Oahu Acoustic Steels

[Mikel Nelson]

I'm interested in any opinions on old Oahu acoustic squareneck guitars. Sound? Things to look for? etc...

[D Schubert]

I have one of these -- small flattop body with painted-on white binding, black aluminum bridge, slotted peghead -- and it has a sweet tone but not a lot of volume -- hardly enough to play with other musicians IMHO. Would not even compare with a good Dobro in the volume department. But, I keep it near my big brown recliner, tuned in G or C6th to play late at night w/o waking up the rest of the family. If you plan to use it to "play out" you will need a pickup -- or extremely high microphone volume.

[Ian McLatchie]

Mikel: This topic has been covered a number of times before, most recently just a few weeks ago. An archive search should give you most of the information you need. There are a number of Kay-built Oahu acoustic Hawaiians, ranging from the student model D mentions above to one with highly ornate "tree of life" abalone inlay on the fretboard. They're all very good guitars, and the low-end models can often be picked up really cheap. As D says, they don't have huge volume, but the sound holes are too small to accommodate most soundhole pickups. One pickup that does fit is the Fishman humbucker. I tried one in my Hagar Hawaiian (essentially an Oahu under another brand name) and was quite impressed.