National Tricone Hollowneck polished nickel plated brass

This series are hand made in the USA. They are limited in number (mine is 007). As an acoustic tri-cone, there are no controls. The most unique thing about this guitar is that it has a hollow square neck constructed as an extension of the body (i.e.: brass with a highly polished nickel plate finish). It utilizes a spider bridge.



UTILIZATION

Since it is played with a steel, it is easy to get to any point on the fretboard (and, heck, it even has frets just for show). It is very easy to get a nice sound and that sound is a bit of history all by itself. It is equally adept at sweet Hawaiian music or the roughest blues.

It has a very wide dynamic range and is very resonant with a long sustain. This is wonderful but it does imply that a new player will take a while to tame this beast with fine dynamic control.

SOUNDS

I love the blues sound this guitar makes. Particularly the ability to move from almost silence to venus filling levels. The bridge is very effective at exciting sympathetic resonances across the strings. So much so that you can hear that effect increase dramatically as you tune the strings and or get your intonation just correct. Also this can be modulated with a slight vibrato.

OVERALL OPINION

The appearance is spectacular (but get some polish and a few micro finer cloths and be sure to clean of your acidic fingerprints after each use). The build quality is impressive. It is hard to believe that it is possible to hand form metal to such a level. It is expensive but the cost shows in every aspect of the guitar and its sound

I'm lucky enough to live close to a store with a wide selection of redo guitar's in stock. They pulled out nearly a dozen and let me play as long as desired. They even had a vintage version to compare to. This was my favourite and I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.