View Single Post
  #17  
Old 12-29-2016, 06:12 PM
Tump335 Tump335 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Posts: 3
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by moon View Post
If you find a Studio you like it would actually be quite easy to drill a couple of holes for 4-pot wiring. The F-hole surgery bit isn't that hard either if you know the routine.
Hello! Glad to have found your forum. That's exactly my plan.

I lucked out and snagged a 2014 Gingerburst ES-335 Studio on ebay for less than $800. Turned out that the existing bridge on that guitar was incorrect, so I had it replaced with the correct 12" radius old style Gibson ABR-1 bridge. Since the guitar was otherwise perfect, I added some titanium saddles (Allparts 45208 00482), installed an Allparts 5-ply short ES-335 pickguard with chrome Gibson ES-335 bracket, replaced the existing corian nut with bone nut from AxeMasters and bought a "VINTAGE UPGRADED ES-335 PRE-WIRED HARNESS" from Atlantic Custom Guitars on ebay (harness came with 500k CTS pots [audio/linear for volume/tone], switchcraft switch and jack, Sprague 200v .022mf orange drop capacitors and Gavitt Braided Wire) that my local luthier will install by drilling two extra holes under the bottom f-hole sometime next week. All of these upgrades, not counting the titanium saddles (a small extra) cost about $150.

So, since I don't work on guitars myself, after my luthier is paid, I will have a very nice, versatile near new ES-335 that looks great for about $1,250. I won't have white binding, inlaid logos on the headstock, or blocks on the neck -- not a big deal. Even so, the guitar sounds fantastic now, as is, before adding separate tone and volume controls for each pickup. As far as I can tell, Gibson only started offering the ES-335 Studio with full tone and volume controls in 2016.
Reply With Quote