Hondo II Les Paul and guitar project/build questions

[podboy3]

I have a chance to get a Hondo II Les Paul, just the body and neck, and am wondering what people think of them? I have heard some people say they are plywood and others that say they sound really good, Any opinions?

I can get it cheap and am thinking that I can use it to start working on guitars and get more involved with things like fretwork, adjustments, set ups, and repairs. There is nothing really wrong with it other then being beat up.

Here is the catch with things as they are now. I am in the market for a good Les Paul (or copy) and I have my guitars and I also have 2 or 3 Fender necks, a G&L body and maybe a neck (That is for a separate post), I also have two Tele blanks (a pine and a Poplar) as well as a nice slab of Maple that I can get two necks out of). I bought all of this stuff because I am going to be getting into building but I am having trouble digging into this stuff knowing it is nice stuff and I am most likely going to mess it up and I hate to see this nice stuff get hacked.
I was thinking this Hondo would be good to start with and not a lot of money if I end up screwing stuff up but....... What am I going to end up with when I am done?

See my problem, screw up the good stuff or spend more effort on something that the end result might not be worth that much.

The good thing is that I have Epiphone Humbuckers from an SG, I have a Gibson Les Paul Neck Humbucker, and I also have an Ibanez Super 70's neck Humbucker, as well as a couple sets of tuners (including the tuners from an Epiphone SG) and more than enough wire, pots (not the best but they work), jacks, and switches.

So what do y'all think?

[podboy3]

I forgot to add that it does have the tune o matic (or whatever copy it is) on it and there are tuners but the guy said they are not much good.

for what it is worth I have a Leo Quan (Spelling) Bad ass bridge, and saddles that came off of an Ibanez Les Paul copy.

[tpaul]

I think the chances that your parts will fit that Hondo body are iffy.

You could sell some of your humbuckers and raise enough cash to buy a new Agile LP copy. I hear those are decent players.

If you want to tinker, give up on the idea that you're going to end up with a fantastic and valuable guitar. What you're going to end up with is a unique and fun parts guitar and lots of knowledge earned the hard way. If you're lucky the end product will be a player. If not, you take it all apart again and start on project #2.

[umasstele]

In the case of the hondo les paul which I had....

The neck was literally like playing a 2x4 with strings on it...

[JohnK24]

I can tell you that in 1979 I bought my first electric, a wine red Hondo II Les Paul with uncovered black coil DiMarzio 'buckers. It had the block inlays, full bindings and was a KILLER guitar...but stupid me at the age of 15 wanted something different and sold it for a $100 (I think it was $200 new ?). Anyhow, from what I remember my guitar teacher (who played a '54 Goldtop Les Paul) loved my Hondo...hth

[podboy3]

The neck like a 2x4 does not bother be so much I am six foot six inches and 270 pounds so my hands are long and large enough to handle it, and I like a chunky neck...... even though my favorite guitar is my MIM 72 Thinline.

As for stuff not fitting, The Bridge and saddles are on and I could always drill for new tuners or put the bushing/sleeve in if the tuner holes are too big, The pickups should not be a problem considering the pickups that came in them new.

and as JohnK24 said with his being a real nice guitar, There are more than a few others that say they really loved theirs as well and that they sounded nice..... and then there are those on the Les Paul forum that snub anything that does not say Gibson, has more than one or two pieces of mahogany and no maple cap.

I honestly never thought of selling the pickups before, I always thought I could use them for parts or a project, but there are a couple Agile LP's that are calling my name.

It comes down to that tinkering issue the tpaul mentions..... if I get an Agile or put together the pieces I have now I am thinking I won't have something that I will be able to do the fret dressing and all the little things to or I am practicing on the already decent necks or guitar and man it would suck if I spend three hundred on an Agile and using it to work on, screw something up, and then in an attempt to fix what I screwed up make it worse and be out the money and messed up a decent guitar. Three hundred is not gonna break me but it is still wasted money if I ruin it.

