How I owned a Washburn WG10S ... for 3 days

The Washburn WG10 is part of the Washburn Heritage Series. This series currently boasts 16 acoustic guitars of various body types. Washburn has been producing guitars for more than a century now so they do know a thing or two about crafting remarkable pieces of instruments. 

When last year I was looking for an acoustic with a grand auditorium body, I set my eye on a Washburn WG10 for a number of reasons.

PThe WG10 currently retails for 250-300 USD, which seems like an unbeatable price for the value you are getting out of this guitar:

• Solid sitka spruce top
• laminated mahagony side and back
• mahagony neck
• rosewood fretboard

There is also a pickup equipped version called Washburn WG10S CE, but I could not locate that model anywhere, when I was looking around last year. In fact, nobody even had the WG10S in stock at the usual shops I frequent, so I ordered one from Amazon. Yes, without trying it before. And yes, I had to send it back. Why? 

The Washburn WG10 is an amazing piece of instrument with a very warm, rich tone and excellent playability on the neck. I was hoping to use this guitar primarily for fingerpicking and tone-wise, it was spot on. Well balanced through out the scale, with articulated mid range for melody.... you cannot imagine anything better for this money. The printing around the sound hole was kind of cheap, but hey, we are talking about 250 dollars here. The Washburn WG10S could have been the best guitar deal of my life (well, actually that would be the aria electric guitar I bought for 60 euros) but this instrument is let down by the quality of the neck. More specifically, the back of the neck. I suspect the final lacquer coating used on the neck must be something very cheap as when I moved my hand up and down during playing and gripping (and gripping is key in fingerpicking) it produced an unwanted, fairly loud squeaky noise. Another reason could be that the neck was not real mahagony or was poorly constructed after the tossing rod was inserted. 

It might never turn out, but I have never experienced such loud noises  produced by simply moving a on the back of the neck. It was really annoying and even though the sound of the guitar was convincing, the sound of the neck was not. So I had to send it back. Too bad, Washburn.