Washburn HB15C, New Impressions

[LarryL]

I bought one of these on an impulse last year. I thought it looked great. It sort of reminded me of an old Harmony or Kay, but I have played it very little since.

Pretty as it is, it was not set up well. The action was high and the strings which it came with, were dull sounding and had a dirty feel. The acoustic sound was terrible, I thought. It sounded like what it was; a plywood box.

I own a Heritage H535, and really enjoy playing it. I have also recently acquired another Heritage, an H157. I quickly lost interest in my funky jazzbox.

A couple of days ago, though, I decided to see if this interesting looking Washburn could be made to perform like it seems it should. I took it to Justin at Tema Guitar, which is about five minutes from my house. Justin has a way with setups. He did both my Heritages and made them sing like devas and play like butter.

Well, he performed his magic on my Washburn and now it sings too. Not like a deva, but more like, funky, and lowdown.

The bridge was not a bad fit. Reportedly, on some of the newer, Chinese made versions of this instrument, the bottom of the bridge does not match the curve of the top of the guitar. Not so with my Indonesian version. It is just an unidentified, cheap wood bridge, painted black to resemble ebony. It's not ebony, but it works fine. Justin was able to lower it and bring down the action. I finger pick, and never play with a flat pick. I needed it much closer than it was.

He filed down a couple of nasty fret ends, polished the fret board, installed a set of SIT Silencer Nickel Electric Light 1046 strings, adjusted the intonation and we were ready to go.

There are a small group of guys that gather at the store on Saturday afternoons. We talk about guitars, play guitars, and generally enjoy the company of folks who all love guitars. Everyone played the Washburn after Justin completed the setup, and everyone seemed to like the way it played and sounded.

Personally, I still don't think of it as a real jazzbox. I hear more of a old time blues or jugband sound. KEEP ON TRUCKIN' MAMA, SAN FRANSISCO BAY BLUES, and RAG MAMA all sounded great.

There's little that can be done to alter the sound, so what you hear is what you get. The tone control, at least on my guitar, has minimal effect.

I would be very interested to hear some other opinions on this instrument. I'm not really much of a jazz player, more blues and funky old stuff. For those of you who have or are contemplating getting one of these, I'd say a good setup is a necessity.

[Funkwire]

I would be surprised if any guitar that is shipped from Asia and retails for around $300 wouldn't benefit from a setup! I'm glad your local guy was able to tweak the HB-15 for you.

I owned a Washburn J-3, a deep body, 2-pickup guitar similar to the HB-15. I too noticed the plywood acoustic sound of it. If I was going to use it for blues or rockabilly, it would have been fine with some upgrades. But I was looking for a jazz box, so I flipped it.

Regarding the minimal use of your tone control--electronics are a big part of where Washburn cuts costs. Have you thought about replacing the pots and tone cap? The parts don't cost a lot, and since it's fully hollow it's not too tough to replace them.

And, of course...how about some pics?

[LarryL]

I'm having trouble with the pics. They are partially loading, or not loading, or I'm getting an error message.

[TonyPGH]

I just bought one on impulse as well. I noticed a price drop on Amazon and grabbed one. They've only got 2 left! I've got a several solid bodies, an Epi DOT, and Aria TA50. This will be my hollow body

[cjm]

I've got one, in fact I used it for a couple hours for an early evening gig tonight.

The HB-15C is more or less an "orthopedic" guitar for me and it has worked out okay. But I spent an additional 2.5~3 times the purchase price to make it work for me. (The reason I am not precise about the cost is that I did some trading.)

The frets were abominable upon delivery. High frets, loose frets, rough frets and sharp frets. The bridge had been carved from a clothes pin, and it showed it. The pickup was muddy, the pots were noisy and the jack was flimsy.

But it had the right size body, and a 25 1/2 inch scale, and a fairly full C profile neck. So I went ahead with it. Some frets were glued and hammered down and they were leveled and crowned. The bridge was tossed and a decent replacement was installed. A hole was chopped in the top and a Lollar CC pickup replaced the floating minihumbucker. The noisy pots were replaced along with the jack that wouldn't stay tight on the plug's center conductor. The nut slots were relieved for something heavier than .009s. A new pickguard was fitted to replace the warped original and to fit around the Lollar pickup.

I'll be honest...I like the guitar after all the work. But it isn't a guitar I'd recommend, because if you don't have some of the specific issues I have, that this guitar's dimensions address, there are too many decent guitars available between $500 and $1,000 that are more or less gig worthy as equipped with a decent setup.

[TonyPGH]

Thanks for the information. Sounds like I've got a project ahead, or maybe I'll get lucky and get one without too many problems.