Post by LouisianaGrey on Oct 25, 2007 12:39:20 GMT
In case anyone is interested in getting one themselves, I have just got a “Tenayo Whiteborn” Weissenborn copy from Thomann so I thought I would give my impressions of it.
It is a good-looking instrument and seems to have been well constructed from mahogany-faced laminate. The fretboard is said to be rosewood but looks more like ebony to me, at least it doesn’t look much like any rosewood I’ve ever used. The binding and finish are good, the machine heads are reasonable quality and they work without problems. The top is X braced rather than ladder braced. Generally the guitar sounds OK (not as responsive as some but, hey, it's only plywood) at least when you swap the top strings it arrives with (would you believe .013 and .017?) for something a bit beefier.
BUT (there’s always a but with Chinese instruments) there is the usual niggling lack of attention to detail:
a) Oddly, it was strung the wrong way round when it arrived, with the bass strings wound clockwise and the treble strings wound anticlockwise. Confusing or what?
b) There are two pearl dots on the bridge which I assume cover up two screws but instead of being sanded flat (which would have taken a whole 30 seconds) they both stick up from the surface.
c) The bone(?) bridge is fairly crude and not a tight fit in the bridge slot.
d) The nut, which appears to be the same kind of wood as the fingerboard, is not flush with the end of the fingerboard - it is about 1mm further away on the treble side. The string spacing looks a bit suspect too.
Now the serious problems:
e) The bridge slot is angled like a conventional roundneck instead of being straight. Looking at the photos on the Thomann site it looks like all three models are like this.
d) The scale length is wrong - the bridge is about 2mm forward of where it should be on the bass side so, because it's angled, it's even shorter on the treble side.
As a consequence of both of these things the intonation is out and gets worse the higher you get up the neck.
So the first step is going to be to fill the bridge slot, cut a new straight slot at the right scale length and make a new bridge. Then make a new nut, put some decent strings on it and it should be fine. Finally I’ll put a few extra fret dots in as I’m used to looking at dobro fretboards and this one doesn’t have any dots at 3 and 15 and only one dot at 12.
Once again the Chinese have produced something that makes you think “Well, if only you’d only done this just a bit better it would be really nice.” Overall it’s still good value for money (around £198 including shipping) if you have the skills to do something about the faults. I bought it to stick a pickup in and gig with it, so the disadvantages of having to do some work on it are outweighed by the fact that it’s cheap enough not to get too fussy about taking it out.
It is a good-looking instrument and seems to have been well constructed from mahogany-faced laminate. The fretboard is said to be rosewood but looks more like ebony to me, at least it doesn’t look much like any rosewood I’ve ever used. The binding and finish are good, the machine heads are reasonable quality and they work without problems. The top is X braced rather than ladder braced. Generally the guitar sounds OK (not as responsive as some but, hey, it's only plywood) at least when you swap the top strings it arrives with (would you believe .013 and .017?) for something a bit beefier.
BUT (there’s always a but with Chinese instruments) there is the usual niggling lack of attention to detail:
a) Oddly, it was strung the wrong way round when it arrived, with the bass strings wound clockwise and the treble strings wound anticlockwise. Confusing or what?
b) There are two pearl dots on the bridge which I assume cover up two screws but instead of being sanded flat (which would have taken a whole 30 seconds) they both stick up from the surface.
c) The bone(?) bridge is fairly crude and not a tight fit in the bridge slot.
d) The nut, which appears to be the same kind of wood as the fingerboard, is not flush with the end of the fingerboard - it is about 1mm further away on the treble side. The string spacing looks a bit suspect too.
Now the serious problems:
e) The bridge slot is angled like a conventional roundneck instead of being straight. Looking at the photos on the Thomann site it looks like all three models are like this.
d) The scale length is wrong - the bridge is about 2mm forward of where it should be on the bass side so, because it's angled, it's even shorter on the treble side.
As a consequence of both of these things the intonation is out and gets worse the higher you get up the neck.
So the first step is going to be to fill the bridge slot, cut a new straight slot at the right scale length and make a new bridge. Then make a new nut, put some decent strings on it and it should be fine. Finally I’ll put a few extra fret dots in as I’m used to looking at dobro fretboards and this one doesn’t have any dots at 3 and 15 and only one dot at 12.
Once again the Chinese have produced something that makes you think “Well, if only you’d only done this just a bit better it would be really nice.” Overall it’s still good value for money (around £198 including shipping) if you have the skills to do something about the faults. I bought it to stick a pickup in and gig with it, so the disadvantages of having to do some work on it are outweighed by the fact that it’s cheap enough not to get too fussy about taking it out.