Gibson ES-350T
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| Manufacturer | Gibson |
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| Period | 1955–1963, 1977–1981, various special editions |
| Body type | Hollow |
| Neck joint | Set neck |
| Scale | 24.75 in (629 mm) |
| Body | Maple |
| Neck | Maple |
| Fretboard | Rosewood |
| Bridge | Tune-O-Matic |
| Pickup(s) | 2 P-90s (1955–1957) 2 humbuckers (1957–present) |
| Various, often sunburst-type finishes | |
The Gibson ES-350T is an electric guitar model from Gibson Guitar Corporation, released in 1955. The ES-350T is a further development of the Gibson ES-350 model from 1948 and as such has a completely hollow body. The unique feature of the Gibson ES-350T at the time of its market introduction was the reduced width of the frames. As a result, the guitar has a thinner body compared to instruments with a resonance body that is of full height. The ES-350T, together with its sister models Gibson ES-225 TDN and Gibson Byrdland, was one of the first models of the thinline guitar type.
The letter T in the model name of the ES 350T stands for thinline and was given by Gibson at the same time as the three new models of hollow-bodies with narrow sides and flat bodies were introduced. The body of the ES-350T – the arched top and bottom as well as the frames – is made entirely of laminated maple. The neck of the guitar, glued into the body, is made of maple and has a rosewood fingerboard. The neck is glued to the body at the 14th fret. The fretboard has 22 frets and has inlays in the form of double parallelograms between the frets. Also made of rosewood is the base plate of the two-piece bridge with individually adjustable string rulers made of metal. The lower ends of the strings are held by a trapezoidal metal string holder, which is attached to the lower frame.
In addition to the flat body, another feature of the Gibson ES-350T is its shortened length of only 597 mm (23½ inch compared to Gibson's otherwise 25½ inch). It is thought that this short scale is due to the jazz guitarist Tal Farlow, who had expressed the desire to make difficult chords and melodies easier to grasp. Against this assumption, when Gibson honoured Tal Farlow with his own signature model in 1962, the Gibson Valley Farlow, – it had a standard scale of 648 mm. In addition, both the ES-350T and sister model Byrdland have particularly narrow spacing between the individual strings, which required the manufacture of special, narrow-built pickups for these models. The scale length was extended from 1977 to 1981 to 25.5 inches.
The first edition of the ES-350T from the year 1955 was equipped with two Gibson P-90s, which are single coil pickups. By 1957, these were replaced by the newly developed Gibson PAF double coil humbucker pickups, which were developed in the same year. The pickups are adjusted by means of four potentiometers mounted on the top (one volume control and one sound control) and a three-stage toggle switch close to the cutaway at the neck. This cutaway begun with a rounded "Venetian" shape in 1955. In 1960 Gibson changed to the "Florentine" cutaway form with a sharp edge in the frame. Later re-editions of the ES-350T again have the outwardly rounded frame at the cutaway.
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