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Post by spellcaster on Mar 25, 2022 0:33:32 GMT
Finally. it's New Guitar Day. I was concerned by the fact that UPS was handling shipping south of the border, but everything turned out alright. There was one hole in the outer box, but since it was double-boxed with lots of bubble pack, it was intact inside. The guitar came with hang tags, an owners manual and two year warranty certificate and a pair of allen wrenches - one for the truss rod and one for the bridge saddles.
I was particularly impressed by the quality of finish. The online information sometimes called it red and sometimes candy apple red, but pictures made it appear to be just a solid red color....In fact, the finish is a deep-looking candy apple red with heavy metallic - not quite as gaudy as a sparkle, but much better than expected for an off-the-rack-guitar. About the only criticism I have is that the pickguard is bright white, which looks a little out of place with the antique white coloration of the binding. The black speed knobs stick out like a sore thumb and I'll definitely get around to replacing them, probably with the Hofner tea-cup knobs, which would match the body binding quite well.
The guitar came tuned up to pitch, which surprised me, but I'm guessing that it's done that way because of the floating bridge. If the strings were slackened off, there undoubtedly would have been more of an intonation issue to solve. It played reasonably well right out of the box, although I'd like the action a bit lower, and some tweaking of the intonation to make it perfect. This is a 25.5" scale, unlike my Jay Turser JT-G2, which was a Gibson-like 24.75" scale, and it feels a bit big although I guess I'll get used to it. The fretwork is better than most Asian-produced guitars, but I wish the frets weren't so big....I don't know if you'd call them medium jumbos, but they're definitely taller than vintage. I don't like the stripey fret markers, which just look wrong to me.
I haven't plugged it in yet, so I can't tell you much about the mini-bucker pickups. I do like the Gibson-style pickup toggle switching on the upper bout, and I suspect it'll be a lot handier than the slide switches that usually appear on a Hofner control plate. The guitar's light....Only 5 lb. I don't have any straps without strap locks, so I haven't been able to check the balance yet. I may steal the Dunlop Strap-Loks off my Tele for the new guitar and replace the ones on the Tele later. I was shocked how much the price of the Dunlop locks have gone up....Just a pair of lock-strap buttons is now costing as much as I used to pay for the complete kit.
One bit of good news......The new guitar will fit in the case for the bass, so I don't need to buy a new case right away. That'll free up the money for a pro setup if it needs it. I think I'll play it for a day or two before I decide whether it'll play 150.00 better with a luthier's touch. Overall, I'm pretty happy though....I've been wanting this guitar for years and in a lot of respects, it looks like it'll live up to expectations.
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Post by Die Bullen on Mar 25, 2022 2:33:29 GMT
So glad it came- congratulations
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Post by infant on Mar 25, 2022 5:07:39 GMT
Congrats, she's quite a beauty!
If you don't want to buy strap locks right now, I've got lots of Grolsch beer bottle washers that most people use as strap locks. In fact, they work pretty good as I've put them on my sons Strat. I know that you don't really drink beer so PM me your address and I can mail a few to you.
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 25, 2022 6:31:09 GMT
Congrats, she's quite a beauty! If you don't want to buy strap locks right now, I've got lots of Grolsch beer bottle washers that most people use as strap locks. In fact, they work pretty good as I've put them on my sons Strat. I know that you don't really drink beer so PM me your address and I can mail a few to you. Thanks, Rob, but I think I'm going to have do the strap locks now....Every one of my straps is equipped with Dunlop Strap Loks.
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Post by infant on Mar 25, 2022 11:14:53 GMT
Congrats, she's quite a beauty! If you don't want to buy strap locks right now, I've got lots of Grolsch beer bottle washers that most people use as strap locks. In fact, they work pretty good as I've put them on my sons Strat. I know that you don't really drink beer so PM me your address and I can mail a few to you. Thanks, Rob, but I think I'm going to have do the strap locks now....Every one of my straps is equipped with Dunlop Strap Loks. No probs! Like you, I've got strap locks on all my guitars. I've been using schallers but their prices have almost doubled since I last bought a set.
