Second in my ongoing series to introduce my instruments, I give you the Epiphone PR-350 that, if you come see me perform, you will see me play. I use the Epiphone for all my regular-tuning (EADGBE) songs. I haven't done any research on the serial number of this guitar yet - but it is almost certainly an early 90's instrument.

I was wanting a new guitar about a year ago and I had been watching Craigslist for some time. My Takamine that I'd played for years was needing a fret job done to it, but I wasn't really into spending that kind of money on a guitar that I'd payed less than $500 for in the first place. So I watched the ads and this Epiphone showed up one day. The guy wanted $125 for it and I was instantly struck by how it looked. I loved the inlay on the fretboard and the simple dreadnought design. I did some searching on the web and found that it was a solid-wood guitar, not laminate, and that most folks who had one raved about its sound quality. Some folks didn't rave about its playability, but since I'd started working on my own guitars, I knew that playability was something that could be created if the guitar didn't come with it naturally.

So I went to buy the guitar. I met the owner in a parking lot and I began looking-over the instrument. I noticed that the string grooves on the nut were horribly cut and the nut was shimmed so that it was very high. I offhandedly said, "Oh, so you've been using it for slide guitar" - that's how high the strings were off the fretboard. He looked at me blankly and said, "No..."  So I didn't blame him for wanting to sell the guitar - it was virtually unplayable as it was with strings sitting a good 1/8" off the frets...at the first fret!

However, the rest of the guitar appeared sound, so I took it home. I removed the rusty strings, tossed the plastic saddle and created a new one out of bone from a blank I had. I also tossed the nut and put a TUSQ Epiphone pre-cut nut in its place. I had to sand it down a bit to get it about the right height. Later, I used nut files to bring the string action even lower.

The guitar is definitely a mid-range guitar since the frets are not completely uniform, which has kept me from getting the perfect string action up and down the entire neck. Nonethtless, I love this guitar. It can stand a few more years of mellowing since its sound is rather bright. But since there's not much that can hold a candle to the Gibson when it comes to a mellow deep bass sound, the Epiphone does a good job and I play it the most of all my acoustic guitars.

I placed an Artec blend pickup into it (transducer under the saddle and a microphone inside the guitar) which does a pretty decent job, though it tends to eat batteries for lunch.

Check out a picture of the guitar in my Instruments folder of my pictures.