1965 Gibson ES-125T Hollowbody Electric Guitar

ES-125s need very little introduction if you're at all into vintage electrics. The thinline ES-125T, however, quickly outpaced sales of the original (deep body) version when it was released. I think of these as the quintessential Americana "genre-hopping" electric machine. They're hollowbody and have a P90 pickup at the neck so you can get into vintage jazz, popular, swing, and "classier" music -- yet if you throw a bit of gain at them you're quickly into blues, rockabilly, and straight-up rock (though loud bands won't appreciate the hollowbody build once they cross the overkill-DB threshold).

Long story short, this gorgeous-looking, all-original guitar came in via a customer for repair. It might've been pretty to look at, but the neck joint was simply shot. The block had separated from the back, the braces on the top were loose near the block, and the neck badly needed a reset on top of that. The guitar received all that work and then it got a fret level/dress, massaging, and full setup. It's now playing like a champ and wearing easy-peasy gauges -- 46w-10 lights with an 18w G string so the old-fashioned saddle is happy intonation-wise. I think the owner will be quite pleased.

The neck is as you'd expect for a Gibson just before everything went to 1 5/8" at the nut. This one has a 1 11/16" nut width, 12" radius to the board, and a mild-medium C-shaped neck profile that's just perfect. It's fast, too.

Thank goodness for adjustable poles, right? It's also nice to see the original pickguard in good health.

The original bridge saddle/topper was cut-down by a previous owner and has just enough meat left on its wings to be stable at tension. I think it'll eventually need to be replaced, however.

After the reset and seam work, I added this strap button, too. Not only will it keep the strap off the neck at the headstock (which puts more strain on the not-so-great joint via leverage), it's also a "backup" retainer for the neckblock/back connection. Because the seam between the block and the back was a bit messy before repair, I felt like it'd be good to also have some insurance (read: a big screw) that the block would be supported no-matter-what during heavy use.