HiStrung Octave Junior Guitar, ... (Review)

Reviewed By: Jac Harrison

Purchased from: Manufacturer

Street Price: $2,100 USD with case + shipping

About:

HiStrung is the American manufacturer of hand-crafted octave guitars by master luthier Frank Pine.

This Octave Junior features a solid one-piece Honduran mahogany body with a tortoise style single-ply pickguard leading to a one-piece Honduran mahogany neck dressed with a 22 fret rosewood fingerboard at a 15.5” fret scale length featuring cellulose nitrate dot fingerboard inlays ending with a bone nut and a nitrocellulose lacquer finish with overall dimensions of 28” L X 10.5” W (at lower bout)

"Epiphony" Less than Paul Jr. POS Rebuild, Local Music Gear Magazine July 2012 ... (Review)

Reviewed By: Jac Harrison

Purchased from: Manufacturer(s)
Street Price:
Epiphone Less than Paul JR. $90.00 USD + Shipping
EMG Active Pickup 81 $109.00 USD + Shipping
Tusq Nut Black $11.00 USD + Shipping
P3 Mod by DC Voltage  $250.00 USD + Shipping

About:
Once a quarter Local Music Gear Magazine has a POS (Piece of Shit) rebuild. This is when we take the most God-awful, poor excuse of an instrument and give it new life. We do this to  show our readers that can not, or will not, spend big bucks on an instrument how to make one that rocks within their budget. 

For this POS rebuild we went with a used 2010 "Epiphony" Less than Paul JR. This guitar has a single bridge pickup setup and is designed after the 1954 Gibson Les Paul Jr. Epiphone has been giving it the tag line of "A Les Paul at a price anyone can afford", I think this is bullshit. It is a guitar that looks like a Les Paul, but is not. The "wood" that is used is a compressed mahogany. This means wood shavings left over from making other guitars was put in a pot with some glue and then poured in a mold that looks like a Les Paul body. Knowing this, I needed to get parts that would work with the design and body density of this guitar.