Arbor Strat

Made in China, ca 2005. Has basic Strat setup, S/S/S, 5-way switch, tremelo bridge. Made of Basswood with a quilted maple top (photofinish? hey, it looks great), maple neck, rosewood fingerboard. Mother of Toilet Seat pickguard and gold hardware. This is really a beautiful ax. I haven't changed anything so it's the factory pups, tuners, etc. 25.5 inch scale, neck feels a hair wide to me compared to most strats but I won't guarantee that as fact. I give the features a 9 - it has everything it's supposed to have on it.

I love blues/classic rock/classic country/some jazz - if I could play better, I'd play all those styles. I believe I could use this guitar for any of those. I play through a Peavey 112 express and occasionally use a distortion pedal (TS-9). The neck and neck/middle selections yield a buttery, thick sound that I absolutely love. Think Santana. The bridge pickup is sharp and piercing. The tone knobs are good, and give you ample selection to dial in your preferred sound. The middle pup is not reverse wound/polarity so there is the basic hum but I don't find it troublesome. I give it an 8, limited by the hum but really it does what you'd expect from 3 single coils and a 5 way. I can't reliably compare it to a Fender Strat - I've played them but I'm no conoisseur. I only ask it to sound good to me. I fully expected to be changing out the pickups, but now I'm afraid that might be a mistake.

Fit and finish is very good- no complaints at all. Paint is perfect, neck pocket is tight, pickguard sits flat, bridge lines up and the neck is beautiful. Frets don't cut my fingers. The action was OK when I got it, but I lowered it. The trussrod did not need adjusting at all. I did raise the bridge pickup a tad - that made tons of difference. The tuners? I rarely find this guitar out of tune by more than a few cents unless I've put it through a big temperature change (I live in Texas - it can face some heat on the way to a gig).

The guitar seems to be built fine. I trust the tuners, the bridge and the electronics now. I will say that next to my trusty Peavey T60 (Les Paul-heavy)this is so light that it didn't feel right to me. I've gotten over that, though. I have played it live but understand that my gigs are limited. If I was touring, I'd take it, but I'd definitely change the straplocks. That is the one thing I don't trust. I give it a 7 due to just not having really tested it.

Haven't needed them.

I bought this guitar because I needed an electric- the price was right and it looked nice. There was only one review of a late-model Arbor and it was good, so I took the chance. I actually intended to resell it after a while. I still have it. I've now bought and sold several electrics. My T60 is my clear favorite, but I'm quite happy with this one as well. I love the sound, it looks great, and simply does what I ask of it very well. Good bang for the buck. If it were stolen, I'd shop around (hey, I do have G.A.S.)but might very well end up with another.

This is a typical Strat copy.It is white with a slight pearliness to the finish.Pretty sweet.One piece maple neck,cheap covered tuners,21 jumbo frets,ply-I mean laminated hardwood body.Not sure when or where it was made.I bought from a local store as a rental return in 1985,cherry condition with HSC for $235. Known in our family as Whitey.

This guitar stays tuned down a half step for SRV,LLB,Trower and Hendrix stuff and sounds great.I mainly run this through Cry baby wah and a Cyber-Twin that has some clean and boosted SRV type presets as well as a factory preset called "Trowerful" that once a little high end is added(a personal preference)sounds awesome.The pick ups look a little oversized and compared to my Peavey Predator,Whitey does sound abit fuller.No reverse wound mid pickup so it can be noisy but I don't mind.I mostly use the neck and neck/mid pickups and this guitar can be real inspiring.Also sound good through my Peavey Studio Pro 112.This amp along with the Cry Baby and a DOD Vibro Thang is a blast for Band Of Gypsy jamming(lead channel,high gain setting).

Overall build quality seems good.I have reset the bridge a couple of times since I bought but never had to fool with the neck.As the action is now it it as low or lower than my Epiphone Les Paul std +.About 10 years ago I considered replacing the tuners with some Schaller Minis because a couple of the tuners were hard to turn.For the heck of it,I applied some WD-40 to the tuning pegs with a Q-tip.So much for new tuners.

