Wesley Conaught Electro-Acoustic

Tobacco Sunburst Finish with binding
Burr Ash Soundboard (laminated)
12cm Bowlback body
22.5 (angled) fret rosewood fingerboard (eBay spec says 24?!!)
Full Scale 41"
3 Band EQ with saddle pickup
Diecast Chrome Machine Heads

bought in 2005 from eBay.

Looks stunning (AI love wood grain).

This guitar is now (see below) sounding quite nice. The EQ is not brilliant but does its job. Little hum. I would not describe the sound as bright but I have heard worse. It is fairly loud unplugged, louder than I expected for such a cheap semi.
I use a Vox AC30CC1 and Tonelab SE.

It might benefit from some better (lighter) strings which I will try soon.

Action was miles too high. Intonation on the G-string was awful. I could not adjust it and complained to JW by email. He said it might be duff strings and sent me another set. This fixed the problem and I realised that the bridge was made for a wound G string, not plain (which it was originally sent with!).
Then proceeded to adjust nut slots, sand down saddle, adjust truss rod, etc. Now it plays quite well with no buzzes and lowish action.

The decoration around the sound-hole is a plastic tranfer. I still am not sure if the front finish is real or not, but it looks stunning.

Whilst removing the saddle, the piezo pickup seemed a bit flimsy/cheap, but seems to work OK.

Tuners seem OK and amp/EQ seems OK too but not brilliant.

Its obviously a budget guitar, but after some work, I now have a perfectly playable guitar which sounds perfectly acceptable and looks brilliant.

Only rated a 6 as setup was so bad, but would now rate it as 8.

Live playing would probably be OK and it feels solid enough. I don't gig and just use it to occasionally pick up and play rather than use an electric+amp.

JW was very helpful and responsive and sent me replacement strings. This is my 3rd JW! If you buy a JW and have any issues, just contact him and I am sure he will do his best to please you.
I have played Epiphones costing 4 times as much and far worse quality (the word 'firewood' springs to mind) - but the Wesleys are definitely good, solid, playable guitars (albeit budget woods/parts).

I play blues, pop, etc. Just a hobby/bedroom player. I have the eBay bug and have bought/sold about 15 guitars in the last 2 years and still have 10! For an electro-acoustic, this guitar is amazing value.
If lost/stolen I would probably replace it, but look for a more expensive semi next time maybe. It is the only semi I have owned though and I haven't played that many. I played acoustic for about 10 yrs, then lapsed for 20 yrs, and am now bitten by the e-guitar bug when my son said he wanted to learn.

I'll give this an 8 due to the fact that you get a perfectly playable semi with a decent sound for an unbelievable price!

I can only guess at the year of manufacture, 2005? and the site claims they are hand crafted. The price precludes this, they are more likely to be bought in kit form and assembled/finished by Wesley. 23 well finished/dressed frets on a rosewood? fretboard with a laminated top and shallow resin cutaway body. It's fitted with a bog standard bridge pickup, with onboard 3 band eq, but it works well enough with good overall balance on string output. Die cast tuners of unknown make, reasonably thin frets sit well on a 'thinnish' neck. It came supplied with a 3 metre jack cable and truss rod key.

I wasn't expecting much from a electro-acoustic guitar at this price (#95 in total, inc delivery, insurance, vat) but was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it's no Martin, or even Ovation killer, but the sound is pretty bright, tho' there isn't much sustain. The onboard eq can help give a wide-ish choice of sound. Both played acoustically and thro' a Roland Microcube, it's fair to say I'm impressed.

It came fitted with light gauge bronze wound strings, and the action was playable right out of the box. With a bit of judicious tweaking of the truss rod, then sanding the bridge saddle down, the action is now excellent. Intonation was spot on. I know this is frowned upon, but I've always replaced bronze wound strings with nickle wound of a much lighter gauge, in my case a set of 10's. The difference the lower tension has made to the action has to be seen to be believed, it's now as good as any electric guitar I've played, and best of all, not a hint of fret buzz anywhere. If I was being ultra critical, I'd have to say the binding wasn't perfect, but having said that, there's only a couple of minor flaws.

I have my doubts as to whether this guitar could withstand a lot of live use, but as a backup guitar, or for home use, it will do nicely for me. The finish overall is excellent, and the strap buttons are solid.

Other than actually buying this guitar, I've had minimal contact with Wesley, other than to let them know via email it had arrived safely. There is a years warranty.

I've been playing on and off for a number of years now, and was looking for a cheap acoustic for hose days when setting up my electric, amp, etc was just too much trouble LOL I found a link to Wesley guitars and thought, at the price, this guitar was worth taking a chance on, I'm glad I did. I could have got the same guitar in a different colour, a lot cheaper via their ebay auctions, but I wanted a tobacco sunburst model. The bottom line is, I would have happily paid treble the price for this guitar from a shop, if anything happened to it, I'd get another in a heartbeat. Highly recommended if mine is typical.