ES 175 Jnr

Hey all, just joined, I've nearly finished an RC 12 build and that is going well.
A dream guitar for me to build would be an ES 175 jnr. As in, a fully hollow 175 Florentine cutaway body, dot inlays, no neck binding, 1 ply body binding, a single p90 in the bridge and a trapeze tailpiece with ABR style tune-a-matic bridge.
I would finish it in TV yellow, with the neck maybe black. 1 volume and one tone, with maybe a pickup straight to output "blower" switch as a push pull on the volume control.
Whaddaya think?
Paul

Hi and welcome.

It all sounds possible to do with a custom order for an ES-3 kit, though do note that the factories don't have a great record of getting all the customisation correct.

I'd specify:

1) Mahogany ply body and mahogany neck.

There have been some mahogany ply hollow bodied kits supplied lately, so this should be possible. If you want a true TV yellow finish then you'll need a mahogany body or you won't be able to grain-fill after the body has been sprayed the base colour in order to highlight the mahogany grain pattern, which is so vital to a true TV yellow. A solid yellow just looks pretty awful to me.

2) No neck pickup routing and a dog-ear P-90 rout for the bridge.

3) No volume & tone control holes or selector switch hole.

It's easy to drill the holes where you want them (rather than where the factory decides), and also for the your selected size of pot thread diameter. The factory has a habit of still leaving a selector switch hole drilled even when a single pickup has been specified. So you need to fully specify every change you want from the standard kit.

4) Single ply body binding.

You may not get this, so you'd have to be prepared to go with the standard multi-ply binding. I ordered a custom ES-1 with single ply binding (amongst other things) but it came with the multi-ply. The factory use a lot of standard templates for routing and on some guitars they simply find it too hard to depart from the standard for that kit.

5) Unbound neck with dot markers with an ebony or rosewood fretboard.

This should be achievable. The 'engineered' rosewood now used for the standard board isn't great and I wouldn't trust an unbound version to last very long. So once you change the board material, unbound and dots should all be possible.

6) No bridge post holes (option - see below)

The ES-3 kit comes with post holes drilled for an ABR saddle and no stop-bar holes (as a trapeze tailpiece is standard for the kit). But if you want a real 175-style ABR bridge fitted on a wooden base style bridge, then you won't want the drilled post holes. However, the kit neck angle may not give you quite enough height to fit a floating ABR bridge if you want a low action.

It's always possible to fill the post holes if you decide to try a floating ABR bridge, as the wooden base should cover up the covered holes. So if you stick with the post holes, you can change your mind later if you think a floating bridge will fit (but do so before applying any finish).

7) No F-hole binding (option).

Real 175s don't have f-hole binding but the ES3 kit does. Personally I think it looks neat and will help break up the relative monotony of a TV yellow finish, especially on a relatively large bodied guitar with a single pickup. But you can always ask to have the f-hole binding left off. The warning is that you might end up with bigger F-holes than normal, as the factory template will be for holes with binding. The binding isn't that thick, probably 1mm, but F-holes larger by an overall 2mm may just look wrong. You can of course paint over the binding and not scrape the paint off again, so that should merge well with the rest of the body finish.

Other points to note

The overall neck angle and resultant bridge height above the body will determine the height of the dog-ear P90 you'll need. If you are going to order one, especially a custom build, then I'd leave it until you know the body to string height at the bridge pickup position. Dog-ears aren't height adjustable (except by using shims to increase overall height), so you don't want something that's too tall or too short.

Thanks Simon, that is a huge help.
You have identified many issues that I hadn't thought of.
I will consider trying this build once I have my RC 12 finished.
This is fast becoming an obsession, and haven't even finished my first build yet!
Paul