william_monroe_smith's Reviews

Great for a project guitar for, but needs a little work to be playable (maybe not good for a beginner)

The Transparent Blue Glarry I got brand new from a seller on ebay, it was good except the fretboard appears to be unfinished, it keeps getting dirty from the strings even the new stings I put on the guitar leave black marks on the fretboard. The strings that came on the guitar were complete garbage, so it had to have new strings. This is fairly common with cheap guitars, although not all the glarrys come with bad strings like mine did (my other Glarry guitar (Tele) came with ok strings).

The neck is satin on the back almost like no finish as well. So when it comes to the neck on this guitar, I am trying to decide what to do. I will probably oil the fretboard, sand the neck (or use steel wool) and then see how it is. I can play it how it is but I prefer it to at least have some finish on the fretboard. The frets are alright on this guitar, not sharp on the ends.

The pickups work ok but I don't like single coils, they are kind of weak and quiet. Ok for someone just learning if you don't want distortion or metal sounds. If you want the heavier souns, you can get pickguards with pickups already installed or you can upgrade the pickups yourself (get a new pickguard and humbucker on amazon ebay or guitarfetish, guitar madness.

The tuners work ok once the strings are stretched, or you can upgrade them if you want. I am keeping them for now (but I replaced my pickups, see above).

The bridge I think could use some upgrading, although you can use it fine with the one it comes. For the bridge, steel string saddles would probably be a worthwhile upgrade ($20). Also a thicker tone block might be good, not sure which size would fit though.

The body on these guitars does look nice for the low price. They are basswood which is pretty soft though so be careful; if you try to change out the bridge because the wood is soft for the srews (2 screws in my new pickguard the threads in the wood are already loos and the screw just turns and does nothing. It could be because I drilled them a little too big also. So make sure and drill new screw holes for pickguard with tiny drill bits.

I gave it 3 stars because it is not quite good for a beginner if they don't know how to work on guitars, they need a little help with that (at least new stings and probably a setup, you can look online how to do it and the tools are included). It might be worth it to spend more on a guitar already ready to play when new, but if you are willing to put a lil time and money into it, this is a good deal.