Old Semi-Hollow Guitar Wish List

....they can make wonderful slide guitars. Action isn't so critical, and some of them have some seriously funky pickups that sound wicked if you push them. Feedback is an issue..but...that comes with the territory.

 

Yeah, ummm....put aside 400 bucks for the neck reset. These were junk when they were new.

 

My avatar guitar was my first guitar. It's a 60's Made in Japan ES 330/Casino clone. It originally had 2 large single coil pickups that were extremely microphonic that would squeal in you turned towards the amp or got within 3 or 4 foot of the amp. It even picked up CB Radio chatter once(lived by a Highway).
Single coil pickups give the most problems with this and you can tame them by wrapping the bottoms of the pickups under the mounting rings with foam and securing with electrical tape. Using shielded wiring throughout the guitar from pickups to jack helps a lot and shielding the body cavities with aluminum HVAC tape will get rid of all RF issues and can lessen or completely get rid of 60 cycle hum. Humbuckers solve a lot of noise issues.
Hollow body guitars have more issues because the top vibrates more and that interrupts sustain and has more influence on squealing from pickups because of microphonics. But, hollow body guitars have more of an acoustical "woody" sound. I recommend a hollow body that has a block/tone post under the bridge area. It helps with sustain and lessens the squeal effect while sacrificing a bit of woody tone, but not too much.
Semi-Hollow body guitars(ES 335/339 types) have a solid center piece from neck area to past the bridge area and some to the end while having chambered side "wings". They are more stable structurally, have less problems with unwanted noise, have more sustain and have some acoustic properties, but the acoustical sound is at a lessor influence.

It's always best to be able to try one of each out before you buy. Some people love the Hollow body guitars and some people hate them.

 

I still see Gretsch Clippers for what I consider reasonable money. They have their own idiosyncrasies, but they’re better made than the Sears guitars.

I got one for $350 that had a Teisco-ey bridge pickup bodged already, so i replaced that with an old HiLoTron and have something pretty cool for well under $500.