ES-225 Construction? Anyone know how these were built?

[shmockiebaby]

Greetings,

 

I have just traded for a heavily modified 225. It has been painted and stripped a couple of times, and the label and/or serial number has been obscured (yeah, some gorilla even painted thru the f-holes with black spray paint). Nowadays, it has an older walnut stain and semi-gloss refin that's not looking too bad.

 

At first I thought it was a 125 from the '60's, because the neck is unbound. It was re-fretted at some point, and has nice clean jumbo frets now. It also has open holes where the position dots go, and they are nice and clean. So it is my guess that the binding was pulled off and the position dots came out with it. The neck must have been shaved and sanded to be even with the fretboard. Despite all of that, the 'board is wide enough, and playability is excellent.

 

The other clues that it's a 225 and not a 125 is the pearl logo, and the pinned 5-layer pickguard.

 

The trapeze was gone, replaced with a vintage non-Gibson tailpiece. Bridge is set into the top like my old 335, with the small posts and a second set of adjusters turned down against the body for stability. There was also an old nylon saddle tune-o-matic wiht Gibson name and patent# in the case (this also led to me to believe it was a 125, but I think the trapeze must have been swapped out in the '60's).

 

So when I removed unscrewed the pickups and looked inside, there is what looks to be a block in the body below the bridge area. This would definitely help to support the bridge. The block does not go between the top and back, it just thickens the top in the bridge area (from the bridge pickup, towards the tail of the guitar, narrower than the f-holes). This looks to be original constructions.

 

So has anyone looked into enough of these to confirm that it's a 225?

 

The top reinforcement is a nice feature, because I was thinking of adding a Bigsby B-30 (attaches with the three original mounting screw holes), and this would help to support the Bigsby. It has obviously been supporting the bridge just fine for years.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help shed some light on this.