Hondo ES-935 Revival Semi-hollowbody

Just a quick edit from my review

I'm using it on a lab series L5 right now, and it sounds a lot better than on the marshall and squier so I will give sound a new grade, a 9.
The tuningproblem was because of the strings. Now everything is fine and it seems to stay in tune for ages.

my hondo was made in 1981 and was bought in 1997 by myself.it has grover tuners and 22 medium frets. i have changed the two humbucking pickups to gibson p90s and had them rewired.it is in a sort of reddy orange sunburst.it is virtually identical to an es335 except that it has a maple block down the centre.bought secondhand so it didnt have a case.

when i bought this guitar it sounded pretty good but the bridge pickup was a bit 'wooly'. since i put the p90s on it sounds as nice as it feels which is very good let me tell you. i dont like the toggle switch though as its a bit tempremental.

this guitar plays like a dream and has really good action. our band plays alternetive rock and it has done well on stage but it can fall out of tune under tha stage lights it has a nice worn bit on the strumming area and where my arm rests on the top.i dropped it on its head and the neck has a split in it but it still plays well.

it is reliable but it has worn down but saying all this it is years old.

N/A

a great guitar its a shame they dont make them anymore.

Bought it new in 1982 from a shops' closing down sale in West Bromwich in UK. The full price I remember was #120 (an amount of which I could only dream of spending) but I paid around #90. The pickups are US built, Grover machine heads were original equipment. Semi hollow body in a light orange to almost natural sunbust. Tune-o-matic bridge, glued neck which is still straight as a dye.

Can be bluesy and has all the sustain you would expect of this style of guitar. Ching chings for funk (hoisted up to the chest for that 80's look), or rocks with overdrive like the old punk rocker that I was.

Action is as good as any Epiphone version I have tried.

Bought & set up at the shop in 1982, messed with by me for 21 years, recently serviced, 'cos I thought it was about time, by a specialist guitar shop in Dorridge, Solihull and was told by the proprietor that it hardly needed touching and was one of the best copies he had seen.

Only complaint is the volume & tone knobs are a bit cheap & nasty (one has stated to crack) but apart from that it is like new.

Its been thrashed and played pooley over the years and as I have already said needed little or no maintenance. Only gripe on this section is if a very light set of strings is used and unwoung G seems to go out of tune fairly easily, why? I dont know.
So dependability is top marks.

I have had no need to find out.

21 Years, I have an accoustic/electric by Saehan and a Hondo II bass which is pile of pants and play it nowadays through a small 15W Fatrat combi for the sake of my marriage but it sounds ok for a little 'un.

I had a Squire Strat but soon got bored & sold it. Prior to the Hondo I had a second hand Sattelite Fender copy which was horrid, but I learned Clash & Pistols in my bedroom (in between copies on Razzle)played through an old record player.

Swap it for an Epiphone? I honestly wouldn't, offer me a pukka Gibson......I'd like both but would probably give in, and cry for hours.

If I ever see another I'd buy it for my daughter so that she would stop nicking mine.

Favourite feature? It's 100% Rock'n'Roll cool looks, or is ts blusey sound? I just can't choose.

It is made in Japan I have no idea when it was made. Some where in the 80's I think. It looks brand new though.
22 Frets
2 Volume, 2 Tone, 3 Way Selector (noisy)
2 Passive Humbuckers, don't know the brand. They are the originals.
Flamed Cherry Top with gold hardware. Real Nice :D.
It it is a Gibson ES335 copy, so it has have got the same shape.

I play mainly rock and blues, sometimes a little punk and some other styles. This baby does it all. I can get really fat sounds from it for the rock and very nice clear sounds for blues. Growling? no problem.
Im using it with a Squier 10 watt amp and an Marshall Valvestate. On the squier I use a Digitech RP100. When using the effectprocessor I sometimes get feedback, but when moving away I don't have any problems. The tone and volume knobs crackle (??) a bit when turning. But it is annoying and when it does get annoying Ill go try to find out whats wrong and get it fixed. The 3 way selector switch is noisy. a bit to noisy, you can really hear the click.
But all those things can be solved. So the main thing is the sound. And this baby has got it all when talking about sound. I have never played a real Gibson ES335 but if that one is even better.. Well that just almost seems impossible to me.
Oh another dislike are the tuners. They sometimes get out of tune easily but this could be because of the strings, it wouldnt be the first time that the strings are the cause of something like this.
Oh and last but not least, sustain. Well it good enough for me. I never play notes that are long enough for the tone to dissapear so..