[Octave Doctor]

I've rebuilt lots of guitars, but I also have a few where tinkering is verboten--my Hamer SBFT and a couple of my Strats are fine as they are. In other words, if you get a good Agile, don't mess with it--tinker with the clunkers.

A large part of doing project guitars is patience, sometimes it takes years for the right parts to come together. Throwing parts that don't compliment each other together just so you finished a project is not the best use of the parts or one's time.

[podboy3]

Octave Doctor, That is why I thought this clunker would be good.... I do not want to rush on the body blanks, necks, and some other things that I have and every time I go and get a guitar they are way to nice.

I need that clunker of an axe to work on.

Where was your Hamer made, I saw a nice Hamer double cut Sunburst that I think was a SBFT, On the truss rod cover is said Sunburst (something, I think Flame) top but the shop owner said it was a Sunburst arch top. When I got home and looked up the Sunburst Arch Top it look kinda the same but had nickel covers on the humbuckers and the one I looked at were open humbuckers.

I take it that since you still have it you like it?

[Gareth John]

I just got a Columbus Les Paul copy, plywood body cheap as chips and really good fun. It's not really a bad guitar at all, it should be though, as the neck to body alignment is off and it's plywood. I'm sure they're cheap single coils under the humbucker covers too but it's actually ok. I'd say go for it, but it's gotta be really cheap. You could easily pick one up with all the parts though. It could be a waste of money, and don't take this the wrong way but it sounds like you have a few unfinished projects on the go. Hope my opinion helps you in your decision.

[dantonel]

I'm doing the Same thing with my Grass Roots Les Paul Copy! sounds like it should be very fruitful if you are patient. Post some Pics!!!

[umasstele]

Originally Posted by podboy3

The neck like a 2x4 does not bother be so much I am six foot six inches and 270 pounds so my hands are long and large enough to handle it, and I like a chunky neck...... even though my favorite guitar is my MIM 72 Thinline.

By neck like a 2x4 I dont just mean chunky, I mean absolutely NO radius whatsoever, stick straight neck, almost painful to play, and Im a big guy too! But it appears someone else here had the same '79 which I had (I got it at a yardsale though, not when it was new) and liked it...

MY buddy and his dad both have those agiles, two different models I believe. His dad's is cherry red, and I believe the more expensive of the two. Lotsa heft to the body, just like the real thing.

Both VERY nice guitars in my opinion!

[cmatthes]

PodBoy3:

My first guitar was a Hondo II LP copy. Cheap plywood, overall crap workmanship, and awful pickups/electronics. Not worth your time.

As an 8th grader back in the late 70s/early '80s, it was passable, but it didn't take me long to realize that it was just a cheap, crappy guitar.

If you're getting it for $25 or less, sure - what the heck? Personally, that's $25 more than I'd spend for one. As far as having some recent impression to compare my first guitar with all of the many dozens I've owned over the years, I pulled it out of the closet at my Mom's house about a year ago just for kicks.

It was every bit as awful as I remembered! :D

[podboy3]

haha..... All advice is accepted and appreciated... and yes I have unfinished projects but (I hate saying but) some were deals to good to pass on and others were given to me because of others had big plans but little ambition. Two of these project Teles are always floating in the back of my mind and WILL get started (and finished) but right now they are floating back there as I imagine what I want the finished project to be.

I also have been collecting tools.... Before we moved here from Florida someone was being kind and letting me store my garage full of tools with them, I will not get into the who, what, when, where, and all that other stuff but I will say that I never got anything back, All of my car stuff and wood working tools were gone. Almost a constant buying of tool since I moved here almost 4 years ago and I have not even made a dent in replacing my things.

Anyway that is my rant. the past is the past, Serenity Now.

Octave Doctor, The writing on the truss rod cover was Sunburst Arch Top.

umasstele, Thank you for clearing that up and cmatthes thank you for the input...... I might have to pass on this.

But this still leave me with a "clunker" guitar that is going to at least be decent to learn on?

