The Hondo story - part two

Read part one here!

To quickly recap, I got back my first guitar, a Hondo Strat copy, and stripped it down to be sent off to the luthier, marveling at the crappy laminate body but still anxious to start the rebuild, which I planned to do myself while keeping a photo journal of the process.

One thing I have to say about the guitar is that the neck is really nice. Definitely the best part of the guitar and reason enough to keep it alive. Unlike most budget guitars of today that are made in China, this one was made in Korea. Korean guitars now are known to be just below Japan for quality among Asian imports, and Japanese guitars are considered to be on par with American guitars. Back then they weren't quite as well regarded, but the quality craftsmanship of this neck shows that they were well on their way. The neck is straight, the frets ends are smooth, the wood is high quality and the finish is thick and glossy without the orange glow of some Chinese imports of today. Putting it on a new body wouldn't be a bad idea at all. Maybe someday I'll do it.

The guitar came back from the luthier at Spotlight Music in great shape. He did a great job on the frets. Five of them had to be replaced and he polished the entire fretboard. You really can't tell which frets are new and which frets are old, and even though it had no hardware on it, the neck felt great and I couldn't wait to get it back together again.

The luthier also routed out the bridge position for the new humbucker. The picture on the left shows the new rout. You can really see the laminate wood in this shot. You can also see the extra holes at the back of the tremolo rout where the old bridge had been screwed into the body. That old bridge was so bad I didn't even bother to save it as a backup - it went straight into the garbage can. Also, notice how big the single coil routs are. The original pickups on this guitar are much bigger than standard Fender single coils. I'm guessing it's to avoid lawsuits, but since so many other companies make replacement Strat pickups I don't know if that's true. The routs are so big, though, that the new humbucker rout is only slightly bigger than the original.

About a week later, the hardware came in. Everything was well packed and I was impressed with the quality, especially the Wilkinson VS50 tremolo. Hats off to the guys at GuitarFetish.com. They've earned a loyal customer. I blocked off a Saturday afternoon to put it back together again and I couldn't wait to get started.

That's when the problems started.

First, I tried to seat the new pickguard assembly into position. Turns out the new humbucker rout was too small. I could get it in, but it was tight. It was a minor setback, but I was sure I could chisel out some wood and get it to fit.

The second setback wasn't so minor. Turns out the neck on the Hondo is wider than a standard Fender neck, so the neck cutout on the pickguard didn't fit. This was not good. If I had a Dremel or something I could've filed it down a little, but I didn't. This was getting frustrating.

The last setback was the clincher. The tremolo rout was too small. When I tried to put the tremolo through the rout to measure for the new studs, it didn't fit. The tremolo was designed to fit right into a standard Fender tremolo rout.

Can you see a pattern here?

Apparently, this guitar, despite looking just like a Fender, isn't made to Fender specifications, presumably to avoid lawsuits (again). It became rapidly apparent that I didn't have the tools or the skills to reassemble this guitar myself. So I did what I could - I installed the straplocks and replaced the button string trees with the new roller string trees - and sent it back to Spotlight to get reassembled. I was disappointed. I was really hoping that I could do this myself. Plus, sending it back to the luthier meant more money and I'd already sunk more into this than I'd planned. But at least I'd have it back. I drove it down, dropped it off, and looked forward to getting it back.

When I got it back all was forgiven. The new pickguard and tremolo looked great. As you can see from the picture, it's a dramatic improvement over the old assembly. I did notice that the humbucker is mounted slightly askew, but I just choose to ignore it and it goes away. The rest of the assembly is high quality. The switch works nicely, the volume and tone controls are full 500k alpha pots, and the wiring is very well done. The new Wilkinson trem actually covers the holes in the body from certain angles, a definite bonus. Plus it works and feels great. It's a knife-edge tremolo and it's smooth, much better than the standard Fender trem on my real Strat. I had to do a quick setup on the guitar, and after that I plugged it in to try it out.

The first thing I noticed was the humbucker. Wow. Powerful and articulate, it alone made the assembly worth the money. It's the first guitar I've had since my Charvel that had a bridge humbucker and I knew I was hooked. It would be hard to go back to the bridge singles on my Strat and Tele. For that reason alone it became my main guitar for a few months.

The single coils, on the other hand, were less than impressive. They're weak and thin, not at all like the neck and middle pickups on my Strat, which are full and toneful. Originally I was going to get a pickguard assembly that only had a humbucker and a volume control, but this one was only a few dollars more, so I consider the singles (and the tone controls) to be a bonus. They may not be the best singles, but for about a dollar each, they do just fine. I use the humbucker 90 percent of the time anyway.

So after 25 years and a few new pieces of hardware, not only do I have my first-ever guitar back, but it's a viable part of my collection, not just a sentimental piece that sits in the closet unplayed. Most people don't get a chance to get back their first guitars, so I consider myself very lucky indeed.