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Post by markr on Mar 25, 2022 12:18:13 GMT
Glad to see you could get the guitar you truly wanted, curious if that guitar is neck heavy?
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 25, 2022 18:23:32 GMT
Glad to see you could get the guitar you truly wanted, curious if that guitar is neck heavy? Thanks. I really don't know for sure yet. I need to be able to use a strap on it to tell. I'm going to move the Strap Loks from my Tele to the new guitar so I can use the strap from my Hofner bass on it. One of the reviews I read on the guitar mentioned it being neck heavy, but I never noticed that being an issue with bass, which has a longer scale (30.5" compared to 25.5") so I don't anticipate it being a problem.
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 25, 2022 20:39:43 GMT
I've been in a bit of a quandary whether to go ahead and get the setup done on the guitar or buy a case first. I don't really need a case for it right away, except for transporting back and forth to the luthier's place. I just tried the case for my Fender acoustic and the guitar's a bit small for it, but it appears that with a bath towel, it can be made stable enough to travel. So, I guess I'll go ahead with the setup now and worry about buying a fitted case later.
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sunshine
Burnt Rock Star
Posts: 76
Likes: 170
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Post by sunshine on Mar 25, 2022 21:39:48 GMT
Congratulations! Now you probably have plugged it? How does it sound? As good as it looks? I really like, that it looks more violin than famous Hofner bass.
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Post by Die Bullen on Mar 25, 2022 23:26:07 GMT
I've been in a bit of a quandary whether to go ahead and get the setup done on the guitar or buy a case first. I don't really need a case for it right away, except for transporting back and forth to the luthier's place. I just tried the case for my Fender acoustic and the guitar's a bit small for it, but it appears that with a bath towel, it can be made stable enough to travel. So, I guess I'll go ahead with the setup now and worry about buying a fitted case later. If I were you I would ask that guy who you gave all your parts to if he can't set the thing up free of charge. Here you give him hundreds of dollars of pays and he can't give you the hour that it would take to make this play great???
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 26, 2022 17:57:13 GMT
I just ordered a case for the Hofner at Long&McQuade, which will be arriving in about three weeks. And, I ordered some knobs from Amazon. I'd originally planned on the Hofner tea-cup knobs, but everyone's sold out and there isn't even an expected-by date, so I ended up ordering some chrome metal set-screw-style knobs with white pearl tops.
I'm going to swap the lock-strap buttons from the Tele over to the Hofner today. I looked at the lock buttons that Rob recommended, but they're for Fender strap locks and all my straps are equipped for Dunlop Strap Lok buttons. I just spoke by email with the luthier and it's looking like I'll be sending the guitar to him for setup next Wednesday. I played it a bit last night, but it's not feeling that comfortable right now....I may get used to the 1 3/4" width of the neck which is bigger than any of the other guitars I've owned except the Ovation twelve string, but I really need the action to be lower.
I'll need to play it for a while before I can assess the quality of the tuners. They're open-geared tuners that look like they belong on an acoustic guitar, but we'll see how well they hold tune when it's been played for a while. If they are as limited as they appear to be, I'll probably upgrade them in a while. My first choice if I end up replacing them would be the Steinberger 40:1 gearless lockers, but before I made a final decision, I'd like to play the guitar with a strap on it to see how well-balanced the guitar is. I'm adding a little bit weight by changing to three steel knobs which probably would counteract against any weight the Steinbergers would add, but if it still looks like it's tending toward being neck-heavy, I'd likely go to the Sperzel lockers as my second choice.
