HB-35Plus Cherry : Things to do with a HB 35 Plus

General consideration: sound is very nice, pickups are very hot, red finish is quite nice, surface is very polished, neck comfortable, no fret buzz. For this price you cannot find something better.

Two things to do after you receive this guitar:

1. Check the surface for any defect. Sometimes it happened. If is not major...you can live with it.

2. Check the distance between 1st string and the edge of the neck. Should be the same with the gap between 6th string and edge. If is not sensible the same, send the guitar back. Fortunately I havent find any fretbuzz and also the neck was very right.

Nine things to do if you want to improve your guitar:

1. Polish the frets ( with very fine sandpaper and polish compound). The frets were not properly finished by factory so bending technique was not quite possible.

2. Evacuate the wood debris from inside acoustic chamber (mine has 2 pieces of wood inside). This in not a major issue.

3. Clean the fret board wood and oil it with lemon oil. Mine was awfully dirty and dusty!

4. Adjust string high. Use a ruler.

5. Recut the pickboard since the initial one was made awful by factory. Polish the edges at 60 degree. Try not to polish fast since the heat is destroying the resin material. You need a file, fine sandpaper and some skills. I prefer the original ES 335 shape.

6. Grease the pots.

7. Tighten the machine head. Mine was not too stabile.

8. If you have some skills you can make a new truss road. The original one is silly.

9.Adjust the tension in strings by increasing/decreasing the angle of strings over the saddles.

Tune the guitar, play and enjoy it....if you are not too tired. After these steps you'll have a very good guitar for this price.

P.S. Now I am very jealous for the new model with ivory blocks fretboard inlays.