Sons friend Harley Benton SC450 awesome guitar

[Duncanpup]

New tuners nut new harness kit for pots long shafts new caps dropped some Seymour pearly gates in.

After market aluminum tailpiece and bridge you get the point he went all out. In all kid what he spent not sure or more on upgrades.
Yet originally guitar new I think was $250 huge sound seriously with the upgrades next to my Tokai les Paul reborn or the one Gibson I have in the herd.

Played through black star 10 watt with 6l6’s for the price just amazing guitar for the cost.

[Marcus IM]

1. Promoting China-made??

I see why my thread on Made In the US holiday gift choices sank like a rock.

[Duncanpup]

2. I'm made Japan collector

Yet it’s what you can afford and these guitars are decent and tone monster after upgrades.
I’m not a snob and he’s good kid.

[Marcus IM]

3. Has nothing to do with snobbery. Has to do with employing people here, not authoritarian China.

No wonder kids can't afford good US-made stuff. Everyone's buying China-made with no concern. Except to spin it as snobbery.

I have no problem with buying products where labor cost is not competing with US low wage, like Japan or the Nordic countries. It's why I buy Nokia rather than Apple.

[Duncanpup]

4. Gibson is do overpriced to start

And quality is suspect they should bring epiphone back to states. And what kid can afford a les Paul in high school and yes I like the idea of American made I been union all my life but it’s corporate greed on some guitars made in states.

[Duncanpup]

7. He wants to jam it's all he can afford

I did upgrades since yesterday for kid no charge he’s good kid his mom can’t afford a Lester.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

8. Gibson in Kalamazoo was a union shop, Gibson or Norlin closed it...

Gibson Nashville & all other Gibson & Epi shops are now non-union. My personal opinion is that Gibson & Fender are responsible for folks producing guitars in Korea, China, and Mexico, often of better quality than the guitars they emulate. Gibson & Fender custom shops produce some very fine guitars, if you have the cash, a John Shur early HSH strat, with a few mods can produce any tone you desire. Shur used to run the Fender custom shop, then started building his own guitars. As for pickups, they may claim to be assembled in the USA, then again who knows where they came from. Grover tuners, again they may say USA on them, many are from China. Floyd Rose, same crap, who knows. Be careful of what you buy.

[TxGuitar]

9. This is an interesting video

?si=P24K9EDRfN2Pf0b0

He talks about how, for example, a trem might say Bigsby but is really not made by Bigsby just licensed to the manufacturer. He also mentions Grover tuners as being the same. So a mid range guitar advertised as haiving a Bigsby trem and Grover tuners likely has neither.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

10. Agree...

Like the gentleman said, feel.... my early Shur strat HH has Shur tuners, they are smooth & work well. Only part I modded was the bridge p/u, put a Lindy Fralin pure PAF in w/ it's own tone & vol. Deleted the selector switch, as barely, if ever use the bridge p/u. At my age, 70, I no longer have the desire to play electronics tech. On the other hand 55 or so years ago, all we could afford to play with were cheap Kents, Silvertones etc. These days the kids have an overabundance of guitars they can find in pawn shops, in the back of an independent music store, that won't cost much, are well built, with straight necks. Toss in youtube, the internet, amazon & Ebay, life's good for the kids.

[kimbutgar]

5. I'm in the Phoenix area visiting my mother in law

Yesterday we went to a museum called the MIM and they had exhibits of stringed instruments from all over the world and they also had a guitar exhibit that would blow your mind. I saw a model of that in an exhibit.