Wiring Harness for Gibson USA ES-335 • Vintage Drifted Black Beauties or Bumblebees

This is our handwired harness for your Gibson ES 335 or any ES mono guitar.

We build these with your choice of drifted 1960 Black Beauties (shown) or late-50s mylar or PIO (paper in oil) Bumblebees. These capacitors are a great way to get authentic vintage tone for about the same price as other harnesses with reissue caps. For more information on vintage drifted capacitors, read our blog post here.

Both mylar and PIO Bees were used on Gibson guitars in the late 50s. The PIO caps cost more to source, so they're considered an upgrade over mylar, though both are vintage correct. PIO is easy to identify by the small tube on one end that was used to add the oil during manufacturing (see photos). 

An optional Woman Tone mod is available on all of our harnesses for Gibson USA guitars at no additional cost.* Woman Tone refers to the smooth, dark sound associated with Clapton's lead tone in the late 60s. We install a lower value cap (.01-.015 range) in the neck position. By selecting the neck pickup and rolling the tone knob all the way off, you can quickly dial in with this harness. Please make your capacitor selections from the menu at the top of this description.

We use the finest short-shaft CTS pots for the smoothest rolloff on each pot. Tolerance is less than 10% all the way around.

Price includes two caps and four pots, a Switchcraft nickel toggle switch and jack, pre-wired and ready to install. Please note that our caps are selected based on what they read now, not their original readings, so the color of the stripes on the Bees will vary.

Made in USA.

A note about our custom mounting boards. We make these from repurposed scraps of material that otherwise would have been discarded. The material will vary from low-cost fiberboard to high-end multiply plastic, to salvaged vinyl records we find for pennies in thrift shops. Be assured that these boards do not add to the cost of our harnesses.