I bought it 2nd hand and have no idea what the previous owner did with it. He might have adjusted the pick ups (they are the original pick ups that came with the guitar) or some other things, altough it looked like it came just out of the factory.

It looks like it is build to last. It is at least over 10 years old, maybe 20 and it looks brand new. The hardware is still shiny. The strap buttons are not as solid as I would like to have or maybe it is just me being scared this guitar will fall and that I can't find another one.
I would use it on a gig without back up.

I have been playing guitar for about 2 to 3 years. So I haven't played on every amp and every guitar in the universe but I do have a good ear. And this guitar sounds great, looks great and feels great.
If it were stolen I would look for another one, but I don't think there is much chance in finding one.
My favorite feature is the sound. My least favorite are the noisy knobs and the strings at the moment (set to high to play really fast and go out of tune fast, or it might be the tuning pegs of course).

Made in 1981 (bought 2nd hand in 1983 $100) Japan 22 frets 2 tone 2 volume pots +3 way selector. Neck is mahogany (certainly dark wood!)Narrow neck with great profile. 2 "f" slots thin semi hollow body. Finished in a great burgundy red/purple with wood grain showing through. PX'd for a really bad strat copy made by sattelite (hopefully now defunct!!) I went in the shop to buy a tremlo arm for the strat and came out with a Hondo...

The sound from this guitar is superb. Generally I play through the bridge pickup with the tone set to its brightest setting. It has been used in the past for playing punk - blues and jazzy type music. Best used with a good old fashioned valve amp but still sound nice with my old peavy backstage. For a hollow body the sustain is along the lines of the good ol' Les Paul (well almost) which is suprising. My main dislike is the input jack is straight into the fornt of the body. I would much prefer the jack to slot into the bottom edge like my Jackson. I tend to use the guitar through either a Zoom box or my old boss ME-5 but, played raw with the right material, it sounds great.

I had to fiddle with this one to get it right. The intonation was all wrong and the bridge too high. The pickups tend to migrate into the body and every now and then have to be screwed back to the highest setting to maitain their full functionality.

The action is now as good as any guitar I have ever had. I get a slight buzz on the 12th fret on the D string but not enough to worry me.

The nut tended to pinch the strings and hence lead to pinging and de-tuning during playing but this has been fixed with a bit of judicial nail filing!

This guitar, even though hollow bodied, has taken a lot of punishment and survived. I have had it for almost 20years. The frets are now looking as if they could do with relacing but the rest of the guitar is hanging in there. I would, without doubt, have no problem taking this guitar to a gig without backup.

Never tried. I suppose that is tied in with the reliabilty question!!

I have played guitar for 30 years (since I was 10). I own quite a few guitars. Only one of them is a brand name most people would know (Jackson). All the rest are "copies". My 2nd favourite is a Kimbara Les Paul copy. Another great value buy, #20, had to restore it but it's great.

If my house burnt down I would rescue...My wife, my daughter, my hondo and my Sergovia solid body electric classical guitar. I can buy a new Jackson any day of the week but I suspect that the Hondo is not replacable.

The guitar brings out the best in me. The neck fits my hand like a glove and you dont have to look down when you're playing! Great sound, great guitar. I have had a gibson fan offer to buy it off me for silly money...no way!

i don't know when it was made. i think it was made in japan. gibson style setup (2 vol, 2 tone, 3 way selector). i think i may replace the pickups. they aren't noisey or anything but i play punk and i would prefer something with a little more "bite" overall i think if you were going to play a non distorted styly (blues, southern rock, jazz) the pickups would work. passive electronics. its a hollowbody and looks just like a gibson. i love the neck and my friend has commented that he likes the neck more than the neck on his strat style peavey. don't know anything about the tuners but i have no complaints with them. 22 fret neck, i think its maple, very smooth. i get a buzz when i play an open low e but nothing serious.

