HB-35 BK Vintage Series : Surprisingly good **UPDATED**

I wanted to wait a little while until I could give this guitar a good review. So after having the guitar for 4 months, here it is.

Pros: Upon receiving it it was exactly as advertised. The finish in all black was perfect. As a luthier I had trouble finding more than a couple of imperfections in the paint and bindings. Well done.

Once I started playing it, of course it needed adjustments but at first was happy.

Cons: I did notice the guitar would go out of tune regularly. I tried to see what it was and after changing the strings to a better quality, doing some work on the nut, I was able to get the guitar to stay in tune for at least a couple of songs. I am not a hard picker or big string bender either. The tuners are on the cheap side and 2 of them have a lot of ‘play’ in them. Upgrading to locking tuners should help. The frets have started to sprout and because they weren’t cut back properly, they are causing the binding on the neck to crack.

Still, for the money not a bad buy.

UPDATE - I love everything about the guitar, and you can’t beat it for the price. I just updated the pickups by putting in a set of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in. Yeah I know the pickups cost more then the guitar, but I can always take them out and reinstall the old pickups if I sell or trade the guitar in. Also, I recorded the guitar before and after changing the pickups. WOW what a difference. Sounds as good as a vintage Gibson ES-335 a friend owns.