Simon B's Custom ES-1/ES330 style build

[McCreed]

Very nice Simon. I do agree with your cosmetic changes of the knobs and pickup covers though. Sometimes it's those little things that make a big difference.

And it's not finished. Assembled, but not finished.

Are they ever? Most of mine seem to be perpetual works in progress.

[FrankenWashie]

Very nice Simon. I do agree with your cosmetic changes of the knobs and pickup covers though. Sometimes it's those little things that make a big difference.



Are they ever? Most of mine seem to be perpetual works in progress.

I often wonder what a "Finished" guitar would look like......

[fender3x]

If that's what it looks like unfinished, maybe you shouldn't finish it. I am blown away by the color and figuring of the top.

[Simon Barden]

99.9% there.

The new bridge didn't arrive as it should have done, but I went ahead on the guitar anyway as it's been raining hard all day and not a day for doing anything needing to be outside.

The new nickel pickup covers did arrive but the bridge one was higher than the current bridge one and just wouldn't fit under the strings, so they have been put aside in case they come in useful in future.

I started off today's actual work by cutting the nut slots down to a reasonable height (to allow for a later setting up) and then filing down the top of the nut to be just a bit taller than the string height.

I then took out the harness to work out why the bridge pickup was shorting out. It turns out that it was the push-back braid on the signal cable to the selector switch that had pushed forwards again under the heat shrink and ended up touching the switch lug, hence no signal. Which gave me an excuse to swap out the original angled switch for a short straight Switchcraft unit (and which also gave me a more visually pleasing knurled ring nut, not the hex one of the first switch fitted). It made the harness that bit more compact.

I remembered to fit heat-shrink over the braided pickup leads, and arranged the leads so that there was just enough length to route the bridge pickup lead around the F-hole without having to extend it.

I did my 500k vol/250k tone pot combination (all log pots) that I tried out on the SG Jr build, and that works fine. Not getting any treble roll-off until below 7 on the dial (so the 250k pot isn't affecting the base tone), but fairly progressive from there on.


So back in it went. The more compact harness went in a bit quicker this time. Used string for pulling the output jack into its hole, but everything else was pushed in just using fingers.

I had one bridge that was bought for the SGM build that was slightly lower than the TonePros bridge, so I decided to use that and replace the original inserts with flush-fitting ones that I had. I had to turn some dowel down to fit in the bottom of the insert holes, as they were deeper than the bushings and I wanted them flush, not sitting 2-3mm below the surface.

So in they went, all sitting pretty. The rims of the old bushings had marked the finish slightly, but as the bridge is now almost on the face of the guitar, the bridge height adjustment wheels cover up the marks, so there was no need to try and touch them up.



A tap test of the pickups then revealed that the bridge pickup still wasn't giving any output. A multimeter showed that this time it was open circuit, so out came the harness yet again, and a suspect piece of insulation poking through a pot tag hole was removed, a connection re-soldered and the harness put back in. Tested and all working.

Fitted the new black + silver dish knobs, which I think go better with the overall colour scheme of the guitar.

So it was strings on (again) time and then setting up the action. With the bridge almost touching the top of the guitar, I ended up having to cut slots in the saddles fairly deep to get the string height down. Then it was final cut of the nut slots, a quick turn of the truss rod to straighten the neck and a slight raising of the bridge to compensate for this on the upper frets, and it was done.



The bridge pickup cover is only just clearing the strings, so I'd like to get that down a bit lower. I may need to get a new lower cover and then use a shim to raise it up enough. These dog-ears look nice but really are a pain to work with to get any height adjustment. The bridge pup also needs moving slightly to the treble side to line up with the strings, but that's down to the pickup rout position, which will need a slight enlargement to allow for the movement.

The neck pickup could do with a shim to raise the pickup up slightly, but that's easy to do.

And the nut needs a final overall height reduction (as the strings now sit slightly lower than after the initial slot cutting), rounding off the edges and polishing.

