The third model, though, wasn’t actually a centre block-equipped semiacoustic at all, but a hollow-body, thinline guitar called the ES-330. The stereophonic ES-345 and the top-of-the-line ES-355 shared their basic construction principles with the ES-335 they also had a solid centre block inside their bodies. In 1959 Gibson broadened its model range by introducing three new models with the same body outline: Here’s a schematic of an ES-335 body, with the block marked out in brown: the Tune-o-matic bridge and the stopbar). The centre block also allows for use of solid-body hardware (i. The centre block runs from the neck joint all the way to the end pin, cutting the acoustic body in half, as well as dampening its acoustic resonance. Gibson’s then-president Theodore McCarty came up with the idea to combine a flat (“thinline”) hollow-body electric and a solid-body’s clearer tonality and resistance to feedback howling by inserting a solid-wood centre block into the body. Gibson’s ES-335 – released in 1958, and pictured above – is the original semiacoustic electric guitar, the first of its kind.
