Burley 335: Finally Complete

Well, the Burled Maple 335 is finally complete and I couldn't be happier with it. The finish, being a combination of Tru-Oil to both pop the grain and provide a subtle amber colouring and Acrylic gloss for a deep shine works really, really well. That burled veneer from DIY Guitars is so freaking amazing! Obviously the secret for combining these two finishes is not to go too far with the Tru-Oil; making sure that you leave enough tooth in the surface for the Acrylic to bind to.

Tru-Oil + Acrylic Gloss - a god damn winner for beautiful wood.

IMO the chrome hardware works really well with the natural colouring, much better than gold would have done, and the chrome humbuckers with chrome surrounds are a great replacement for the original cream dogear P90s.

Chrome GFS parts really complete the perfect picture.

Speaking of the humbuckers, all the GFS hardware here works extremely well and really looks the part. The full chrome Dream 180 pickups sound awesome - from a crystal clean tone to a punchy growl when needed.  The roller bridge combined with the XTrem tremolo system provides a great tremolo solution, keeps the guitar is tune (even with heavy tremolo usage) and really looks the part.

Glamour shots in the daylight

But with all that said, it is as a playing instrument that this guitar really comes into its own. It is light, has great tone, and the resonance that this thing produces is be felt to be believed. Even unplugged the guitar generates a beautiful acoustic tone that is a feast fro the ears. Either plugged or unplugged, you can really feel the chambers vibrating as you strum a note. And all this with the stock plastic nut! Interestingly I haven't had to adjust a thing at the nut end of the fretboard. The string height at the 1st fret was perfect with the supplied plastic nut (unheard of) and so I haven't had the courage to change it out yet.

With this project completed, I am now officially in love with 335 guitars again. I can't find the words to describe how amazing this thing is to play. I have another 335 kit in the stack and now I'm itching to get it started!

Burley 335: Final Touches

Got some time to spend on the 335 today, and that meant finally tackling the wiring and doing a fret job. First the wiring, which is always a little daunting for these semi-hollow builds. Thankfully i stayed with the stock mini-pots for this build and that made fitting the hardware into the sound-hole much easier. As usual, I wired up with shielded push back wire from Stewmac. This is a must if you want to minimise the noise for a semi-hollow or hollow build where no cavity exists.

Wiring harness complete and ready to be inserted.

This time I also allowed myself a generous amount of wire between pots and the output jack. As a result, the wiring harness went into the body with very little fuss - I'm getting quite adept at using the aquarium tubing to pull the controls through their holes.

With the wiring in and tap tested, it was time to turn my attention to the fretboard. I straightened the neck by adjusting the truss rod (clockwise to add back bow!) and let my notched straight edge show me when it was good. It was then on with the files to get the frets leveled and re-crowned. A pretty straightforward process all up.

Fretboard straight and ready for fret levelling.

With the frets leveled and re-dressed it was on with some Dr Ducks Axe Wax to clean it up, condition the Rosewood and generally make it look the business. I'm not sure about the nut for this build at this stage. The plastic nut that came from DIY guitars actually looks pretty good in terms of string height at the first fret, so I may run with it for the time being to see how she feels and plays. I know bone is better, but if it ain't broke and all that.

On with the Dr Ducks for a some nicely conditioned Rosewood.

And so this build is finally ready for final assembly and a test-drive. To be honest I can't wait. I think the front veneer looks killer and I really love the way semi-hollows play. I'm excited to see how this one plays, and my hopes are high that she's going to sound very sweet indeed!

Burley 335: Sanding the Figure

I started sanding the top of my 335 with the Birdseye burl maple top today. Man what a bitch!! I started with 240 grit and quickly realised that this was too coarse - the grit quickly scored deep scratches all over the veneer. This stuff has grain going all over the place so it's very difficult to 'sand with the grain'. I'm sanding top-to bottom like I always do, but this stuff is more like end grain to sand than anything else!

Anyway, I quickly skipped to 360 grit, and this has made things much better - I've been able to remove most of the original scratches from the veneer and the top is slowly getting smooth. One of the big issues I'm now facing is glue spots. I am thinking now that I might like to dye the top veneer, but large patches of glue exist in and around each of the burls. The factory has quite kindly filled the burls with some kind of bog to give the veneer a much flatter surface. Unfortunately, in doing so the area surrounding each burl is one large glue spot (or so it seems).

I'm slowly going around each patch of glue and sanding it out. It's very slow going with 360 grit I can tell you. Here's a couple of patches that I've cleaned up.

I reckon it's going to take me a week just to get the 360 grit done. Still, that's what I signed up for with this guitar building lark, so nothing to do but to revel in it and savour every new piece of wet and dry! It will all be worth it in the end. I'm thinking a darker wood tone for this one now, maybe a caramel or red mahogany with some kind of burst. I'm looking around the interweb for examples to inspire me..