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Post by infant on Mar 26, 2022 23:15:03 GMT
I just ordered a case for the Hofner at Long&McQuade, which will be arriving in about three weeks. And, I ordered some knobs from Amazon. I'd originally planned on the Hofner tea-cup knobs, but everyone's sold out and there isn't even an expected-by date, so I ended up ordering some chrome metal set-screw-style knobs with white pearl tops.
I'm going to swap the lock-strap buttons from the Tele over to the Hofner today. I looked at the lock buttons that Rob recommended, but they're for Fender strap locks and all my straps are equipped for Dunlop Strap Lok buttons. I just spoke by email with the luthier and it's looking like I'll be sending the guitar to him for setup next Wednesday. I played it a bit last night, but it's not feeling that comfortable right now....I may get used to the 1 3/4" width of the neck which is bigger than any of the other guitars I've owned except the Ovation twelve string, but I really need the action to be lower.
I'll need to play it for a while before I can assess the quality of the tuners. They're open-geared tuners that look like they belong on an acoustic guitar, but we'll see how well they hold tune when it's been played for a while. If they are as limited as they appear to be, I'll probably upgrade them in a while. My first choice if I end up replacing them would be the Steinberger 40:1 gearless lockers, but before I made a final decision, I'd like to play the guitar with a strap on it to see how well-balanced the guitar is. I'm adding a little bit weight by changing to three steel knobs which probably would counteract against any weight the Steinbergers would add, but if it still looks like it's tending toward being neck-heavy, I'd likely go to the Sperzel lockers as my second choice. Sorry, my mistake! I thought you said you had Schaller locks on them
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Post by zontar on Mar 26, 2022 23:22:16 GMT
Hey cool enjoy!
(And just as a side note, it's not my guitar after all--I'd leave those knobs on it-I like them-but maybe that's just me)
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 27, 2022 2:28:45 GMT
Hey cool enjoy! (And just as a side note, it's not my guitar after all--I'd leave those knobs on it-I like them-but maybe that's just me) Yeah, speed knobs never look right to me, other than on Gibsons. To me, they look quite oversize and clumsy on the small body. My Jaguar twelve-string came with them too, and the guitar looked a whole lot better when I changed to the Fender amp witch-hats. I'm also not big on black knobs....I know the headstock is black-faced, but with no other black on the body end of the guitar, they don't look like they belong. I struggled for a long time about what kind of knobs to use. I considered set of chrome knobs, which might have looked okay, but I tried the chrome Strat knobs that are on my Tele, and also the second knob set from JT-G2, which were gold metal with white mother of pearl insets. The gold wasn't at all right, but the white pearl insets made a nice tie-in to the pickguard, so I ordered the Musiclily chrome with white pearl knobs. They weren't incredibly expensive, so if I find the Hofner teacup knobs are available at some point in the future and I still want them, it wouldn't be hard to change.
I just got done changing the original Hofner strap knobs onto the Tele Thinline and the Dunlop Strap Lok knobs from the Tele onto the new guitar. Right away, I tried the guitar with the strap from my bass and it seems fine. When I let go of the guitar and just let it hang by the strap, it's quite neutral....No neck dive.
I noticed that the guitar was already out of tune just sitting on the stand without being played. That pretty much confirmed to me that those open-gear tuners on the Hofner are a weak link. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a guitar that needs to tuned every couple of songs.....I really got spoiled by having Steinbergers on the majority of my guitars, and finding sometimes they went months without having to tweak the tuning. I'll wait until I put the new steel knobs on the guitar, and then I'll probably dismount the Steinberger tuners off the Tele, remove the open gear tuners from the Hofner, and then test the guitar balance with the Steinbergers just suspended from the headstock in a plastic bag. If it still balances okay, I'll probably steal the Steinbergers permanently for the Hofner. It involves opening the tuner holes to 10 mm, so I won't mount them till I'm sure. That means I'll probably be shopping for a cheap set of 10 mm tuners for the Tele because the 3 +3 open gear tuners won't work.