[KotS]

Had one briefly;


I bought it specifically to strip the DiMarzio's and sell the rest... I did string it up to check it out before I gutted it, and wished I hadn't bothered.

On the bright side, I got more for the body & neck on Fleabay than the whole thing cost me originally...

[garyd5158]

My brother bought a black Hondo II (looks like a les paul studio) in 1986. He still has it. Great playing guitar, nice neck and he put a Bill Lawrence humbucker bridge pickup in it about 20 years ago. It's been fun to play and it's light. Great guitars to tweek.

[Tdub]

Hondo II Les Paul. I had one, it was awful. I actually got $100 in trade for a real Les Paul that was selling for $350, so out of pocket for the LP was $250. This was 1983. The good old days.

[Octave Doctor]

The Hamer is a first-issue Slammer series from 1996, it has an engraved truss rod cover and Slammer series is printed right under Hamer on the headstock. It is closer to American specs than most later models that I've seen. I did have to change the bridge pup as somebody had swapped out the Duncan Designed pup for some generic zebra-coil job that sounded pretty bad. I was lucky to find an Ibanez V2 to put in it, so now it's sort of in between a LP and an SG, without weighing a lot or being neck heavy.

Considering that the last Gibson I owned was a '64 SG that had broken at the heel AND the peghead because it was so neck heavy, this is a big improvement.

Oh, more clunkers always turn up, unless your area is lousy with eBay speculators. I usually get 1 or 2 a year, and I don't even try very hard. If you're lucky, you might come up with something better, like an Aria Pro II or an Electra, then you'd have something that was basically right in the first place--a lot of the cheap LP copies weren't.

[JohnSS]

If the Hondo II is MIJ, then definitely consider it, as I believe MIJ Hondos come from the Tokai factory. MIK is not bad - I own a late 70's Hondo II 12 string Strat that is a great guitar and still holds up. You sound like you already know your way around a luthier's workbench, so the question comes down to whether or not the woods from the Hondo II would be worth your time and effort, since you already have the electronics and hardware.

[tuuur]

This is what my Hondo II's Les Paul body looked like from the inside... a slab of plywood with pressed plywood on top. It sounded ok, but that was due to the USA made DiMarzio humbuckers.

[podboy3]

Originally Posted by JohnSS

If the Hondo II is MIJ, then definitely consider it, as I believe MIJ Hondos come from the Tokai factory. MIK is not bad - I own a late 70's Hondo II 12 string Strat that is a great guitar and still holds up. You sound like you already know your way around a luthier's workbench, so the question comes down to whether or not the woods from the Hondo II would be worth your time and effort, since you already have the electronics and hardware.

I definitely would NOT say that I know my way around a luthier's workbench, I have always messed around with guitars swapping pickups, tuning machines, I have messed with truss rods a bit, replaced a truss rod on a Epi flying V that I had, and replaced electronics.
I am comfortable with soldering and have built peddles, a fender reverb unit, modded (spelling) and repaired amps, and then got into building some amps.
I also like to do some light woodworking but never on guitars. just around the house stripping and refinishing cabinets, working on and repairing vintage stereo consoles, refinishing, repairing, and installing hardwood floors.


I am sorry for the ramble but I am just saying that I know certain things and know enough (not great or a master) with woodworking and have used the tools to be able to apply that to guitars.

what I lack is the in-depth stuff like removing/installing frets, leveling and doing a fret jobs, adjusting saddles, and get the radius set correctly (even on a fretboard).

Finding a clunker that is worth doing all this stuff too and having something that you can enjoy and will be worth the effort.

The mention of the Agiles got me to thinking about others like this and for 209 dollars I can get a Xavier XV-500 which is the Les Paul copy. I know they claim that they are set up before you get them but I have also read reviews that claim they needed a full set up and adjustment to be playable and also needed the frets dressed. So I took a look and saw this groovy little number.
It is not something I would usually go for on an LP copy but it looks so dang cool. XV-500