kerf cuts and used a router to make a curved surface

 

 

A little clean up with a plane

 

 

And glued it to the top and another one for the back. The kerfed cuts allows it to flex from side to side

 

 

Made another router sled, this time flat and brought them down level with the edges

 

 

Here is the rim, center block, back and top all ready to go together

 

 

And the top sitting on the rim, ready for glue

 

 

This was about half the labor of the previous one and if I wanted to do more guitars I could refine the router jigs to make it even easier.

 

 

 

[t_e_l_e]

i see what you did here. did i understand correctly:

- you took the template only from the middle, where curved shape is the deepest

- than you routed the filler to the same shape with help of the template

- finally you cut the kerfes completely through and glued them on the back, because they are only small pieces of wood they are flexible and you can glue them to the exact shape of the back

 

the result will not be plain, therefore you plain it with the router and you are done, right?

 

and now the final question, what do you think, will the kerfed part affect the sound?

i think the difference cannot be huge, but i'm not sure, will it be more or less prone to feedback?

 

that is really an interesting detail, how to learn doing things differently when you do them the next time again

thx for shareing

 

[Freeman Keller]

T_e_l_e, your description is absolutely correct. In theory because of the flexibility of the kerfed pieces (in both direction) they might fit the top curve a little more closely - the way I did yours there is a possibility of some small gaps between the top and the block. I tried to eliminate that by doing what is called "chalk fitting" - I put black powder on the top and pressed the block against it - where the powder got transferred indicates a high point which got scraped down until it was uniformly transferred. When I cut the pickup cavities I couldn't see any gaps - I think the fit was really good.

 

​On this one you could argue that the gaps in the kerfing would affect the sound but I don't know what the effect would be. One big difference is that in yours the block does not go all the way to the end (that's what my plans and another build showed) - what that means in you have a slightly larger air cavity and both sides are coupled - that would lower its resonant frequency (think of the bigger air chamber in a dreadnaught than a small bodied acoustic). That might make yours a little more bassy, this one might be a little brighter.

 

Bottom line, I really don't know what the effect will be if anything - guess we'll find out in a month or so.

 

[thatsbunk]

Will the gaps in the kerfing be an issue when you mount the tailpiece studs? Hard to see from your photos how tall the kerfing slats are & what the gap is between them.

[Freeman Keller]

Will the gaps in the kerfing be an issue when you mount the tailpiece studs? Hard to see from your photos how tall the kerfing slats are & what the gap is between them.

 

​I'm no too worried about the bridge or tailpiece studs, a potential problem however is the little screws that hold the pickup rings in place. If one of those happens to hit a kerf cut there could be a problem. If that happens I'll just fill that area with a plug and some CA.

 

The kerfing is only about 1/4 inch thick in the area of the studs - they should go thru it fine into the center block. If not, more wood dust and CA.