Two new guits, finally!

Johnny Storm

That's one way to pack a guitar


This guit has the smallest pots I've ever seen. But they do work OK.




The strings seem to be quite high off the face of the guitar.



It has a HUGE thick neck:



Now on to the main course:-


They've got to be kiddin'










Curvey.


Case candy


The all-important ashtray cover.

Quattroste

Wahey! Nice one Johnny. Love the strat, your into the maple neck on your strats aren't you.

Tell me.... is there much of a difference when you A/B the CIJ and the USA strat? I talking about the tone not the feel.

I want new stuff!

Johnny Storm

Thanks Q!
Yes, gotta be a maple neck on a Strat as far as I am concerned.
Actually there is a very different tone but I would put that down mainly to the pickups. The CIJ has Texas Specials which have a thick middy sound while the EJ has pups based on original 1957 pups (or something) which have more top and bottom.
The fit and finish is very comparable, which is a testimony to the CIJ considering the difference in price. e.g. The MIA has noticeable lacquer on the frets and the side of the nut but the CIJ does not.

It wasn't me!

Both looking gorgeous there, good job man, Ancient1 may kill you horribly for that strat though.

feylya

Mmm, CAR strats

Ravelleman

You are my hero.

Voodu Child

Whoever packed that V should be shot, i've seen guitars in hardcases smashed to bits after postage...

Those EJ strats are supposed to be real nice, congrats:D

Ancient1

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny....what am I going to do with you?

Congrats man, the V just oozes sex. Now we have to get you a pipe as well.

As for the Strat...*sigh* oh man.

scubagit

Lovely V. Always had a love for em. Trying to make out the name though, can you help?

Johnny Storm

Pipe ? And slippers? :eek:

The V is a Korean Tokai, some previous owner has put Sperzel tuners on it and a Duncan of some sort in the bridge. I kind of bought it on a whim TBH :rolleyes:

Quattroste

Pipe, bong, you know the story!

What is the V actually like Johnny. To be honest I think you outbid me on that guitar. Thanks though cos it was weak moment and I didn't have the money.

Doctor J

No, no, he really means a pipe, old school

The V is a bluesman's guitar

Doctor J

Nice guitars, btw. I demand more of the EJ strat, more pics more reviews, more everything

Johnny Storm

Doctor J wrote:

No, no, he really means a pipe, old school

The V is a bluesman's guitar

I get it now, I probably shouldn't have done that last bowl ... :rolleyes:

Johnny Storm

Quattroste wrote:

Pipe, bong, you know the story!

What is the V actually like Johnny. To be honest I think you outbid me on that guitar. Thanks though cos it was weak moment and I didn't have the money.

Jaysus, sorry about that, Quottroste. I PM'd you with the details of the auction I "won". These days you can only see the other bidders as "bidder1, bidder2" etc. It was very much a spur of the moment thing for me too. I set AuctionSniper to slip in a bid with only a few seconds to go and forgot about it. I was actually very surprised when I "won" it because there had been a lot of active bidding.

I thought I was being smart because for some reason I believed that because it has a set neck that it was not a MIK Tokai so I thought maybe the seller had misidentified it. But in fact the MIKs do have set necks.

Its a nice looking guitar, if it's the one we're both thinking about the sellers description is quite accurate. Frets are in fine shape although it has plenty of minor dings and dongs, possibly some bongs too. No need to try to keep it precious! There was a lot of yucky fingerjam in the pickguard screws etc.

The first thing you notice about it is that the neck is really enormous, the proverbial baseball bat. This might not be to everybody's taste but at this stage of my life I have completely gone over to the dark side on the issue of chunky necks. Bring 'em on, the chunkier the better! I find I can play just as well (or badly, really) for longer on a chunky neck and my hand stays a lot more relaxed. The back of the neck has a very slick, slippery lacquer coating.

This example is very head heavy. With a nylon strap it's natural balance point is with the head about 2 inches off the ground. This is easily fixed with a leather strap. Despite the size of the thing the whole guitar is actually very light.

The shape of the guitar and the position of the strap hooks means that it hangs a good 6 or more inches to the left of where a strat hangs so it feels like you are really having to reach out a long way to get to the first fret. No way you can play this guitar while sitting on the sofa.

The volume for the bridge pick up is the middle knob which is a little confusing and a bit of a reach from where your hand normally is.

The TOM bridge is kind of out there on its own in the middle of the guitar because the strings drop fairly sharply into the tailplate. Its been a while since I've played a Gibson-a-like and compared to most other guitars the straings seem to be very high off the face of the guitar. As I mentioned the pots are tiny, only about 1 cm accross. Also the way the Duncan is soldered in is a bit hairy looking but it all works.

Sound-wise it's the usual hot 'bucker sound. In fact the neck Tokai pup sounds a bit better than the Duncan in the bridge but the heights probably could do with some more adjusting. Sounds good but not anything amazing.

PS does anyone know how to identify what kind of Duncan this might be?

So in general its a nice guitar, easy to play, good sound, looks great. It has some features that are just different and will take a bit of getting used to and of course you can only play standing up.

The_g-man

Damn sweet CAR strat man, wish I had one.....:(

Doctor J

Johnny Storm wrote:

PS does anyone know how to identify what kind of Duncan this might be?

It should have a sticker on the back with a code.

Johnny Storm

Doctor J wrote:

Nice guitars, btw. I demand more of the EJ strat, more pics more reviews, more everything

EJ on the left, you can see that the way the neck joins the headstock is quite different from the CIJ on the right. You can also see the staggered tuners.









I think I'm loosing my guitar-pic taking mojo but in this next shot you can see how easy it is to scratch the nitro finish. The good news is that my 8 year old is recovering from his injuries as well as can be expected. I on the other hand may never recover from the psychological trauma of seeing this happen to my new axe ON THE DAY I GOT IT AHGGGGGGG!



Anyway, what's it like to play? Well, the thing that jumps out at you is the pick-ups. They sound raunchy and aggressive. They make you want to give the guitar a good spanking. Very rock and roll, I can't imagine a 1957 strat sounded anything like this, but who knows?
It seems to want to make a Rory Gallagher kind of sound. The tone pots work on the bridge and neck pups so unusually the mid pup is wide open. It sounds really good. Bridge/mid sounds great too. In fact it all sounds amazing and somehow different in a good way from what I was expecting from an Eric Johnson strat.

The neck is pretty thick (although pencil-thin compared to the V). As noted on the F****rforum the neck finish does have a kind of sticky quality which oddly seems to come and go. MAybe something to do with teh temperature or humidity? The action is really low, in fact its so low I'm going to have to reevaluate the actions on all my other guitars.

The contour on the back of the guitar is cut really deeply so the guitar snuggles into your belly. Similar to the Fly. Very comfortable and feels great when its on.

The 8 hole pickguard is pretty funny, it wont stay flat to the surface of the guitar. You can understand why they went to 11 hole ASAP.

Summary: deadly. Only thing that it needs is the large Jimi headstock and a scratch-proof finish.

Doctor J

Nice. Real nice. I was out of the strat-with-single-coils place but the EJ strat brings me right back

Yakult

Wow beautiful man!!

fish-head

You lucky, lucky baaarstard.