c.1973 Gibson ES-345 Stereo Electric Guitar

This is a customer's ES-345 in for a setup. The neck block (tenon joint) had pulled forward slightly a long time ago but remains stable and as expected the fretboard extension has a hump at the body joint. The simple solution at this point was to level those frets down rather than address the whole problem. At the same time it got the benefits of a full setup and the guitar plays like a champ, now.

These 345s are essentially like a 335 except the two pickups are stereo-wired -- you can send one pickup to one amp and another to a different one. Weird but fun!

It's also got that funky varitone knob that puts various capacitors in the way of your signal, creating some functional and some curious tones. Sort of like a fancy Gretsch "mud" switch.

Gold hardware plus that "stereo" trussrod cover. Everything appears to be original on the guitar, too.

Big old parallelogram blocks will get you noticed!

The neck on this feels so absurdly modern and fast I find I need to slow myself down to sound musical on it. I'm so used to 30s and 40s necks that this thing feels like a twig. Still, if you need to play flight of the bumblebee, this would probably be an "ace" choice.

The original (cherry) finish is pretty eye-catching.