New solid construction acoustics from Hartwood

HerbieTheRadDorklift

Tannin said:

For sides, solid wood makes no difference worth mentioning except that it is more prone to splitting or breaking. Sides essentially do two jobs: (1) hold the top and the back apart, and (2) more-or-less seal the chamber so that you get appropriate resonance. Where you see laminated parts in high-end guitars, it's practically always the sides. Some makers go to some trouble to add extra weight to the sides (of whatever construction).  

For backs, solid wood is much to be preferred. 

Back to the original topic: if you are going to buy a Cort, why not buy one with an actual Cort badge on it? 

They're not Cort

Tannin

As mentioned up earlier in the thread Bill. It should not come as any surprise. The number of cheap-to-middling guitars that AREN'T made by either Cort or Samik is pretty small. 

Jez6345789

BillDL said:

I've been searching around the Gear4Music website and individual guitar descriptions to find where there is any mention of who manufactures their acoustic guiatrs and where.  I haven't found anything that would tend to imply they are made by Cort.  Where did you see that?

I did have a look and there is a lot of value in the OM with Arm Bevel and cutaway nice binding in a 300 quid guitar. Not sure what they look or sound like in real life but seems like a lot of guitar for little money.

HerbieTheRadDorklift

Jez6345789 said:

BillDL said:

I've been searching around the Gear4Music website and individual guitar descriptions to find where there is any mention of who manufactures their acoustic guiatrs and where.  I haven't found anything that would tend to imply they are made by Cort.  Where did you see that?

I did have a look and there is a lot of value in the OM with Arm Bevel and cutaway nice binding in a 300 quid guitar. Not sure what they look or sound like in real life but seems like a lot of guitar for little money.

The black OM is really nice. It's got semi-hemispherical frets too. 

The copywriter has had a mare, it's not electro but the write up says it is. The natural finish OM is electro though, thus the price uplift. 

BillDL

@Tannin You searched for "Heartwood Guitars" and found them by the look of things. I am seeing forum posts elsewhere that mention the Korean origin.  "Hartwood" is the house brand of Gear4Music, a large UK-based online retailer, and are the guitars in question within this thread.

Tannin

Not made in Korea at those prices, @BillDL. ; South Korea is closer to being as high-wage than a low-wage nation these days - the minimum wage in Korea is higher than the minimum wage in the USA, although to be fair that still isn't very much. The Korea link isn't the manufacturing, it's the ownership of the company. Cort used to manufacture in Korea before they tried one too many illegal tactics to intimidate their workers, were prosecuted for it, and shifted manufacturing operations to China and Indonesia. 

earwighoney

HerbieTheRadDorklift said:

Jez6345789 said:

BillDL said:

I've been searching around the Gear4Music website and individual guitar descriptions to find where there is any mention of who manufactures their acoustic guiatrs and where.  I haven't found anything that would tend to imply they are made by Cort.  Where did you see that?

I did have a look and there is a lot of value in the OM with Arm Bevel and cutaway nice binding in a 300 quid guitar. Not sure what they look or sound like in real life but seems like a lot of guitar for little money.

The black OM is really nice. It's got semi-hemispherical frets too. 

The copywriter has had a mare, it's not electro but the write up says it is. The natural finish OM is electro though, thus the price uplift. 

If I would wager where the acoustics are made. I'd say some of the work is done in China. The semi hemi frets look they come from. The same factory as the one that makes a few OEM electric guitars that also have semi hemi frets like Eastcoast, Soloking, maybe Eart and a few others.

guitarjack66

Are there any guitars being produced in S.Korea these days? It seems they would be pretty well made after decades of fine tuning?

MartinB

I'm a little confused at the insistence these must be from Cort - there are a number of large Asian OEM manufacturers outside of Cort and Samick - I have far from comprehensive knowledge, but AXL (China) and Saein (Korean owned/Chinese manufacture) come to mind, and there will be others.

BillDL

There's also the confusion being caused by the "HArtwood" in-house brand name of Gear4Music being mistaken for a Leeds-based "HEartwood Guitars", with the latter apparently having made a statement on their website at some point that infers their guitars may be made by Cort.

Tannin

Well, @MartinB, it doesn't take more than a moment to see for yourself - BUT @BillDL helpfully points out that there are TWO companies with almost the same name, so that is a potential trap. One of them may be using some other cheap Chinese or Indonesian manufacturer instead. 

MartinB

Tannin said:

Well, @MartinB, it doesn't take more than a moment to see for yourself - BUT @BillDL helpfully points out that there are TWO companies with almost the same name, so that is a potential trap. One of them may be using some other cheap Chinese or Indonesian manufacturer instead. 

