koldo2552´s ES-3 (The WorkHorse)

[andrewdosborne]

Really nice, an axe to be proud of - one for GOTM!

[stan]

Outstanding build, looks great

[gavinturner]

Great job on the burst man. She looks amazing.

cheers,
Gav.

[Dedman]

one of the nicest bursts I've seen. It has a real aged look with out being reliced....aged and looked after

[nitroburner1000]

Well, I´ve been busy last days but the guitar is already screaming!
After a little fretwork, installing electronics, Tusq nut and a nice adjustment today i plugged the guitar into one of my amps and all i can say is that it worth all the effort.





So, the guitar is the ES-3 kit with:
- Grover Mini rotomatics
- Tusq XL nut
- Tonerider Alnico II Classics
- Dimarzio Pots and Allparts/CTS pots with push pull for coil split
- Mallory 150´s caps
- Switchcraft connectors
- Piezo disc working as contact mic
- Stock bridge
- 11-48 strings

Nice action, nice tuning, it´s very confortable, very easy to play with.
Played unplugged it is a warm sounding guitar, not a lot of volume but more than expected. Plugging the piezo output gives a nice acoustic sound. I can imagine myself gigging an acoustic set list with it without any problem. It needs a litlle bit of EQ, but i made a preamp for acoustic instruments and i can use it.

But the real deal comes plugging it into a good amp. I´ve been testing it with my last made amp, it´s based on the ´57 5E3 tweed deluxe with some mods. What can I say... I´m impressed. Tone rider pickups are absolutely amazing. They give a fat, warm and full of harmonics sound. Low output, i´ll say that they are between powerful singles and my other gibson´s 498/490 set. Vintage voiced... You can get warm Jazzy sounds (it´s supposed to be a jazz box), bluesy, rockabilly... while playing clean. But if you crank the amp, you immediately get into 60´s and 70´s rock. Think about Led Zeppelin, Free... Well, very close to that vintage Les Paul sound. Less sustain than a Les Paul of course, but it´s surprisingly good with overdriven sounds.

I know that those guitars are for jazz, but i don´t play jazz (i wish i could)... so this one is going to be used for alternative rock, indie, pop-rock and acoustic stuff. That was the original idea, a guitar that can be used for everything from clean to rock and all in-between sounds with the plus of the piezo disk... A workhorse.

I´ll make a video-demo of it, but this week i´ve got a gig with my band... maybe next week.

Looks great for all your hard work, the next one wont be long coming along, lol

[Simon Barden]

Really nice, well done!

[enikoy]

Great result! Both in Sounds and looks.

These are great fun guitars, I cant stop playing mine. And the Toneriders are brilliant.

One thing to watch out for is that tail piece. Mine bent and caused a few problems. Details in my old post:
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...l=1#post118394

[Andy40]

What a cool guitar. Well done

[koldo2552]

Thank you all!

And thank you enikoy, i´ll be watching the tail piece just in case. I´m using 11-48, your is with 12-52... hope it does´t bend like yours, if it does, i´ll change it for a better one... I´m thinking about changing the bridge too, but it´s working, so i´ll think about in the future.

[koldo2552]

Hello!

Here it is, the demo. Testing the pickups, the piezo and a litle mix without bass guitar.

https://youtu.be/eiSPIvCIjIE

Hope you'll enjoy it.