Well I have had my cheap little 99 GBP (about $130) hog guitar for about 6 weeks now – and it is the only guitar I have played in all that time. On average playing an hour or so a day. And it has been on a two week camping trip. It seems to be surviving our constant 70% to 80% humidity here in Wales OK. I’m still loving it. It has a great sound and plays just fine.
I’ve been experimenting with different bridges - the original I think is NuBone or similar plastic and I’ve tried Tusk (rubbish sound, way too shrill) and bone. The first time I tried a bone saddle it sounded lovely apart from the 1st string. The saddle was compensated at the first string with the release point coming of the front of the 3mm thick saddle. This effectively decreased the 1st string break angle compared to the original saddle (not compensated) and I ended up with 5 strings sounding like a guitar and one sounding like a banjo!!!!! On close inspection and measurement I realised the fretboard had a 14” radius but the bridge was around 20” radius (that’s the bridge, not the saddle – the saddle was 14” radius after shaping) so there was a lot less saddle showing out of the bridge slot at the ends than in the middle. Some careful sanding of the bridge (effectively a partial bridge skim) gave me a more uniform saddle protrusion (excepting the bass to treble height fall) and increased the 1st string break angle to around 20 deg. Result, no more banjo!!!! The skim didn’t really take any ‘meat’ out of the bridge, just slightly reshaped it.
The bone saddle, now properly fitted, is really nice – it has more projection than the original and is a little more ‘balanced’ as the best way I can describe it. Not a great change, just subtle like you get with a change in pick material and thickness. I’m loving the ‘valve amp’ type of warm overdrive from the mahogany top. The guitar sounds really sweet in its own way. I can’t say it sounds just like a …………..? because it doesn’t actually sound like anything else I’ve played.