When I was in a band a year or so ago this guitar was the backup mailny because many of the cover songs we played needed humbuckers and 22 frets(UFO,Santana,Allman Bros.etc.).Other than that this guitar seem solid.It doesn't break strings often and still looks great.

Haven't needed them.I was actually inspired to write this review after seeing some Arbor stuff offered at Amazon.com a couple of days ago(gassing for an Agile al-2000 p90).I wasn't sure Arbor was still around,glad it is.

I have been playing for about 30 years.As well as the guitars mentioned earlier I have other copy type stuff as well(Ibanez and Cort Flying v's,Squier Fat Tele and Jagmaster,Ibanez as-73 335 type).If anything happened to Whitey I'm not sure what I'd do as this guitar has sentimental value.The only thing I have considered changing is maybe setting up the bridge to float a little.This guitar looks great,sounds fine and is fun to play.

Opaque red Stratocaster style guitar. Made in China. 3 single coils and 5-way selector switch. Maple neck with rosewood fingerboard. Body material unknown. Year of manufacture unknown, but still had the plastic covering on pickguard. Bought used but in mint condition.

I play hard rock, blues, alternative, etc. I have 2 guitars with humbuckers and was trying to rationalize buying a third one that has single coils for variation. I play through a fender Hot Rod Deluxe Special Edition with a Celestion speaker. Guitar is not noisy at all.
I was thinking of buying the Special Edition Mexican vintage style Strat with the reverse peghead or maybe even an American Strat. As God is my witness, this Arbor has better tone. It has all the traditional Stratocaster tones, but has a sweetness and color to the tone that the others didn't. This was a used guitar in stone mint condition and Guitar Center said that I could adopt it for $89. With the tons of cash I saved, I bought a set of Schaller tuners and a set of Schaller straplocks for it. Total investment: $135

Now, I don't believe for one second that the electronic components in this made in China guitar are as good as good ol' USA parts. But if anything ever goes wrong with anything, the primary tone is so good that it would be worth replacing anything that failed. Pickups sound fabulous and I wouldn't even consider replacing them. Neck is straight, and plays beautifully. How can that be? How can this guitar sound and look so good ???? Red paint on body is nice and thick and flawless. Intonation was actually just a tiny bit off, and I adjusted the pickup height a bit to Fender factory specs.

I replaced the tuners, which are the only weak part of the guitar. It now has Schallers. Strap buttons are exactly like Fender, but I replaced them with Schaller ones.

Unknown

I have been playing 30 years. I also have a 2000 customized Gibson SG Special. It's walnut (not faded) with a white pickguard, Grovers, Schaller straplocks, and Gibson '57 Classic humbuckers. I also have a new Fender Jaguar HH that is black with a custom white pearl pickguard. Even without the price factored in, this Arbor Stratocaster is an absolute gem. Either I got lucky, or they know how to build guitars in China. Go figure.

basic strat w/ a humbucker in bridge position. Has a ssh setup w/ a five way selector knob..the whammy bar is useless, but the neck is nice..it was not half as bent as i would have expected, with a little bit of work i got the neck in tune. The tuners suck..get new ones. The color is nice, and doesn't scratch easy. The thing really is a tank. Unbreakable man. Great stage guitar, u can do flips and stuff and not worry to much. I would recomend a strap locking system. Overall, this guitar sounds ok.

Sound overall is nice. This guitar is cheaper and better than squiers. I play through a zoom, the clean sound is ok, but overdrive is nice with all the pickups. The humbucker is much louder than the rest, but is sorta nice for a boost. The single coil is real gritty. I can get a perfect chili peppers sound with this guitar.

ok...action will need work. Finish is tough.

