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Old 05-14-2004, 03:13 PM
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Jim Tozier Jim Tozier is offline
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Location: Atlanta, GA
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Default Inexpensive all solid wood guitar

I was shopping for a "beater" guitar for somewhere in the neighborhood of $300, and I stumbled across the Washburn WD46S, which is part of Washburn's 120th Anniversary Rarewood Acoustics Reserved Editions (RARE?) series at Music123.com.

It looks to have some nice features: solid spruce top, Grover tuners, abalone trim around soundhole and top, standard molded case . . . and the WD46S has rosewood back and sides. The Music123.com website (as well as an on-line review) states that it is Brazilian rosewood; and although Washburn's website doesn't say so, some reviews mentioned that the back and sides were solid wood.

I decided to call Washburn to find out . . . and their answer was that these guitars definitely use solid wood for the back and sides, although they said it was Indian rosewood. Nevertheless, I figured that it would be worth taking a gamble on a solid-wood spruce/rosewood guitar at this price, even if it is made in China. And if I don't like it, I can always return it.

Does anybody own one of these Washburn rarewood guitars, or had a chance to try them out? I'd be curious to know what you thought; all of the reviews I could find were glowing, but it's hard to tell what the folks who write them are used to playing.

I'll do a little review when I get the guitar, because if it's nearly as good as it seems (between the features and the reviews), this would be a lot of guitar for the money.

There are three other models in the series:

WD41S (Macassar Ebony)
WD42S (Flamed Olive Ash)
WD44S (Hawaiian Koa)

Music123.com has the WD42S, too . . . cheaper than the rosewood WD46S. There's one on eBay right now, and the back wood is really cool.
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2005 Hamblin SJ (cedar/flamed mahogany)

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