I'm trying hard to make everything right with no compromises on the Hofner because I see it as a keeper (for however long I have to live, lol) I wondered if I was going to feel an urge to change pickups, but the Hofner staple mini-buckers are remarkably good. Very smooth and slightly mellow on the neck pickup, almost toaster-jangly on the bridge pickup, and a really pleasing middle position that sounds a lot like a Tele with two single coils in parallel.
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 28, 2022 22:31:43 GMT
I got looking at tuners online last night, thinking that I'd window shop to see where I could get the Steinberger tuners. I was dismayed to see that they're in short supply again. Stewart MacDonald still has stock of the gold sets, but no sets of chrome or black. They still have a few singles in chrome or black, but at a premium price. There are some sets on eBay.....If you want to pay 500.00/set. People are trying to profiteer now that they're scarcer. I've pretty much decided to rob the Steinberger tuners off my Tele to upgrade the Hofner. I know that when I sell that Tele, I'm going to take a bath on it price-waide, so I might as well use more commonplace tuners. I did find some measuremnets on weight that are interesting....The Steinbergers are 8.3 oz, while Grovers are 7.9 oz - Npt a huge difference, so I'm reasonably sure I'll end up using the Steinbergers. I was very gratified to see other people making comments that mirror my experience with the Steinbergers....Sometimes, you can leave a guitar with Steinberger tuners sitting for months without needing to tweak the tuning. That's the kind of performance that I find worth paying extra for. Strangely, I also saw three comments from Gibson Firebird owners that spoke very badly of the Steinbergers that was explained by one Firebird owner's observations - He watched his luthier doing a setup on his guitar and said you could actally see the headstock move as the string tension was increased....So, it wasn't so much a tuner issue as a problem of excess neck flexing on the modern Firebirds.
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Post by infant on Mar 29, 2022 2:58:56 GMT
Sometimes tuning issues could be from the type of tailpiece on the Hofner. I prefer fixed tailpieces. Also I like to let the guitar acclimatize to my house for at least a month before I start changing things on it.
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Post by infant on Mar 29, 2022 4:24:39 GMT
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 29, 2022 4:27:01 GMT
Sometimes tuning issues could be from the type of tailpiece on the Hofner. I prefer fixed tailpieces. Also I like to let the guitar acclimatize to my house for at least a month before I start changing things on it. I have a fairly good idea what to expect from the Hofner, because I owned a similar guitar, a Jay Turser JT-G2, years ago. It also had a trapeze tailpiece, which I ended up replacing with a genuine Hofner tailpiece fairly quickly. I don't expect that to influence tuning issues on the new guitar. It's vaguely possible that humidity might play some part in it, but this guitar's got the fretwork enclosed in the neck binding, much like a Gibson, and I see no irregularities in the binding that lead me to believe that it needs acclimatization. It'll probably be at least a couple more weeks before I get serious about the tuner change....The guitar's going to the luthier for setup on Wednesday and I'll probably play it for a week or two when it gets back to get a feel for it. But, when I look at those open-geared tuners that are on it (which frankly look to me like something you find on a bargain-basement acoustic), there's not much doubt in my mind that the guitar would benefit from a tuner upgrade.
There are a few things that have occurred to me since I got this guitar. Although it has no F-holes, it is a full hollow-body without a center block. It gets me wondering.....What do I do if any sort of service necessitates replacing a pot, pickup switch or output jack? When I had the Turser equivalent, it had a Hofner control panel that gave access to the back of the controls and the jack. This guitar doesn't have anything like that. I supposed it's possible that there might be cutouts under the pickups, but if there aren't, I might have to make some in order to solve any internal problems. There aren't any access covers on the back of the body. I might ask the luthier to take a look under one of the pickups while he's got things apart.
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Post by infant on Mar 29, 2022 13:00:49 GMT
Without F holes or access holes, you may have to go thru the pickup holes to get at the electronics.