i play in a punk band and like your stereotypical punk band 3/4 of us couldn't play when we started. i wasone of the ones that can't play. i bought this guitar because it was cheap and i wanted a hollowbody. the pickups are great if you bear in mind that they were created for blues. no noise whatsoever and i was very surprised by the smooth tone. the neck pickup has that cool jazzy tunnel sound and the bridge is basically the same but with that sound mellowed out a lot. very diverse. the only reason the rating wasn't a 9 or 10 (which it would be if i played blues) is because they don't suit my style. i may keep the neck pickup because i won't use the neck very much in my band and the cool tone could come in handy.

hollowbodies scare me. they look like big fragile pieces of furniture. any complaint i have may just be due to the fact that i got it used. the finish is kinda messed up inside one of the f holes. nothing loose, nothing messed up. only other complaint is that the finish is really ugly. but thats not a big issue at all.

in a punk band, a guitar is gonna take some abuse. i hope this holds up playing live and as far as hollowbodies go, i think i trust this to do the job. i would rather take this on stage than a gibson because i would be scared of breaking the gibson. i think this could hold up as well as any guitar. nothing loose, nothing broken.

got it used so i probably couldn't complain much.

this is my only guitar. i only wish i had a distortion pedal/amp with a distorted channel. basically, i love this guitar because it is great sounding but cheap enough to be semi-expendable (i wouldn't smash it on stage but i wouldn't be worried about breaking it). i don't think i'd pay the $600 new price though. overall, great guitar. if you're trying to scrounge up the money for an epiphone, give this a try.

This guitar was made some time between 91 and 94. Where. I'm not shure is says "international" inside the body. Most likely a little bit here a little bit there. 22 frets. Lam. top. Standard gibson lay out; 2 humbuckers, 2 tone, 2 vol 3-way switch. I'm not shure what pick-ups it came with but I loaded it with Seymore Duncans. Jazz in the neck and 59 in the bridge. Mahogany neck with flame maple body nicely book-matched. Clasic 335 dot style body. Tune-O-Matic with stop tail piece. Non-locking grover tuners -- I'm not sure if these were stock, I bought it used. Rose wood neck with thin frets. And I got it with a nice hardshell.

This guitar suits me like a glove. I play jazz primarily but often play blues, funk, rock, hip-hop and reggae and I can count on this axe to change gears with great facility. I play it through a 63 Fender reverb deluxe with ocasional use of one or more of the following; Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus, Pro Co Rat Dist, boss delay, CryBaby Wah and a Morley Volume pedal. It is usaly quite noise free. The sound is rich and full. A great amount of resonace and sustain. With all the flavors you would expect from a nice 335 and lots of Les Paul like tones. I find that this guitar is very versitily and has a beautiful tibre that one would not expect from a firm such as Hondo. Upon playing it people often remark that sound as nice if not better than most Gibsons. I have no idea how many of these were made but I never heard of a quality Hondo before or since.

I have no idea how this guitar was when it left the factory but by the time I got it was set-up fairly well and I had it tuned up as well. Now it plays like a dream. The neck is quite thin, which is nice as I have rather short fingers. The pick-ups ocasialy rattle but nothing that the amp picks up. The finish is a very decadent transparent red, that lets the beautiful grain show through. Most of the visual flaws are the result of some mistreating in a earlier life (I purchaced it from a lad in a punk band) There are, however, some rough-spots in the binding in the neck and in the F-holes.

This axe is a surviver. I think I'll some day pass it on to a grandchild. It is my main box for writing, performing and practacing. I couldn't see needing a back-up.

I have been playing for nearly ten years and I try never to own more than two guitars at once. I also have an Ovation celebrity. But I have, in the past owned an Epi LP black beauty, American Standard Strat, Ibenez EX 120, Martin D-1 and assorted cheap dreadnoughts. If this guitar was stolen I might not look for another as I have an idea that this particular instrument just got lucky in the lottery of cheap guitars. I love it's versitility, it's sweet tone and its powerful resonace -- the cheeky red finish is nice too. If you have ever heard of, seen or own another premium quality Hondo feel free to contact me.