335 Semi-hollow Bass: She's a Stunner!

The 335 bass is now officially complete. The headstock decal went on this morning, and she finally got a fret level and re-dress. Nothing short of amazing now to play. What started out as an ESB-4 kit from Pitbull Guitars is now a rockin' instrument. Now all I have to do is learn a few more bass riffs!

I am so happy with how this kit came out, and oh-so happy with how she feels to play. So much so,  that I am seriously considering building another one. I can see this beauty in trans-black hanging on my wall. Sounds good doesn't it??

Postscript 8th July 2014:
I've just been informed by the good folks at Pitbull guitars that this little beastie has taken out Pitbull Guitar of the Month for July. Woohoo! Thanks guys!

335 Semi-hollow Bass: Sound Demo

OK, so for those of you interested in how this semi-hollow beast sounds, I have done a quick sound demo. Please excuse the crap playing. The bass is being played through a Fender Deluxe 112 guitar amplifier with no additional pedals or effects other than a bit of reverb provided by the amp itself.


I'm certainly no bass player, but I gotta say, I love the way this baby sounds. Deep and booming, yet very clear and crisp. It looks so awesome, and sounds so good, I'm sorely tempted to make myself another one! I never knew how much fun playing the bass could be.

I've still got the headstock decal to go before I call this one finished, so hopefully that will all be done and dusted by the weekend!

335 Semi-hollow Bass: 50s Vintage Wiring - Tweaked!

In the process of creating my wiring harness for the 335 bass, I have re-examined how to go about laying out the wiring harness for a semi-hollow build so that it is both simple, and will survive the installation process. For my other semi-hollow builds (the 12 String 335 and the Les Paul Florentine) I used the following circuit. It's a Gibson 50s Vintage wiring scheme, with the independent volume mod added for good measure.

While this orientation is perfect for wiring those big arse oil-caps into small Les Paul control cavities, when you are talking about mounting in a semi-hollow body those capacitors wired "inline" between the volume and tone pots are devilishly hard to secure. You end up attaching wires to one or both ends of the capacitor legs, and then lashing this to another of the joining wires for stability. All in all, it's a hack at best!

Instead, there is actually no reason why the capacitors couldn't be mounted to the back of the tone pots instead. You see this orientation very often in Fender wiring schemes, and in other single volume / single tone configurations. It's actually a very convenient way of mounting the tone capacitors, especially for semi-hollows! Taking the wiring diagram above, it's a simple matter of shifting the capacitor from before the variable resistance in the tone circuit to "after" it instead. The result is electrically equivalent and much easier to secure and install.

In this configuration we need only piggyback the tone caps to the back of the tone pots. No additional wires need be soldered to the capacitor legs, and no lashing is required to secure the capacitor in place. It's so simple and elegant, why the hell didn't I think of it before??

Anyway, the sucker is wired up. With the volume pots at the top and tones at the bottom the wiring harness is surprisingly neat.

Burley 335: Unboxing

A spanking new kit dropped on my doorstep this morning courtesy of DIY Guitars Australia. It's the new ATH-26, a semi-hollow 335 style kit, topped with a burled, birds-eye maple veneer and powered by two P90s. I had high hopes for how this baby would look and I wasn't disappointed! The top veneer really looks amazing. There will be no dye needed for the top of this baby - some clear coats is all it will take to make her look spectacular.

The grain has been filled in a couple of places (most notably inside the burls) at the factory, and there are a few places where some quite open grain still exists in the veneer. I'll have to find some kind of clear grain filler for these. The rest of the grain on the back and sides looks great, without any visible glue spots or other blemishes. The neck also looks good - with some nice maple grain down it's  length and on the headstock.

The fretboard looks good with no machine marks or scratches. There is a small issue with the width of the neck at the heel - it is a very tight fit into the neck pocket (this is a set-neck kit). In fact it is so tight that I can't get the neck all the way down into the pocket. Looks like I'll have to sand a little off each side of the neck heel before it will reach the bottom. No sweat - at least this will guarantee a tight fit and that's perfect for a set-neck build.

Despite this small issue, all in all I'm very, very happy with the kit and I think it looks awesome - I'm really looking forward to this build!

First thing will be the mock build to make sure everything fits (including sanding the neck heel) and then I'll be able to start the finishing process. I have a real soft-spot for hollow and semi-hollow guitars, especially the 335 body shape. Whist this baby will be the 4th semi-hollow kit I have attempted, it's the very first with P90s. I really can't wait to hear their vintage growl coming from a 335. Total awesomeness!