My ES1-F Build

Hi all, about to start this build for my upcoming 30th birthday present from the wife :D
This will be my 4th guitar build and my second Pitbull build.

I got the kit with gold hardware, grover tuners and bone nut.

My plan so far:

Finish - keen for red. still tossing up between a deep mahogany finish using Feast Watson Mahogany stain, or a lighter red stain using ColorTone cherry/mahogany red (on the ColorTone test pieces I got the best colour from doing mahogany over cherry). At this stage, I'm thinking I might stain the back and the neck with the Feast Watson Mahogany, and if I'm liking it I will continue with the front; if its too dark I might move to the ColorTone. I really want the flame veneer to 'pop', which the Feast Watson seems very good at, more so than the water-based ColorTone.

Pickups - I plan to install the stock pickups to begin with, and possibly more to Filtertrons down the track. Or maybe put a Tonerider P90 in the neck. I'll see how the kit pickups sound.

Hardware - I'll be fitting a Bigsby B70 to it. I think I'll bolt it straight on, rather than using a Vibramate.

Stay tuned, 2 days until I can begin!

Got the kit today - looks great, as I'm come to expect from Pitbull kits. I did a mock fit and the neck looks about right - photos below.
A few concerns:
1. The Bigsby doesn't sit on the body - its got a flat bottom. Does anybody have experience retro-fitting bigsbys to an ES335?
2. the pins for the bridge that are meant to push into the body, are a sliding fit - so they can just fall out if the strings aren't holding them down. is this normal??
3. I bought the bone nut upgrade, but the plastic nut is glued in. How do I remove the plastic nut without damaging the wood?

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Hi Kman42,
I have not done an ES kit yet.

However I have Gretsch Streamliner (hollow body with curve top) with a Bigbsy like yours. The 2 front screws hold the front part on the deck but the rest is sitting off the top.

As for the bridge pins - the only ones I have used have been very tight fits. But it may not be a problem for the tuneomatic bridge as the downward force from the strings will keep it in place. I have seen (On YT!) that wrapping one sheet of paper around the pins, covering them with glue, then inserting them into the holes is a useful solution if the pins are loose.

I assume the Tail stop will not be used so that should not be a problem.

For the G style nut - I have removed them from most builds by putting a small block of wood on top of the fret board up against the nut, then giving the wood a gentle tap with a hammer. I usually score the headstock edge of the nut first. They have always come off easily!

I hope this helps.

Hi Kman,

FOr removal of the nut, take a fine scalpel blade and run it all the way around the plastic nut. This will help prevent wood fibres clinging to the nut.
Then you tape off the headstock behind the nut. Take a small wood block, pop it on the fretboard and use a hammer to tap the woodblock into the nut from the fretboard side. One sharp tap should free it.

The anchors for the bridge should be a neat fit, they shouldn't just slip in and out. Are you able to measure the hole diameter vs the outside diameter of the anchor?


Not sure what to tell you about the Bigsby. that model is supposed to be for arch tops but that base looks completely flat.
There's not a lot of detail on their site, but they reference a you tube video that shows an installation of a b700 on an Epiphone Dot, which is more or less similar to the ES kits.
Whether this makes a significant difference, I don't know. None of their literature shows a side view. I know that there have been a couple of builds with them, but I don't recall if there was one for an ES.

Hopefully one of the other builders has had this same issue and can advise.

@TrevorDavies, you beat me to it!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I ended up giving the nut a few sharp taps and it came off in one piece.

I'm leaning towards getting a Vibramate to attach the Bigsby, to guarantee a fit - unless someone else can chime in and save me $150.

I tried for a diluted mahogany stain (roughly 30% concentration) but it came out pink lol. I have some walnut stain so I'll experiment getting a redder tint on some scrap wood. Another issue that came up is some glue spots that I missed - annoying because I rubbed the guitar down with a damp cloth before hand, and found another glue spot but missed these ones. I'll try removing the spots with good off/re-stain, but since I'm not that impressed with the veneer I may end up sanding it off. I sanded the veneer off another Pitbull body and the there underneath was lovely.

The pink guitar with one of the glue spots visible.Attachment 42674

Forgot to add - after the stain the bridge posts felt tighter. I'll see how they fit after the lacquer goes on and add paper shims if necessary.

so, I stripped the veneer off and found a pretty nice pattern underneath. I ended up using 3 coats of the Cherry Red Colortone, followed by a coat of Black Colortone diluted to about 20% - just to darken the red a bit. I must say, I much prefer working with spirit based stains - water based stains seem very patchy and hard to get looking good. The photo makes it look worse than it is - the stain came out pretty well after a few coats.

The sides, back and neck were all finished with Feast Watson Mahogany diluted to 30%, then a FW Walnut (30%) over the top. Came out as a bronze finish which I really like. On the Headstock, I overlayed that with a 100% Mahogany coat to get it close to black.

The photo is after the first clear coat of Polyurethane:

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with the guitar coated, on to the electronics. I like to create unique circuits with my guitars, and for this build I created a simplified take on the Varitone switch. Its a 3 way rotary switch giving:

1. full sound
2. extra treble reponse by cutting some bass and shifting the q higher
3. warmer sound of a low-value pot with the tone knob rolled halfway off

see the circuit and photo below. I experimented with component values until I arrived with a circuit that sounds subtly different, but very nice with the stock humbuckers. The bright setting is good for lead and ambient playing, while the warm setting is great for jazz.
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I also installed small terminal blocks in the pickup cavities, so I can swap out pickups without extracting the full wiring loom.

The other mod I did with the wiring was to drill a hole through from the strap button to the control cavity, so I could ground the bridge and strings.

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Speaking of the bridge, when I bolted the Bigsby down I found that the metal bent to the contour of the body, so no worries there.

so after virtually a full day of installing the wiring harness, and an extensive setup (levelled and dressed the frets, set the action on the nut and bridge) the guitar is complete. It sounds amazing - the stock pickups are really good. Their construction is el-cheapo, and I assume they use ceramic magnets, but they've clearly been voiced to approximate the sound of a PAF. They have about the same output volume as my Tonerider AC2 classics. At this stage I feel no desire to upgrade them, even though that was my initial plan.

The other thing I'll mention is that the Bigsby I got was a cheap B700 from Alixpress ($80 for the gold version). It is also very good after giving it a good setup - I oiled the moving parts, trimmed the string pins and cut the spring down a bit, and now it floats very easily and holds tune. the only real downside is that the Bigsby logo is just a sticker, which started lifting almost immediately. No big deal, I took it off.

I cut a pickguard out of 3mm plywood by printing a template at 1:1 scale, and jigsawing the shape. I stained it the same as the back/sides of the guitar for a nice contrast. I have a gold bracket coming in the mail, but I installed it using a chrome bracket for now.

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Some more photos:

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