The trapeze certainly gives it a different playing feel over a stop-tail guitar. The light body is very resonant despite the centre-block (which is what I'd hoped for), so does mimic a fully hollow body ES-330. You don't need to get things too loud before you feel the body resonating and the guitar wanting to feedback if you let it. But it's still controllable at my normal playing volumes, provides you mute the strings when not playing.

It's a very bright sounding guitar, possibly a bit twangier than I was hoping for, but some of that may be down to the hollow body and trapeze. But it's also supposed to give me a different sound to my other guitars, as there's no point having them all sound the same. So I'll live with the pickups as they are for now and get used to them. I can always try swapping the Alnico II pickups for Alnico IV which are the more common magnet for these early P90 styles (before they moved to Alnico V) for a bit more beef and mids.

Oh, and what do people think about making a pickguard for it? It was my intention to do so for authenticity, but I'm liking the look without.

[Ricky]

Simon, I know that the pickguard is the more authentic finish but I think it looks much classier without one.

Every time I see a 335 or similar with a pickguard it makes me think ........ Bert Weedon with his Guild guitar! (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...bert-286230676 )

Please, no pickguard

Cheer
Ricky

[GregLane]

Simon what mf are the capacitors you used?
I am about to wire my ES today and noticed that the caps in the kit are 45s not 22s. Then I found reference on the web that there is a swing towards 47s for humbuuckers.
I am doing this kit straight out of the box, incl caps. I expected to upgrade it later but it will by interesting to hear the tone difference when compared to my upgraded LP.

[Simon Barden]

0.022uF. The value of the cap only affects the tone with the pot turned down (you’ll get more loss of treble by using a slightly longer guitar lead with the pot right up) so if you always leave the pot turned to 10, it really doesn’t matter on the value. Personally, unless you are going to use the guitar for jazz and use a really dull sound, I can’t really think of a time where I’d ever want to knock more than just a bit of treble off. I was almost tempted to fit 0.015uF caps, which is my normal humbucker choice now.

Beware of lumping all humbuckers together, as they can sound very different. There is a tendency for some modern humbuckers to be very bright, especially those designed for the metal side of things (far too bright and shrill for my taste) , so those may benefit from 0.047uF caps, but you’d also need to turn the tone control down, or use a much lower value tone pot, to get any effect. Though IMO you’d be better off choosing a different pickup.

But at the end of the day, it’s just a capacitor and it’s easy and cheap to swap out if you think it’s the wrong choice.

Unless you test these things out for yourself, you’ll never know. And you really need to record the results and compare in a blind test as it’s so easy to get confirmation bias. Also, with standard capacitance tolerances being +/-20% and cheap cap tolerances being +80/-20%, you really need to measure your capacitance values to get a true picture of what you are actually using. I use +/-10% orange drops, so I know I’ll be pretty close to the nominal value. But you can also get +/-20% orange drops, which are a bit cheaper and fine if you don’t need such a precise value. 20% of 0.047uF gives a range of 0.037uF to 0.056uF, which at 0.019uF is quite a range, and only just a bit larger than the 0.025uF gap between a nominal 0.022uF and 0.047uF!

[Barry snook]

Looks great Simon!!! Fantastic work!!

I don’t think you should do the pick guard, looks much better without one, I took it off my genuine 335, I find it just gets in the way

[DarkMark]

I have an ES style guitar with a scratch plate. Now that I have become accustom to playing guitars without one I find I no longer like it. Touching the body with my fingers feels like it puts my hand in a more natural position when playing melody lines. My hand position feels less ergonomic with less distance created in string height from plate to string. Having had hand surgery I probably feel it more than most people. How do you feel more comfortable? With or without it?

[Simon Barden]

Either TBH. I can play it fine without one, but on my 335-style Hamer Echotone, that has one and that's fine as well.

Because of the arch to the top, I'm less likely to catch it with a pick than on a flat top.