this guitar is a tank...TANK

support...i dont think the company exists anymore

fairly good...i'd buy as a backup or a starter guitar...tough

My guess is this guitar would have to be an 80's model, probably a 1982-87. It kind of reminds me of the strat Paul Dean (Loverboy) played on thier first album, except without a Tune-O-Matic. It was probably made in Korea or Taiwan, for reasons you will soon see. It has 21 Jumbo frets, the standard strat controls (5-way selector, volume, and tone controls for the neck and middle pickup), passive electronics, and the pickups are much the same as the kind found in Harmony, Hondo, Memphis, and many other cheap Strat copies and cheap guitars that use strat style single coils, which are not really strat style pikcups (the bobbin and siring is placed in a VERY tall pickup cover and epoxied in place with paraffin wax, then a metal cover is glued over the bottom). The body is made of 38 mm plywood with some really extreme radiusing for a cheap strat copy (rivaling Fender with a smooth look). The neck is a one piece maple neck with a rosewood "skunk stripe" down the back. The bridge is a variant on the cheap Strat copy bridges, this time having a really nead hang-over of metal that hides the tops of the intonation adjustment screws, making it look almost like a Kramer Rockinger trem. The tuners are the same cheap jobbies Harmony and Memphis used, except the one the previous owner swapped out. The neck is a thin C profile with a 25.5" scale. There are 2 50's style string trees on the headstock. I got this guitar with a quazi-hard-shell case (cardboard covered in cheap tolex), a red Earnie Ball strap, and a tremelo bar, and a cheap 4' cable. It's pretty much a usual strat with some minor details.

Let's compare this two two other well known guitars that I have owned in the Stratocaster copy category. One was a Harmony Strat copy I bought for $10 in high school, the other was a Squier Affinity Strat I gave to an ex-girlfriend awhiles back (which eventually got stolen, I'm still mad about that). This guitar, even with a plywood body, is quite a bit better than the both of them!

It suits my playing style about as well as all Strats do, on occasion! I'm typically a hopped up Surf-Guitar player (who plays heavy metal), but this guitar seems to hold it's own when I need that stratty, glass-like, tone.

So far I've run this through a Digitech RP-200A (which my mom's dumbass kittie pee'd on and ultimatly killed), an Epiphone SC28 Stereo Chorus amp, and needless to say, this guitar sounds good anywhere, which is a shocker given the cheap hardware! Most Strat copies in the "plywood and piezo pickup" class have some bad points (microphonic feedback problems being the worst), this guitar does not squeal at all at high volumes, which is highly impressive being another average plywood strat copy.

The sound is like a good vintage strat, a very thick and full twang with a smooth as glass clean tone, but with distortion characteristics that are still thin on comparison to humbuckers, but no so thin that it's like razor blades being chucked at one's ears when said instrument is being played.

As far as sounds, it makes the usual, popular, run-of-the mill strat tones, just properly, but how it get's them on Korean el-cheapo hardware is beyond me.

I bought this from a Pawn Shop on the fact that it DID NOT WORK. The action was pretty normal for a second hard strat that apparently has hardly been played hard, and just needed minimal adjustment. However, this proved to be a pain in the arse because the steel hex screws that adjusted the action were rusted in tight on the A string, and on the others it took some coaxing from a pair of pliars and a modified hex wrench to break most free, but the one's on the A-string are dead stuck right now as they were rusted in the tightest.

The pickups were pretty well adjusted right off, I changed them just a tad to perfection, but they were already pretty close when I bought this guitar.

The only other REAL flaw (outside the electronics) was the mismatched tuning machine on the headstock.

I got this guitar on a flaw though, as when I attempted to try it out at the Pawn Shop, it would not work. I thought it was bad wiring or similar, but it turned out that it was, as the guitar had been sitting on the shelf for so long without being played, the control pots and 5-way switch had corroded to the point that they would not pass current along, but with some tuner cleaner I managed to coax the guitar out of it's neglect-induced coma, and now it is almost like a brand new guitar. The finish on it is almost perfect aside from a small series of dings on the bottom corner of the body on the treble side.

I've had this guitar 2 weeks now, with strings that are god knows how old on it (The same ones I bought it with), and I have not had a single problem with it so far aside from neglect based problems of very minor nature. At this point I can say I would probably perform without a backup, but then, this is not my #1 axe, the Jag-Stang I have is. However, it is my main (and only normal) strat. I'm quite shocked how the pots and switches work so well after being gunked up for so long.

