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ES335 Bones

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RickN

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Feb 12, 2002
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The recent thread about the number of laminations used in the top and backs of early ES3x5 style guitars was interesting. I love this place for stuff like that.

Recently I found a fairly nice '64 335 on a Craigslist listing - it had seen better days. Some old widow was selling it to help pay off her credit card debt. I nit-picked the poor guitar to death and knocked her down to $125 and home it came.

One of the issues was a loose strip of binding on the top, so I got out my Milwaukee heat gun and tried to soften it enough to form it back into shape. Bad idea. The top started to separate. So, I figured... WTF, and kept going. Eventually the entire top came off, but it was stuck around the neck. I took it to a local cabinet maker's shop and had them put it on this really cool little band saw and just chopped through it. The neck and the top were junk, so they went in the trash. I got out the cam and took some snaps I thought you all might find interesting. The lighting wasn't optimal, but I think you'll get the idea.

Here's the bottom of what was left:

es335_guts_1.jpg


Here's the remainder of the central block:

es335_guts_8.jpg


What was interesting was to see how many places there was evidence of how much hand-work and hand forming was part of the construction. Here are a couple of shots showing how the maple block isn't perfectly aligned with the kerfed spruce:

es335_guts_2.jpg

es335_guts_7.jpg
 
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RickN

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Here's a shot of the mahogany block that's at the back end of the maple center block:

es335_guts_5.jpg


It was also cool to see how (relatively) haphazard the gluing was. And also how much the kerfs on the sides were basically hand-formed. It looks like two different types of glue were used - one to glue the kerfs to the rim, and another to glue the top and back to the kerfing:

es335_guts_3.jpg

es335_guts_6.jpg


Another close-up of the laminations:

es335_guts_4.jpg


Again, sorry for the less-than-optimal lighting, and for my poor Photoshop skills to correct the colors.
 
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RickN

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Oh...

























That whole story about where the guitar came from and what I did with it? Complete B.S. I didn't even take the pictures... lens-man extraordinaire RevWillieVK took the pix... :dude:
 
Wallace

Wallace

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Feb 23, 2003
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Very Cool!
Thanks for sharing this.

Any shots of the rest of the guitar or is that all that was left :wah
 
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Troels

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I think it's earlier than 1964... in 1964 the centerblock included neck- and end block.
My 1960 330 kerfed linings are also glued with both animal glue and Titebond as per the pictures.

In todays 335 the kerfs in the horn ends are substituted with preshaped wood blocks covering the sharpest curves in the horns.

It's an interesting piece from many points of views - but maybe you should have have had $ 5 to bring it to the fire place instead of paying $ 125 - unless of course there's a neck too???

The construction is identical (except for the (rest of) center block to my 1960 330. I can't see any FON on the treble side of the back... but it's probably earlier than 1964...
What's the plan with it... probably can't be restored with all these parts missing... or??? :)
 
Rev.WillieVK

Rev.WillieVK

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Troels - Re-read the bottom of post #3. :jim

'Twas what it was, no more to the husk than shown. An educational photo-op we were lucky to come across.
 
E

ES Blonde

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Jun 27, 2007
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I think these piccygraphs would look good on Toms 335 site under the construction tab. If n' y'all would be kind enough to donate, please and pretty please.

:applaude
 
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Troels

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Rev.WillieVK said:
Troels - Re-read the bottom of post #3. :jim

'Twas what it was, no more to the husk than shown. An educational photo-op we were lucky to come across.
Click to expand...

Harhhhh... what a fool I am... harhhh. But it's great pictures.
Wonder what actually happened to that guitar - why did anybody cut half the cdenter block ??? :) :)
 
MapleFlame

MapleFlame

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Jul 3, 2005
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Rick ya got me again, once witht he 52 and now this. I am going to personally drive down to Texas and give you a beat down on the Soloflex.:ganz




:lol :lol :lol
 
R

RickN

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MapleFlame said:
Rick ya got me again, once witht he 52 and now this. I am going to personally drive down to Texas and give you a beat down on the Soloflex.:ganz
:lol :lol :lol
Click to expand...

