Since my back is more or less ruined and I went on long-term disability, I've taught myself, bit by bit, how to set up guitars for maximum playability and comfort, and do some fret work on them as well. It takes me a while to get a guitar just right, working a few minutes at a time as my back allows, but it turns out that I'm pretty good at it.
I own
several guitars, but being a little on the broke side of the financial
spectrum, my guitars were all carefully chosen inexpensive guitars. I chose for the best woods and construction I
could afford, and over time I replaced the cheap electronics, pickups, plastic
nuts, etc., with quality versions of those parts. The result being that my guitars didn't cost
much, but they play and sound great. The
added expense of upgrades was spread over time as I could afford parts and when
good used ones came up for sale cheap on ebay.
Another
way to get great guitars, if you can afford it, is to simply lay your money
down, LOTS OF MONEY, for some of the best guitars on the market. These guitars tend to play and sound great
from the get-go, but there's no guarantee of this.
I have
a friend at church who found out that I do guitar setups and and started
bringing his guitars to me one or two at a time. He has shown a willingness, for decades, to
lay his money down on great guitars. I get to play them for a while too, which is a nice benefit.
This
particular guitar dates from 1983, two years after Gibson started producing
reissues of the 1960ish ES-335 with the pearloid dot inlays in the rosewood
fingerboards.
Looking
back with 20/20 vision, many guitar players consider Gibson's "Norlin Era"
(1974 -1986) to be a pretty dark time as far as quality construction and tone
is concerned. But this Custom Shop
ES-335 is a lovely example of Gibson trying fairly hard to get things right
during this period. But, he had to pay a premium for a custom shop guitar.
This
335 has a pearl white finish, a paint scheme that I LOVE, on cars and
guitars. (I still want me one of those
Fender James Burton Telecasters in pearl white.) It's a soft, almost glowing, metal-flake
white finish that is turning antique yellow.
The finish has natural checking (cracks in the finish) that happen to
most older guitars that are finished with a nitrocellulose coat.
The
owner of this guitar is a true player.
He is a super-good guitarist, yet with no desire to know any details of guitar
setup or to learn little things that can be done in literally two minutes with
a screwdriver to make an electric guitar play and sound much better.
This
guitar has been played a whole lot, but never abused, and simply put away after
playing; no wipe down of the sweat from the body or strings ever. The only changes have been new strings when
needed.
So my
first order of business was to simply take off the strings, the tune-o-matic
bridge and tailpiece, the pickguard, and CLEAN THIS GUITAR! When I removed the pickguard, there was
literally 1/8th of an inch of dust under there, dirt and crud held together by what I guess
was old sweat.
Using a
barely damp cotton diaper, I wiped and cleaned the whole guitar except for the
rosewood fretboard. Once I had as much
grime cleaned as I could, I used a liberal amount of Virtuoso Premium GuitarCleaner to go over the whole guitar again. This cleaned off the last of the built-up
crud and also left a bit of lovely shine to the guitar.
Before
I started, one would have thought the guitar had a satin finish. Now it has a nice shine to it, yet keeping
all of the honest wear that helps make a vintage guitar look well-played but
still gorgeous. It's a totally different
look than the bogus looking "relic" finishes people put on new
guitars with belt sanders, and true player's wear over decades really adds to a
guitar's mojo.
The
gold plating has worn off in all the places one would expect and after cleaning
off the grime there too (some naphtha and lint free cotton swabs), the hardware has that nice, aged look to it as well.
Tim
Shaw, a Gibson engineer during this time had been tasked with trying, within
budget constraints, to recreate the Gibson 'Patent Applied For' pickups from
Gibson's golden era of the late 1950s - early 1960s. This guitar has a set of those fairly
valuable "Tim Shaw P.A.F's" and the tone of this guy is pretty
amazing. Probably a mix of being an
older, well-played guitar along with those much better than average pickups Mr.
Shaw had come up with.
This
guitar is clean, the potentiometers cleaned with DeOxit and working like
buttah, and the action is fairly low, but not on the deck, just like the owner
likes it.
I used
some Stewart-MacDonald Fretboard Finishing Oil to bring the fretboard back to
life, and it looks dark and pretty.
Only
one problem left to fix on the guitar, and that's a buzz when pressing the 1st
string at fret 7, that B buzzes on fret 8, which I have confirmed is a bit
higher right there than frets 7 and 9.
That's an easy fix of about ten minutes to file, recrown, and polish
part of one fret.
Just
thought I'd share a few pics of this fairly rare guitar. I've seen a few here and there on the
interwebs, but there aren't many.
The
original case needs two of the drawbolts replaced, but I've never done that. I might try to add that skill to my set so
that I can repair folk's guitar cases as well.
