Pawar Guitars of Willoughby Hills, Ohio makes an outrageously beautiful and functional guitar. No question it is one of the most original aesthetic and functional designs around.

First of all the beauty and workmanship is first rate as a handmade guitar should be. The incorporation of a Florentine scroll, like a Gibson F model mandolin makes this guitar strikingly different than any guitar I've seen. The wonderful beveling of the top is also of note.

Using swamp ash rather than alder, a maple top, flamed maple neck with a rosewood fretboard the guitar is highly thought out in woods.

The string through body setup is a very cogent way of making this kind of guitar. The sustain is outstanding and the feel of the string tension is solid but not stiff.

The most amazing thing about the playability is the neck shape, which is in the middle of neck configurations, not too fat and not too skinny. This is in a 25 and ½ scale length with fantastic accessibility to the upper frets.

According to the literature that came with the guitar the necks are spoken of a beefy or chunky. Pawar attests to their research that a larger neck makes a guitar louder acoustically and more stable than smaller counterparts. I can say that the neck is very comfortable and doesn't feel big, it feels just right. The string spacing is pretty common Gibson type and is 1 and 11/16th wide.

The extreme playability may also be due to what Pawar calls a dual radius fretboard. The bass side of the fretboard has a round 7" radius while the treble side has a flatter 10" radius. The guitar is also fretted with jumbo frets.

The guitar is triple chambered, one the control cavity, two across from the control cavity to balance the guitar and three is the scroll, left open to give the guitar a sweeter and louder acoustic sound. The result is a light guitar with substantial resonance.

This is a set neck guitar. The stability of the neck, according to the amount of pressure that I put on it just to see what kind of fret-out I could produce is about like a Les Paul. You really have to pull to fret-out and therefore it is well stabled and the feel is like that of a tank.

The finish of the guitar is urethane and Jay Pawar suggests that this is a finish that is allowed to breathe with wood contraction and expansion and keep as luster longer than lacquer and prevents finish checking. As jay Pawar says it may matter on an acoustic guitar it doesn't matter on the Pawar as he has tried many different finishes and finds the urethane to be louder.

As far as the lack of fretboard markers are concerned Pawar maintains that most players don't need to inlay to mark position. Myself, I never look at the fretboard. Also Jay Pawar logically attests to the fact that builders talk about the tone of particular fretboard woods and then go about removing up to 30% of the wood to inlay markers and pretty stuff. Very good point!

The sound of this guitar is just incredible! The specially designed Seymour Duncan pickups foster what is called The Pawar Positive Tone System (trade mark) and features a 5-position toggle switch with two push/pull knobs.

There are five "zones" that come from the toggle switch position. There are the Lead zone, Twang zone, Dual zone, California zone and the Rhythm zone. With a combination of the push/pull knobs the guitar has 20 different tones that are highly useful and covers most single and dual coiled sounds plus some that don't really exist in the repertory of standard sounds.

The pickups are powerful and clear. I went from guitar to guitar around the shop and this guitar is as individual as Juha Ruokangas' Dukebuckers. It has just a smashing guitar sound and sweet as mother's pie. It is just an outstanding guitar sound and one of my favorite guitars in this respect.

I think that the string through body retainer is another feature of this guitar that contributes to the fine sustain and resonance. It turns the body into a soundboard and the guitar is acoustically loud. The strings pass through brass tubes that come flush with the top, which makes for another aesthetically original idea.

This guitar, handmade and as original as it can bee is a bargain at $2500 when you consider that a Paul Reed Smith, in this level of features costs a thousand more.

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