1957 Gibson ES-225TD Hollowbody Electric Guitar

It's a beaut, right? This is a crazily-clean '57 ES-225 of the T (thinline) and D (double pickup) variety. It's still got the cool, long-tail bridge/tailpiece combo and the P90s on it sound, of course, fantastic.

This was in the shop for a level/dress of the frets and also a good setup. Someone had refretted it at some point but the job was not complete -- they were pressed in but no consideration was taken to making sure the frets were leveled afterwards and so it was playing pretty wonky up and down the neck with a lot of strange buzzes and rattles behind the frets and whatnot.

Now that the work is done, it plays spot-on.

The second objective was to figure-out and eliminate rattles from hardware on the body. I kid you not, but I think I spent 5 or 6 hours over a few weeks chasing demons out of this guitar to no avail. I gave up and let the gremlins have their win. You don't hear anything until you get a random rattle out of it now and then while playing it "acoustic" on the couch.

For what its worth, if you're looking to eliminate some rattles on your old '50s Gibson semihollow or hollowbody electric, check these problems:

• ground wire from tailpiece may be buzzing against the top or back
• pots may have loose knobs or shafts that can be "damped" with a bit of foam under the knob
• wrapped leads to and from pickups may be rattling against the back of pots or other hardware
• the pickups might be slightly loose to the top or their riser hardware or screws may be slightly loose
• the pickups themselves may have internal parts that are loose
• the pickguard bracket may need to be tightened here or there
• the 3-way switch is tired and needs to be tensioned-up again to keep the tip from rattling
• the jack may have a washer or ground on it that's rattling
• the bridge may have a loose mount (post, saddle, whatever) that is rattling
• there may be odd sympathetic vibrations at the tailpiece causing rattle elsewhere
• and more...!