I don't even have a clue if Arbor is still around, I heard that their stuff was made by Ibanez, but I'm not totally sure. I doubt I'll need them anyway, when something goes wrong with one of my guitars, it's modification time!

I've been playing almost 10 years, and owned almost twice as many guitars. I own a Jag-Stang, Kramer Focus 3000, Kramer Striker, Double Fat Tele Deluxe, a few custom home bres, a First Act Discovery, and a B.C. Rich bass, as well as a Yamaha Classical, Yamaha keyboard, and a ton of other musical stuff, and needless to say, this guitar makes a nice addition, expecially for $40.00, a Music Yo! Kramer Focus VT-111 costs more than that!

This time it's not going to get stolen, that's for sure. No longer am I giving anymore guitars away to "girlfriends" so if you ever get to know me and date me, don't ask! Once is enough. If it actually did manage to find it's way into the other guy's hands, they would suffer a fate approximate to death, for I do believe in the 2nd ammendment, especially where my guitars are involved.

I like this guitar better than my last few strats, it don't know why, I guess it just kinda' spoke to me, it was the lowly little "no-name" at the end of the rack that looked like it had been there awhile, it even had dust draping off the horns, something just said "take me home, with just a little minor doctoring, I'll work like new", apparently I was right, or I'm just crazy.

Anyway, this is a decent guitar I could see going for roughly as much as a used Squier Strat on the norm. My Squier did not sound as good as this guitar does!

nice red finish on a very heavy guitar, tremelo works well. took the neck off and found out this sucker is mahogany. 3 way switch works well. but, it isn't a 5 way. the neck is nice and it has 21 medium jumbo frets. 2 humbuckers deliver the goods, and how.

distortion and rich, full sounds come from this guitar with little effort. i am running it through a classic crybaby and a ts-9/808 into a fender champ and it sounds great!

this is an 80's used guitar, so i am not sure how the factory sent it out. but, it plays great, with low action and nice, medium jumbo frets.

hey, over twenty years of play and it is going strong.

a much better buy than a cheap starter guitar from china, or someplace. better than a squier, better than a fender from the 80's. i would buy another arbor i saw in a pawn shop, just based on the quality of this guitar. if it were stolen, or broke on me, i would find another one.

this is an early 80's arbor strat copy, black. abalone inlayed headstock with 'arbor' and the logo at the top. nice black finish on mahogany... a little heavy compared to other strat copies. luckily, it's a double cutaway body. 2 aftermarket les paul zebra motherbuckers... tremelo bar...tele style bridge, 21 jumbo frets, two volume, one tone and a three way switch... one complaint: when playing through both pickups, turning volume way down on one will turn both pickups down. i converted it to a lefty and added a copper pickguard i made myself that probably added another 2 lbs... a very nice looking and well laid out guitar.

the two motherbucker pickups give you quite a range.but, i am not sure what the originals would deliver.

slim neck makes this a nice player. similar to a '64 fender mustang in feel. 21 frets is good, but i would prefer 22.

i just converted it and i have nothing but high expectations, but have no idea what to expect. it seems solid enough and it has been around 20+ years. stays in tune and sounds great.

i got this on ebay and expected it to have a fair share of problems, as 90% of the $@!& on ebay does. i was relieved to find that this guitar was in very playable shape. i bid early and noone bid against me. she was worth double, or triple what i paid for her, easy.

New 2003 model quality wood. Basic strat configeration on tone and volumn,tremelo arm,tuners. The pickups are great. Sounds as good as any USA standard. Sunburst finish.

I play SRV and have 2 classic fenders and play thru a bluebreaker and a jcm900 2 stock heads 4 cabnets. I get a full bright sound and always start of my sets with my Arbor. Tremelo arm work great,as good as my Fenders.

Plays like walking on silk. All positions work up the neck. Fast neck. I cant find a flaw in this guitar

I have had this guitar on the road for 3 months. It holds up like a
brick.

If it got lost I would get another without a blink of an eye. I am
looking for another arbor in black. As long as my Fenders sit in the closet keeping well preserved I feel safe.

