I'm currently considering a Wechter Sheerhorn and a National Scheerhorn and I am seeking opinions. I will not be able to play either. Both are mahogany. There is quite a difference in price, so I was wondering if anyone has played both and could say that they are close in tone quality or is the Nat. Scheerhorn clearly a much better guitar. For reference, I have a birch Appy already, that I like - just looking for a reso of a different "flavor" to play as well. FWIW, I did have a maple W/S a couple years ago and didn't think the tone was all that great - it was OK but not great. However, at the time I was inexperienced as a reso player so it might have had a lot to do with the picker! Bottom line - I don't want a cheap reso that doesn't have the tone quality or volume to play in front of a crowd, but I have to justify spending over $2K for one. I'm very far from a professional, but will be playing in church and at other gatherings. Lastly, will the mahogany version of the two mentioned likely have plenty of volume - being they are the Scheerhorn design. Thanks for opinions.
I've played both. Neither held a candle to my Beard R. My experience of the Wechter was similar to yours. I liked the maple National Scheerhorn better than the mahogany version - it was brighter and livelier, although I found it unattractive. And I much prefer my Beard R. With up to $2000 to spend, I think you've got better options.
I forgot to say that, yes, the National Scheerhorns aremuch better than the Wechters. And if I didn't already have a guitar I like so well, I'd have bought the maple Scheerhorn.
The National Scheerhorn (Nati-horn) is potentially a much better guitar than guitar then the Wechter/Scheerhorn (frugal'horn).
Workmanship aside, superior materials. And solid wood as opposed to what I'm guessing is middle-of-the-road quality laminate or ply. I took a tour of National-Resophonic a few weeks ago and their attention to detail is as or more meticulous than any number of guitar manufacturers/builders I have visited. And they take a tremendous amount of pride in their work. I was on a business trip and it worked out that I could spend a few hours one day in San Luis Obispo and had a really great visit at National. That said, and it's not easy to quantify with a percentage, but I think a large percentage of what makes a resonator guitar sound good is in the setup.
Go back several years to ResoSummit in Nashville. In the "merch" area, Rob Ickes had for sale a Wechter/Scheerhorn Ickes model (icke'horn). Wechter was still in business at the time. I asked Rob if I could play it and he said sure. He was standing about 10 feet from me and he commented that he couldn't believe how loud this guitar was. And to my ears it had very good tone. He hadn't played it yet himself, then he told me Tim Scheerhorn had given it a fresh setup the day before. I really wanted to buy it to add to the herd but the trip to Nashville from California was already expensive enough and I knew I'd be treading on thin ice with Mrs. in Sonoma if I came home with a second guitar from the trip. But to me that guitar was in the top 50% of all the instruments at ResoSummit that week, and many of them that didn't sound as good were much more expensive.
I've never known what the actual difference was between the icke'horn (rosewood/spruce) and the lower priced models of the frugal'horn (maple and mahogany). They are all made of laminate wood with as I recall identical components. Aside from having to pay Rob some money for using his name, were these laminate woods of better quality, more along the lines of the excellent laminate Finnish birch used on the Beard Mike Auldridge model?
Fast forward to 2017, and click on the link below, scroll down and read the post from Andy King (Drewboy) and his experience of having his maple Nati-horn set up at the recent ResoSummit by once again, Tim Scheerhorn. And how this went from being a decent sounding guitar to a top notch instrument, and it even impressed Greg Booth - a "taskmaster" when it comes to tone.
When I was at National I was talking to a few of the folks there about Tim Scheerhorn, and they said he has spent a lot of time there getting things "right" with the Nati-horn guitars which bear his name. And this includes the ballpark 10 steps he employs in doing setups. But I have to wonder if that part of the equation is the more difficult process to teach to other luthiers as compared to actually building the things. Tim has said there is no significant difference between his own hand built L body guitars from the past vs. what they are doing at National.
I have kept track informally and I think I have played about 13 Nati-horns since they hit the market around four years ago. And I have to admit, some of them didn't impress me very much. I wonder if this is can be attributed to the setup?
Here is the link to the thread with Drewboy's post about the "revival" of his Nati-horn by Tim Scheerhorn:
I have owned both, a W/S and a National Scheerhorn. My first guitar was the W/S which sounded good but thin sounding but I had nothing else at the time to compare it to. Then I bought a used early-production Appalachian which sounded much better than the W/S but had some quality issues, so I sold it.
Later on I bought an early-production National-Scheerhorn and loved the sound but that too had a huge quality issue so I sent it back to where I bought it. I now own 2 Beard E's & both are great sounding guitars & so far I've had no issues whatsoever but, of course, they cost much more than the ones I've owned previously.
If I were buying today, I don't think I'd have an issue with buying another Appalachian or National-Scheerhorn, simply because the ones I owned were early-production models and I would think that both makers would have their kinks all worked out by now.
Brandon, you might consider the National Scheerhorn but buy it from a reputable dealer so if you don't like the sound, you can send it back & move on to something else and all it will cost you is the return shipment costs.
I only wish Tooter Meredith was still making guitars.
As others in this thread have noted, the Nati-horns are pretty variable; some sound good, others, not so much. If it's in your budget, I'd go with a Beard.
As others in this thread have noted, the Nati-horns are pretty variable; some sound good, others, not so much. If it's in your budget, I'd go with a Beard.
Is the variability in the Nati-horns attributable to the set up as discussed above? Paul Beard certainly has achieved a well deserved reputation for consistency especially in his R Mahogany and MA-6 guitars. I would expect that this is due to a well controlled process and attention to detail that is applied to all of his guitars.
I like Tony Polecastro and have in fact subscribed to his acoustic guitar teaching methods which I think are very good, but I think the sound quality of the demo (which I first saw a number of years ago) above wasn't so hot. Wouldn't inspire me back then to order a frugal'horn. And Brandon has owned a frugal'horn in the past anyway.
And as far as the Nati-horn, the one above is a maple. In the video below it is a mahogany played by the man himself, looks like a quiet moment in the National booth before the doors opened at 2104 NAMM at the Anaheim Convention Center.
It's another off-the-cuff video, but even so the guitar sounds very good to me in my headphones and I suspect it was set up by Tim for the trade show.
I was an early Wechter dealer about ten years ago, and I sold all of the Wechter Scheerhorns. They were all square necks. I also sold Gold Tone. The Rob Icks model, as I recall, was a great instrument. We had no problems, and i still see them at local jams. I sell Scheerhorns from natl now, and I'm adding Beard to the store.
