Firefly FF-338 2010's ES-335 Style Tobacco Burst with Upgraded Epiphone Pickups and Electronics

Firefly FF338 Semi Hollow Body with Upgraded Epiphone Pickups, Pots, Switch, Jack and Wiring.  

This is one of the older FF-338's that is dimensionally closer (or identical) to the Gibson ES-335. The body measures 16.25" wide and the horns are rounder.  The current FF-338's and those made in the last year or so, are only 15.75" wide and have pointy ears compared to a typical ES-335.  

Firefly is known for producing excellent guitars at incredible prices.  The one complaint people have is with the pickups and electronics.  We fixed that by installing a new set of Epiphone Classic Alnico pickups and new Epiphone pots, toggle switch, output jack, tone caps and wiring.  These are good quality parts and give you a lot of bang for your buck.  See below for more info.  

This guitar has been played, but is in good condition overall.  It plays and sounds great, but does have some wear.  There are light scratches on the back that don't show up well in the photos, but if you look close, they are there.  This is typical of guitars with black finish.  

Modeled after the legendary Gibson ES-335, these guitars are highly rated and an amazing value for the money.

In terms of the body and neck, they are nicer than Epiphone Dot's, which sell for around $600.  You get neck binding, trapezoid inlays and bound f-holes, which you don't get on an Epiphone Dot.  And overall quality is very good.  

Pickups:
We upgraded the pickups to Epiphone Classic Alnico - HB6 neck and HB8 bridge.

These are designed by Epiphone in the USA and built in an ISO9001 factory in Korea.  They are high quality pickups with Alnico magnets, enameled wire and are vacuum wax potted to eliminate feedback.  

The neck pickup is modeled after the classic 1957 Gibson PAF, and designed to closely match the PAF in terms of output and tone.

DC resistance is 9.38k. Some experts cannot tell the difference, so they are an excellent value for money.  The bridge pickup is also an Alnico Classic, but overwound for more output. 

DC resistance is 14.78k.  This pickup set would typically go into an Epi Les Paul Standard.  

The original pickups sounded ok at low volumes, but they were microphonic and would feedback and squeal like a pig when the guitar was turned up or when using overdrive. So they were basically unusable for any rock or blues tones.  

The new pickups really make a difference. This guitar sounds very good. The neck pickup sounds great clean and you can get a nice "woman tone" with some gain and the treble rolled back.  The bridge pickup is high output but also sounds good clean.  It really wakes up with some gain and can easily overdrive a tube amp to rich saturation.  I just played it and am very impressed.  This guitar is a little bigger than the current FF-338's (16.25" vs. 15.75") so has better bottom end like a real ES-335.  It also fits better (snug) into a 335 or arch top case.  

Wiring Harness:
We also upgraded all the electronics. The original pots, wiring and jack were pretty cheap.  They used mini pots and a very cheap jack.  See last photo for the parts removed. 

To fix this we swapped in a complete Epiphone wiring harness with full size pots, Mylar tone caps, heavy duty switch and output jack.  Made in Korea, with shielded wiring and designed to work well with the upgraded pickups. The pots are full sized 500k audio taper.  These are good pots and on par with Alpha or CTS.  The toggle switch is a sturdy all metal type, designed like a Switchcraft.  The jack is also a sturdy Switchcraft style jack.  Epiphone provides lifetime warranty on their guitars, so they use durable parts.  

We sold six of these FF-338's with similar upgrades and our clients have been very pleased with the quality, sound and playability.

Includes new D'Addario strings and a Twenty One (21) point inspection and Setup.  The upgraded parts and work completed on this guitar totals over $260.  We will provide a copy of the invoice for your records.  

Features/specs:
- ES-335 shaped semi hollow body
- Laminated maple top, back and sides
- Arched top and back
- Solid center block
- Cream colored body binding, top and back.
- Cream binding around f-holes
- Maple neck
- Set neck joint
- Neck scarf joint with 14 deg tilt back
- Engineered rosewood fretboard
- Trapezoid inlays
- Cream colored neck binding
- Graphite type nut
- 24.75” scale length
- 12” fretboard radius
- 22 frets
- Tune-o-matic type bridge
- Stop tailpiece
- Upgraded Epiphone Alnico Classic PAF style Pickups
- Two volume, two tone
- Three-way toggle switch
- D'addario XL 10-46 gauge strings

This is a used guitar and sold as described.  Please ask all questions before purchase.  Thank you.