Features? It's your typical strat copy. Well, sort of. 21 fret. Solid green body, kind of a speckled metallic olive green. 5 way selector, s/s/h pickups. neck seems to be maple w/ maple fingerboard, nice n' fast actually. Normal strat type vibrato rocking bridge. crappy tuners. I would guess jumbo frets. I'm giving it a 7 because....well, why not. It's got the basics.

Well, the sound is what amazed me. When I first plugged it in, the closest amp at hand was my old pignose 30/60, and with the rythym pickup I got that nice bluesy sound I like. This guitar has been beat to death (nearly), I was quite surprised! Other pickups are okay, but the nice throaty neck pickup is what does it for me, SRV!

Okay, as I mentioned before, this is a beater guitar. I got it from a friend of a friend that stopped by at 1 in the morning. It was all messed up when I got it. The neck was bowed, but it adjusted perfectly in 5 minutes with a little truss rod adjustment. The bridge was missing screws for the E string height adjustment. The body has all kinds of dents and dings.

What I like about this guitar is I can just grab it anytime and don't worry about scratching it like I would worry with one of my good guitars. The neck has a really nice feel, in fact, I think I might even like it better than my main guitar, which is an epiphone strat copy. The frets are nice and level, it just has a good overall feel. One thing, the neck is a left handed neck, which makes it 'upside down', so the tuners are on the bottom. Believe it or not, once you get used to it, it's very easy to tune. Everything seems to be pretty well fitted together, and considering the abuse this axe has seen, I'm sure it was pretty nice when it was new.

You could probably throw this thing out of a car at 60 mph and it would probably bounce a few times and just laugh at you. It's built like a tank. It's got dings, scratches, hell, even little chunks missing out of the body and a couple places that look like a woodpecker had a snack. This guitar has seen some serious battle.

Right now I wouldn't use it live because I want to put some decent tuners on it, other than that, it's apparent this guitar can take anything you dish out to it. But now that it's mine, it will be treated with TLC and I'll be getting some replacement parts. But I'm not gonna try and refinish the body or anything, it gives it 'character', that's for sure. Everyone should have a guitar they can just grab and play without worrying if their hands are dirty or have to worry about bumping it against something. This guitar gets played. Strap buttons are solid as a rock. Pickups don't move. The 1/4" jack hasn't given me any problems. It's solid.

arbor who?

I've been playing 33 years, since I was 12. My other guitars are an epiphone strat (nice!), and a very unusual Lotus double cutaway electric, a Fender La Brea acoustic/electric (cutaway), and a Sammick bass. My two main guitar amps are my Silvertone 1482, all tube, made in 1965, and a peavey classic 50 combo 212. I have a zoom 2100 effects processor on my pedalboard, along with an ancient Maestro Fuzz Phaser wah pedal. For bass, I have a Yamaha B-100 combo amp.

If it were stolen or lost I wouldn't be happy, because this guitar kind of grows on you, and like I said, it's good to have a guitar just laying around you can pick up anytime and not worry about getting it dirty or scratched or whatever. One thing I've noticed, is the neck seems a little wider at the nut than my epiphone strat, which is a little more comfortable for the 'open' chords. Once I do the work on this axe I plan for it, I think it will be a very nice axe actually, it's got a lot of potential. The neck just feels terrific, the action is great, and it's fast. And as I mentioned, I really like the sound of the neck pickup. So, I've got a pretty good foundation to work with, considering it's such an abused and neglected warhorse, and I'll probably post an update here after it gets some TLC and parts upgrade/repairs.

I've certainly got my $10 bucks worth.

21 fret, emg kh2 humbuckers, sprezel locking tunning keys, custom paint job, maple neck and body original.

Dark haevy metal crunch, with sutaining sound.

Action like a Jackson, but fell like a Fender.

Iv'e done a lot of work on this guitar but hey I didn't pay anything to get this guitar so making it custom made is better than buying a new guitar "I think"?

There isn't any!!!!

This is my favorite guitar to play with I don't have many but enough to pick my favorite. I recomend they bring these guitars back to the market so everyone can try them. And if enyone is trying to get rid of one just let me know and I will take it off your hands.