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Izzy

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I was looking for a Fender Lead I (a Mustang body with a Strat or Tele neck sort of) and found this Hondo knock off in a friend's collection.

It is lighter weight than the Lead I options I had tried (very important to me), and with Niel's setup...not bad at all! [thumbup]

I will be looking to upgrade the pup, though (goes from HB to SC with a switch but it sounds underwhelming).

It is a cheapie I got as a trade for gear I no longer needed...not a bad deal. [biggrin]

 

Anyone here fiddle with Hondos much. Yeh, I know they're not amazing or anything.

I just hadn't heard of them and wonder how well known they are.

 

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Hondo is actually an American company out of Texas. They made a lot of knockoff stuff in the 70s and 80s - mostly produced in the Samick factoy in Korea. I had a neighbor who had one of their Les Paul copies when I was a kid. Overall I believe they were well-made copies of Fender and Gibson stuff. In the 90s they imported their stuff from Taiwan, China, and Indonesia though and these were not as good.

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I reallly like the look of that, Izzy; nothing superfluous. Nice in it's 'triple-white' style.

 

As far as the Hondo company is concerned;

When I was in my early years of playing in the late '70s Hondo guitars - especially the Les Paul copies - became very popular in the UK. They were well-made for the asking price and one of their selling points which was mentioned prominently in the press advertisements was their having DiMarzio pickups fitted as stock items. Three (four?) of my friends bought Hondo II LPs and they sounded so much better than my own LP copy I bought a set of DiMarzio 'Dual Sound' p'ups and had them installed. I still have them in the guitar to this day nearly 40 years later!

 

DiMarzio itself was a relative newcomer - the whole idea of swapping pickups was new - but it had already achieved a reputation as being a manufacturer of very high quality p'ups(*).

 

Pip.

 

(*) EDIT : I was curious re: DiMarzio and had a bit of a google. In the wiki entry it states;

"DiMarzio became known for its Super Distortion model, which was the first after-market replacement guitar pickup. It was introduced in 1972..."

The 'Dual Sound' p'ups mentioned earlier were Super Distortions which were also coil-splitable by means of a mini-toggle switch. The pair of p'ups I bought cost the same as the guitar to which they were duly fitted!

 

EDIT Part II : Out of even more curiosity I had another google......here's the wiki entry for Hondo;

https://en.wikipedia...(guitar_company)

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When I was first starting to play guitar, my best friend had a black Hondo Les Paul. I had a Sears SG and we learned some of our first KISS, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Styx, Queen, and Journey songs on those guitars, along with other bands and songs I've long forgotten since then. This was late 70's, early 80's. If I remember right, the Hondo was a fairly decent knockoff. I don't remember it having an arched top, whereas the Dixon Les Paul did. I have a Dixon Flying V from back in the early days.

 

As far as the DiMarzio, I had one of the pickups with the coil tap in my Electra Working Man. It was a super distortion with a little switch that would take it to single coil. It's really cool to read the forums and see things like this Hondo that makes me think of us playing them back in the day. I remember my friend learning Crazy Train and teaching me how to play it on that guitar.

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Thanks Surfpup and Pip for the detective work and to all of you for your insight from personal experience with these guitars. Texas guitar, heck yeah! She certainly doesn't feel as cheap as a the Teisco I still have.

 

As for the pup...the pup is very microphone-y and it gets super distorted. I like it on some songs but it sort of don't feel like I have the control over my sound the way I do with the HBs on my SG. Like the signal comes out HOT HOT HOT. All the same, it is a killer little devil. And I actually like the gold on blond look. I will play her more and more and see if I finally go for the mod. [tongue]

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When we play gigs that allow the floor space for extra guitars, I have been known to bring along a few guitars that really only sound right for one or two songs, because of the the peculiar nature of their construction or pickups.

 

In that regard, that Hondo would be attractive because of the single-pickup simplicity and the interesting look of the natural wood against all the white plastic bits.

 

I think it's cool as can be!

:)

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