The only reason I recommend letting the guitar acclimatize for a month or so is because, especially in your case, the guitar was shipped to you from the middle of the continent where the humidity is fairly low during the winter and you are living near the coast where humidity is much higher. I bought my PRS at the end of September last year and brought it in for its setup earlier this month. However, between September and December, I had to do a couple of neck and string height adjustments as I had buzzing on some of the higher frets.
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 29, 2022 17:35:17 GMT
My new knobs arrived a day earlier than expected.
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Post by infant on Mar 29, 2022 23:03:06 GMT
Those look pretty nice! Hard to tell from the pics but are they chrome or gold?
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Post by spellcaster on Mar 29, 2022 23:22:52 GMT
They're chrome. I guess they're reflecting enough off the red finish that they almost look gold in the photo. I'm reasonably impressed with Amazon's service....I ordered the knobs on the afternoon of March 26th and thet arrived the morning of March 29th. I could have ordered the product from Musiclily in China with free shipping, but delivery was projected to be late April or early May. It was worth five bucks to have them in two days.
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Post by zontar on Apr 2, 2022 22:57:59 GMT
Hey cool enjoy! (And just as a side note, it's not my guitar after all--I'd leave those knobs on it-I like them-but maybe that's just me) Yeah, speed knobs never look right to me, other than on Gibsons. To me, they look quite oversize and clumsy on the small body. My Jaguar twelve-string came with them too, and the guitar looked a whole lot better when I changed to the Fender amp witch-hats. I'm also not big on black knobs....I know the headstock is black-faced, but with no other black on the body end of the guitar, they don't look like they belong. I struggled for a long time about what kind of knobs to use. I considered set of chrome knobs, which might have looked okay, but I tried the chrome Strat knobs that are on my Tele, and also the second knob set from JT-G2, which were gold metal with white mother of pearl insets. The gold wasn't at all right, but the white pearl insets made a nice tie-in to the pickguard, so I ordered the Musiclily chrome with white pearl knobs. They weren't incredibly expensive, so if I find the Hofner teacup knobs are available at some point in the future and I still want them, it wouldn't be hard to change.
I just got done changing the original Hofner strap knobs onto the Tele Thinline and the Dunlop Strap Lok knobs from the Tele onto the new guitar. Right away, I tried the guitar with the strap from my bass and it seems fine. When I let go of the guitar and just let it hang by the strap, it's quite neutral....No neck dive.
I noticed that the guitar was already out of tune just sitting on the stand without being played. That pretty much confirmed to me that those open-gear tuners on the Hofner are a weak link. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a guitar that needs to tuned every couple of songs.....I really got spoiled by having Steinbergers on the majority of my guitars, and finding sometimes they went months without having to tweak the tuning. I'll wait until I put the new steel knobs on the guitar, and then I'll probably dismount the Steinberger tuners off the Tele, remove the open gear tuners from the Hofner, and then test the guitar balance with the Steinbergers just suspended from the headstock in a plastic bag. If it still balances okay, I'll probably steal the Steinbergers permanently for the Hofner. It involves opening the tuner holes to 10 mm, so I won't mount them till I'm sure. That means I'll probably be shopping for a cheap set of 10 mm tuners for the Tele because the 3 +3 open gear tuners won't work.
I'm trying hard to make everything right with no compromises on the Hofner because I see it as a keeper (for however long I have to live, lol) I wondered if I was going to feel an urge to change pickups, but the Hofner staple mini-buckers are remarkably good. Very smooth and slightly mellow on the neck pickup, almost toaster-jangly on the bridge pickup, and a really pleasing middle position that sounds a lot like a Tele with two single coils in parallel.
hey, your guitar--your rules. I've had people say I should change this or that on a guitar, but I was happy with it--so why change it. And other stuff I've changed. But other than the LP copy & LP, the changes were more cosmetic. Speed knobs just aren't right on a Mustang. But I love them on most non Fender style guitars.
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