Ashton AP-1000

No idea of the year of manufacture. It had a sticker on the back of the headstock that claimed "Made in Vietnam" and I see no reason to doubt that. They are designed in Australia by http://www.musicaustralis.com

Thick-ish (Think '59 Les Paul) Mahogany neck with a scarf jointed three-a-side headstock. Tuners appear to be Gotoh copies of Grovers. Headstock is bound. The rosewood board is again bound and has 22 well crowned and polished medium jumbo frets, dot markers made of mother of toilet seat adorn the board in the usual places.

Set neck construction.

The body is one piece of Agathis with a figured Maple top. Yup, you read that right. It's got some tight flame and appears to me to be book-matched. The body shape is familiar but strnge. Imagine someone took the lower half of a a Les Paul, shrunk it a by 20% lengthways, and then mirrored it. The overall body depth is the same as that of a Les Paul Jr. The top is arched, but less deeply than that of my Les Paul Classic.

The back and neck are finished in the typical reddish Gibson tint, and the top is finished in the same tint, but looks lighter because of the Maple underneath.

The guitar is fitted with two zebra style Ashton branded humbuckers, a bridge & stop-bar tailpiece (moved closer to the bottom strap button of the guitar relative to those on a Les Paul to preserve the scale length with the shorter body), a volume controls for each pickup, a master tone control and a three-way toggle switch occupy the same position s the volume & tone controls on a Les Paul, with the switch in the position occupied by the neck-pickup's volume control on a Les Paul.

To summarise: A Double-cutdown-sized Les Paul derived guitar with a flame top and a one-piece body.

Features rating? I'll give it a non-comittal 7.

Using it through a Line 6 POD/Trace Elliot Tramp combo and imitating various high-gain amps it sounds pretty fine. Thick and meaty. Pickups are a little microphonic. I had to stop using one Gibson strap in particular becuase every time I moved there was an audible squeek through the amp as the strap end rotated on the strap button.

Sounds decent through a clean Princeton Reverb. I'd say it's getting 70-80% of the way towards my Les Paul sound wise.

Again 7. Let down by the microphonics and a slightly shrill neck pickup.

The set-up in the store was good. Neck with the right amount of relief, medium/low action, pickups balanced out. I got them to change from 9's to 10's when I bought it.

The top shows moderater amount of flame, and I don't think it's foto/gravure/ whatever because the finish has sunk slightly into the flame lines. A good fret job as well.

Now the bad bits.

There re minor finish flaws all over this guitar. There's a couple of overspray marks on the body binding (which, incidentally, is like that on a '50's Les Paul and is parallel to the top in the contours so that the juncture between the top & back of the guitar can be seen), there's an obvious partial thumb print near to the body edge on the lower bout where the finish is lighter, there's a flaw in the top near the bottom strap button where there's what looks like a small know in the wood and the finish in that area is much redder than anywhere else on the top. Up at the heastock end there are a couple of places where there are tiny lumps in the finish that haven't been buffed out, as though a bubble or dust prticle was there.
Then I removed the cover for the wiring cavity, eventually. It was cut over sized by a couple of millimetres and hd been forcefully jammed into place! Inside was a set of three tiny Japanese pots, some pretty careless lead dress, and some pretty messy routing. The back had been routed away completely and the pots attached to the top, which is not very thick...

Let's face it though. This is a two-twenty US dollar guitar nd I'm subjecting it to scrutiny that a PRS might pass and most Gibson's wouldn't :)

Still though, level playing field and all that, I'll give her 5.

Seems solid enough, but with the pots & switch attached to that thin top piece of maple it may not stand up to much beating. The court is out on the fret wire as well. It looks good enough now, but after a year or so? Who knows.

The finsih looks pretty much bullet proof, and with my tendancy to play with a metal pick and beat the living crap out of my guitars while on stage, well lets say it'll be tested!

A cautios 6.

Warranty? In Malaysia lah? Tidak boleh! (Lit. Cannot!)

I bought this guitar as:-
1) Something to play on holiday.
2) Something to take to bar gigs where it might get bnged around a bit and as a back-up to my Les Paul.

I think it conforms to my personal requirements, so it gets an 8