Dot bigsby retrofit (or ES-355 conversion)

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:06 am

someone else was talking about getting a dot and making it a 355. since I just did this, I thought I would post and give some impressions of how it went.

I have a Dot Studio. Besides cosmetically, the differences between the ES-335, the Dot and the Dot Studio are:
ES-335 - mahogany neck, maple center block
Dot - maple neck, maple center block
Dot Studio - mahogany neck, mahogany center block

the pickups in this guitar are pretty good I think. they're the Alnico II. I think there is some kind of maple laminate on the this guitar and gives it a real snap.

the bigsby style vibrato changed the tone quite a bit. it made it warmer and more midrangey.

the vibrato is this bigsby knockoff one that stewmac used to sell about a year ago. like a real bigsby it adds a considerable amount of weight to the guitar.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:10 am

That's very pretty. Every time I see a Dot it makes me regret selling mine.

tribi9 · Post by **tribi9** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:12 am

How heavy is it now?

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:26 am

these pictures didn't come out so well... eh, that's what you get when you take pictures at night.

oh yea, I was gonna say when installing the bigsby you should note that the strap button is NOT in the center of the guitar. it is about a half inch to the left. use the a string down the neck to line it up correctly like it says in the bigsby installation instructions.

also, I just found this video on the youtubes:
[youtube][/youtube]

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:31 am

tribi9 wrote:How heavy is it now?

it's about 8lbs. not as much as that tele w/bigsby I had. it was about 10lbs.

dodgedartdave · Post by **dodgedartdave** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:40 am

I'd put a bigsby on my car if I could find a use for it.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:49 am

dodgedartdave wrote:I'd put a bigsby on my car if I could find a use for it.

Bigsby door handles inside would be sweet.

Mo Law-ka · Post by **Mo Law-ka** » Tue May 13, 2008 11:02 am

holy shit. that shit is hotttttttt. how much did the whole thing cost you? i love the mismatched pickups. AWESOME!!!

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:42 pm

ok, better picture

...still need the pickguard bracket.

would you be mad at me if I said I got this guitar for free?? this is the guitar that I was talking about before that the neck got damaged during shipping. well, I've now fixed the neck (I'll show some more pictures of that later) and the store refunded me completely. most of the other parts are stuff that I had from another guitar but I can give you a price list.

guitar $200 (ebay)
knobs $3.50 ea (stewmac)*
vibrato $75 (stewmac)*
chrome bridge $?*
pickguard $29 (wd music)
pickguard bracket $4 (stewmac)
DiMarzio EJ Custom neck pickup $50 (ebay)

* were all on this LP special that is now a parts guitar.

yeah, so it was $365 minus $200. I don't know about the neck pickup. it's a really good filtertron sounding pickup but it just doesn't match the bridge very well. I might put the original pickup back.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:45 pm

oh and the little plastic caps that fit in the tailpiece post holes were like 30 cents each at the local hardware store.

boyecho · Post by **boyecho** » Tue May 13, 2008 8:00 pm

mage wrote:oh and the little plastic caps that fit in the tailpiece post holes were like 30 cents each at the local hardware store.

should have left them bare. or mounted mega awesome HUGE LEDs in there.