HB 335 - alike

AsleepAtTheWheel · May 2015

I got this

Always fancied a semi & at that price what the heck, if it's shite at least I can have 'fun' trying to make it playable.

1st impressions; build quailty.
Impressed, The woodwork looks better than I was expecting, the neck joint looks well done, although with the neck pickup removed there don't seem a lot of wood holding everthing together, hmmmm, don't know how that compares to other makes, but best not to let it ever fall over. Moving on, the neck is strait, frets level & fret ends smooth BUT the tops of the frets, oh dear, They are so rough you could grate cheese with them. Still a fret dress will sort that.

1st impressions; Playability.
The set up was better than expected. Low action. Fun to play untill you bend a string, the tops of the frets are like hacksaw blades!! Tuning not so stable, not sure if thats the tuners or the strings. The top E un-wound at the stud end while tuning on day 2. Crap strings then. Pickups and electrics will need re-placing is all you need to say about them.

The Plan
1 fret dress
2 replace all things electric.
3 I don't like the scrachplate. Much prefere the Gibbo shape. Make a new one.
4 Don't like the headstock shape (For reason see 3 above) So re-shape.
5 Try having fun doing the above.

Will hold off getting new tuners for now & see if decent strings wound on properly will sort tuning, we can but hope.

Frets dressed.

Decided to make my own scrachplate. Downloaded a plan & made this.

New bits started turning up.
Have to stop now & pack my case, am off to Spain with the misses in the early hours.
Will post more when I get back.