[HANASHIR:6094] Re: guitars

[Joel Siegel <siegeljd...>]

At the risk of sending an untimely response (I've been out of town) I
want to put in a shameless plug for my favorite local guitar guy, and
his way of making available very good sounding but inexpensive guitars.
He's John F. Mello in Kensington, CA, and he both builds and repairs
guitars in his shop.  He also sells a limited number of new and used
guitars (used to sell Taylors but more on that in a moment.)

His particular tweak, if you will, is to buy relatively inexpensive
guitars at wholesale, often from Korea (he was doing the Mountain brand
for a while and may still be.)  They are all solid-tops and sturdy but
not the best sounding because the bracing is fairly clunky.  He then
goes in and sets up the guitars including scalloping the bracing for
best sound.  He then sells them at (IIRC) a reasonable discount from
retail -- probably about the same "street price" as you'd get elsewhere,
but including the mods.  The bottom line is you can pick up a
surprisingly good-sounding guitar, albeit a "no-name" brand (in other
words don't look for great resale value) for not much over $300.

He used to do this with the Taylors he sold, as well, but apparently
Taylor changed its mind recently and disapproved this practice.  I
picked up one of the last Taylor 12-strings he did and it sounds
phenomenal.  He also modified my Taylor 6-string (which I purchased
elsewhere.)

I don't know how much longer he's going to keep doing this kind of thing
as he's growing more interested in building his own guitars.  But if
you're interested give him a call.  He's at (510) 528-1080.  I doubt he
has any business Web or net presence.

Good luck, all, and Shabbat Shalom.  Hope this info is useful to
someone.

Joel

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