Hell - if you drive to Tejas, you'll be two-day's drive out of your way... :hee
 
CLAYPOOL

CLAYPOOL

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Jul 18, 2006
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So if those show 4 laminated sheets, how many layers do the new ones have?:hmm
 
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plaintop60

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Dr. Vintage said:
"Core wood"? What do you mean? The two center layers of the top and back laminates? The center block?
Click to expand...

The core wood is the wood used for the core of the laminate. In this case two pieces of light colored wood going cross grain. There's some speculation about species. Some guitars had maple, some other woods. I've seen wood that I thought was spruce on a few instruments and Birch was certainly used. I've also seen light colored woods. Some people believe the core to be Poplar, but Poplar sucks for this purpose and it's also very dark colored after it ages a few years. This very white wood that shows is appears to be a soft wood such as spruce because as you can see in the pic the grain has shredded slightly along the cut line. The wood in the pic looks alot like the Epiphone guitar you showed a pic of recently. It almost looks white enough to be Holly but that seems unlikely. It's definitely NOT Poplar as Poplar would be brown, or green and very dark compared to the maple. It also looks to white to be basswood which is yellower like Maple. It's important because the core of the laminate is going to affect the tone quite alot. A luthier I once worked for insisted that the best es335's had only maple laminate. I've also heard of Mahogany used, but never seen any Mahogany. Sometime in the 1980's Gibson changed this specification from "Maple Laminate" to Maple/Poplar/Maple lam. I know they used anything they had on hand so anything is possible. It's just a curiosity I guess because I'm not going shopping for a vintage 335 anytime soon.:hmm
 
T

Troels

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plaintop60 said:
The core wood is the wood used for the core of the laminate. In this case two pieces of light colored wood going cross grain. There's some speculation about species. Some guitars had maple, some other woods. I've seen wood that I thought was spruce on a few instruments and Birch was certainly used. I've also seen light colored woods. Some people believe the core to be Poplar, but Poplar sucks for this purpose and it's also very dark colored after it ages a few years. This very white wood that shows is appears to be a soft wood such as spruce because as you can see in the pic the grain has shredded slightly along the cut line. The wood in the pic looks alot like the Epiphone guitar you showed a pic of recently. It almost looks white enough to be Holly but that seems unlikely. It's definitely NOT Poplar as Poplar would be brown, or green and very dark compared to the maple. It also looks to white to be basswood which is yellower like Maple. It's important because the core of the laminate is going to affect the tone quite alot. A luthier I once worked for insisted that the best es335's had only maple laminate. I've also heard of Mahogany used, but never seen any Mahogany. Sometime in the 1980's Gibson changed this specification from "Maple Laminate" to Maple/Poplar/Maple lam. I know they used anything they had on hand so anything is possible. It's just a curiosity I guess because I'm not going shopping for a vintage 335 anytime soon.:hmm
Click to expand...

I've asked Gibson a few times - and somebody else around here have too - and they say poplar was used as core wood from the very early days - and do so still. I do mean that poplar can vary from white over greenish to brownish. But as a general rule - the core layers in Gibsons were whatever available including mahogany, birch, spruce and so on.
There are btw other factors than the wood species themselves when it comes to support sound - glue for instance.
In the old days Gibson used urea formaldehyde which is now prophibited because it's known to cause cancer. Nevertheless, urea formaldehyde cures very hard and glasslike - not "soft" and sound dampening like the PVA glues these days. UF glue was used in aroplane grade plywood as well (with spruce core) - take a look here: http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA149053
Poplar - btw - was used in Stradivarius contra basses for linings and fittings - so it's far from new in the music business. Poplar petrifies over years and becomes hard as stone - people who have tried to pull out nails of old poplar panels or furnitures know what I'm talking about.
 
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