Boudoir Guitar
Rock Star
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TRIGGER WARNING!!!
This is not for those that get squeamish about a little blood/splinters/burn-marks/less-than-straight-lines on a guitar. I don't recommend @Eagle looking at these images.
I've had this Hamer Echotone 335 knockoff for 2 or 3 years now. I think I paid $300 for it, and it included a pair of Gibson '57 Classic pickups (which I pulled and sold, replacing with a pair of antiquities I had kicking around). It plays great and sounds pretty solid, but man was the thing dense. Like the center block was cast lead or something. Was considering selling it, then the switch went out and I was like "ugh, so I gotta take all the electronics out, just to sell it for a couple hundred bucks?!?" Instead, I decided to do a little surgery on it while the electronics were out.
I thought long and hard about how to do this right. Was going to use a drill press to come in from the back of the guitar and remove much of the center block, then cover up the relieved portion with a red-stained piece of thin plywood - from the front everything would still look the same, from the back it'd just look kinda like a weird control cavity cover or something.
In the end, I just said fuck it, got out my hand drill and bored a big ass hole right through the center block just behind the tailpiece. I roughly sketched where I thought the borders of the center block were, clamped the guitar as best I could to my work bench and went to free-hand removal of that chunk with my jigsaw. I immediately broke a blade. No wonder 335s are almost as heavy as Les Pauls a lot of times -- that center section is a full 3" thick since its arched top AND back. 3" solid maple. So then I thought maybe I'd just need to like drill around the perimeter or something -- which sucked. So I went to the hardware store and got a five pack of the coarsest, burliest looking jigsaw blades they had and just went at it. I still have 3 blades left!!! I got a little closer to the edge than intended and so did go through the edge of the center block lightly in a spot or two. Oops. Haven't properly weighed the block itself yet, but I'd say it's pretty darn close to 2 lbs. lighter. Got a light aluminum tailpiece to replace the original that must weigh nearly 1/2 pound itself.
This is not for those that get squeamish about a little blood/splinters/burn-marks/less-than-straight-lines on a guitar. I don't recommend @Eagle looking at these images.
I've had this Hamer Echotone 335 knockoff for 2 or 3 years now. I think I paid $300 for it, and it included a pair of Gibson '57 Classic pickups (which I pulled and sold, replacing with a pair of antiquities I had kicking around). It plays great and sounds pretty solid, but man was the thing dense. Like the center block was cast lead or something. Was considering selling it, then the switch went out and I was like "ugh, so I gotta take all the electronics out, just to sell it for a couple hundred bucks?!?" Instead, I decided to do a little surgery on it while the electronics were out.
I thought long and hard about how to do this right. Was going to use a drill press to come in from the back of the guitar and remove much of the center block, then cover up the relieved portion with a red-stained piece of thin plywood - from the front everything would still look the same, from the back it'd just look kinda like a weird control cavity cover or something.
In the end, I just said fuck it, got out my hand drill and bored a big ass hole right through the center block just behind the tailpiece. I roughly sketched where I thought the borders of the center block were, clamped the guitar as best I could to my work bench and went to free-hand removal of that chunk with my jigsaw. I immediately broke a blade. No wonder 335s are almost as heavy as Les Pauls a lot of times -- that center section is a full 3" thick since its arched top AND back. 3" solid maple. So then I thought maybe I'd just need to like drill around the perimeter or something -- which sucked. So I went to the hardware store and got a five pack of the coarsest, burliest looking jigsaw blades they had and just went at it. I still have 3 blades left!!! I got a little closer to the edge than intended and so did go through the edge of the center block lightly in a spot or two. Oops. Haven't properly weighed the block itself yet, but I'd say it's pretty darn close to 2 lbs. lighter. Got a light aluminum tailpiece to replace the original that must weigh nearly 1/2 pound itself.
