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Old 12-30-2010, 04:10 PM
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Teleplucker Teleplucker is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 2,438
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I have a model 4 (serial #5). It is a fun challenge to try to play. It is fun and the bass strings do sound great. You can get a lot of Stephen Bennett
arrangements from his website, trying to play his songs is where the work really starts.
A few notes about the quality and setup:

Right out of the large case you have to get a different set of bass strings if you want to use the Stephen Bennett bass tuning.The original strings are too heavy. The banjo tuners required a little bit of adjustment in order to get them to hold the pitch. There is screw that you can tighten for this.
The fret job on the six string neck was pretty bad. There were high frets and multiple sharp edges on the side of the fretboard.
I took my guitar to my local repairman and he filed the edges and had to seat the 14 fret. Not that you would be playing a lot in the area on this guitar, but my 14 fret was very high.
The bridge pins are very crappy. When I changed the bass strings several of the orignal bridge pins were cracked and fell apart. I bought two sets of ebony bridge pins from Stew Mac and replaced the original. They look much better and sound better also.
The case is very large and it appears to be well built. It does have a very funky smell. Supposedly this is because of the glue used in the Chinese factory. Thankfully ths smell is going away with time.
My biggest concern with my particular guitar is that it has developed a crack in the top. It doesn't appear to be completely through but it is definitely a crack. I have spoken with the folks at Holloway and we are trying to figure out the best way to deal with this issue. Apparently mine is the only guitar that has developed a problem like this. I guess I'm just lucky!
So having said all that, I still think it's a cool guitar. Considering the price that you pay and the price for the upgrades that you might need it's still a pretty good deal if you are interested in harp guitar.
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