My friend, who shall remain un-named for the purposes of this story, ordered a Custom Halo about 11 months ago, and it came in a few weeks ago, and went back out a bit later. The company gave him a runaround, making all sorts of lies as to the production status of his piece, and he used to work for a Halo DEALER, to boot.
He had ordered a Les Paul body shape, 24 fret set-neck, with Duncan Blackouts and a Kahler bridge. He said he paid about $1100 for it. I had the (dis)pleasure of seeing this guitar before it was returned to Halo. It played fine, and the blackouts sounded great. However, the Trem was not mounted properly on the body, the pickup rings were just generics, and when installed, they were torquing, and it just... looked like crap. The body was painted red, just as he requested, with an unpainted neck, but the masking job was terrible. There was red paint on the neck heel, as if it was masked, and when painted, the paint seeped under the tape and onto the neck, not the proper way of painting the body and then setting-in the neck.
After some friendly arm-twisting by my friend, the president told him that his guitar had not actually been made in the USA shop, but in China (honestly, we weren't surprised).
He's keeping the Pickups and the Kahler, and the rest of the guitar went back for a refund less parts. It's a damn shame, really, because I've played several Halo guitars, and they were rather nice, and they some really cool designs, and was considering ordering one for a while. But now, I just can't justify dropping the bank on a guitar that might conceivably have such an ordeal attached.
He had ordered a Les Paul body shape, 24 fret set-neck, with Duncan Blackouts and a Kahler bridge. He said he paid about $1100 for it. I had the (dis)pleasure of seeing this guitar before it was returned to Halo. It played fine, and the blackouts sounded great. However, the Trem was not mounted properly on the body, the pickup rings were just generics, and when installed, they were torquing, and it just... looked like crap. The body was painted red, just as he requested, with an unpainted neck, but the masking job was terrible. There was red paint on the neck heel, as if it was masked, and when painted, the paint seeped under the tape and onto the neck, not the proper way of painting the body and then setting-in the neck.
After some friendly arm-twisting by my friend, the president told him that his guitar had not actually been made in the USA shop, but in China (honestly, we weren't surprised).
He's keeping the Pickups and the Kahler, and the rest of the guitar went back for a refund less parts. It's a damn shame, really, because I've played several Halo guitars, and they were rather nice, and they some really cool designs, and was considering ordering one for a while. But now, I just can't justify dropping the bank on a guitar that might conceivably have such an ordeal attached.