Yes, but I'm seeing the implication in your posts that the Hartwood guitars are probably Cort anyway, even after the Heartwood/Hartwood difference was pointed out. There doesn't seem to be anything to indicate that, and there are a number of Asian makers they could be coming from, so really we just don't know. 

The older Heartwood guitars weren't that well known a brand, so I feel the naming of the Hartwoods is likely coincidence rather than passing-off.

HerbieTheRadDorklift

It's a coincidence, no relation to Leeds based Heartwood. They aren't Cort, but they're very, very good. They are made China. 

Dave_Mc

menamestom said:

Dave_Mc said:

I'm probably not looking at the right ones or something like that, but the ones I clicked on all seemed to just be solid top, and (presumably) laminate back and sides?

Yeah that's what I was thinking. You would think 'Featuring a premium mahogany body finished with a solid Sitka spruce top' means the body at least is laminate.

If you want cheap import all solid guitars, then Herley Benton seem to be the only ones unless these prove to be.

Yeah as @HerbieTheRadDorklift said these actually seem to be all-solid, just the writeup is wrong.

MartinB

Looking at the rest of the Hartwoods, it's an interesting looking range for a shop's own brand budget instruments. The Century gold topped jumbo with the pearloid bits looks a lot of fun, and I could imagine sticking an old-school magnetic pickup like a Deltoluxe in there and using it for bluesy open tuning and slide stuff, hopefully with a more convincing acoustic tone than the ply topped Gretsches.

menamestom

I could be interested in the classical, if that is all solid, although 53mm is an odd nut size.

The steels are all 43mm nuts, I'd be very intereested if they were 45 ish.

BillDL

I notice that a few of the larger retailers' own brand acoustics at the top of their price bands now have forearm edge bevels on the bodies that were once the preserve of much more expensive guitars like Taylors.  I remember being surprised to see this feature on a few of the Harley Benton "Custom Line SolidWood" models retailing for something like £350 to £380 or thereabouts, because it adds a bit more complexity to the builds.  I notice that some of the Gear4Music own-brand acoustics are now incorporating this "luxury" feature on what are "affordable" guitars.  Of course it doesn't make them sound better, but it's a nice user-friendly feature that shouldn't really be on guitars in that price range.

On the subject of specifications, with particular reference to solid woods vs laminate, the specifications can change quickly without the specificatiosn always being updated on the manufacturers' or vendors' websites to reflect the change. Back in 2021 I bought a Harley Benton Custom Line CLD-41SE WN dreadnought electro-acoustic for £340.  It's very clearly an emulation of a Martin D-41 in terms of decoration and styling, but has a solid walnut body and a solid sitka spruce soundboard.  An excellent guitar for the money and a very good one regardless of budget pricing.  The back and sides are most definitely solid and, when I bought it, the spec most definitely stated solid walnut and the neck wood was given as mahogany.  Not long after that the price fell by about £20 or £30 and the Thomann website did update the spec for the product, but not in an obvious way that would always be picked up by a buyer i.e. "solid" against the top, but just "walnut" against the back and sides that means "not solid".  The guitar now shows Okoume for the neck wood rather than mahogany but I don't know when that changed.

You can't always absolutely rely on website specifications and, in the case of those listed by the Far East manufacturer of an in-house brand that then has to be translated, there are often errors.  I would hazard a guess that OEMs of in-house brands are probably more prone to quickly switching wood types to stay within the budget than those being made for larger main brands.

Tannin

Paul (the chap who fettles my guitars and built a couple of them) says that there are several ways to make a bevel and there seems no particular reason to prefer one over another from the point of view of the finished product but some are way easier to do than others. So why not do it the easy way?

Dave_Mc

BillDL said:

  The back and sides are most definitely solid and, when I bought it, the spec most definitely stated solid walnut and the neck wood was given as mahogany.  Not long after that the price fell by about £20 or £30 and the Thomann website did update the spec for the product, but not in an obvious way that would always be picked up by a buyer i.e. "solid" against the top, but just "walnut" against the back and sides that means "not solid".  The guitar now shows Okoume for the neck wood rather than mahogany but I don't know when that changed.

I seem to remember emailing Thomann about some of their Harley Benton all-solid acoustics a few years back and being told that when they said "mahogany", they actually meant "okoume". It's entirely possible yours is okoume too!

HerbieTheRadDorklift

BillDL said:

An excellent guitar for the money and a very good one regardless of budget pricing I would hazard a guess that OEMs of in-house brands are probably more prone to quickly switching wood types to stay within the budget than those being made for larger main brands.

This is correct. Big companies like G4M and Thomann have to work backwards with in house products. It starts with "What does the RRP need to be?" then spec and source from there. If a shipping container goes up, or wood becomes more expensive then the next shipment gets altered slightly, whilst maintaining the RRP and USPs.