Blade Guitars Abilene

I believe this is a 90/91 Swiss made (the previous user hardly used the guitar and when I replaced the battery, it said 92 on it). It's basically a strat except with 1 tone knob.
Stats: 22 frets, blonde neck, S-S-S, 5-way selector, 1 volume, 1 push-push tone, Blade's own tremolo, Spercel locking tuners, built-in active pre-amp (use push-push pot to activate).
The active circuit can be controlled from the back using a small screw driver (included). This allows you to adjust the amount of boost you'd like when the tone knob is pushed out (push knob and it'll pop out, push again and it'll stay in). The tremolo has little wheels/rollers on the saddles to allow the string to move freely up and down (imagine a polley system).
The neck has a C shape and it's not thin. It's not very thick either but my other Blade (a tele) has a thinner neck. The truss rod can be access from the bottom of the neck (where it meets the body) under a cover that says "Levison". 2 screws keep the cover down, remove them and you can adjust the trust rod with a small screw driver (the truss rod has holes on it's side so that a small screw drive can be inserted and turn the rod).
Active circuit (which is easy to adjust and turn on/off), locking tuners, a great tremolo, easy access and adjustable truss rod - definitely 10 in features.

It basically sounds like a strat to me. I'm not sure how close it is to a geniun Fender strat though (never owned one, only played them in stores). The pickups are not noisy, less noisy than the other Blade. But it does pick up more noise than the Duncans in my other guitars.
It gets a very punchy sound that I think would be great for some funk. The 2 and 4 position gets a great quack that you would expect from a strat. The boost is very useful when your playing clean or slightly driven. The bridge pickup is bright enough but not too much that it hurts your ears.
The pickups are not very hot though and this limits what the guitar can do. And that's the only reason I give it a 9 in this catagory.

The set up was perfect when I got it. I think the guitar has been sittin in it's case for 9+ years (just got it last week 4/00). It came with 9s I believe and when I changed the strings to 10s, I had do a set up. After, it was almost perfect again (lost a little action).
The finish is gorgeous and flawless as far as I can tell.

I've only had this guitar for a week. Too soon to tell how reliable it is. I did use it in live situation and had no problems with it.

I haven't had to contact Blade about this guitar yet. I did contact them once about the other guitar (just to ask some questions). It took Gary a little while to reply my email but he did eventually.

I've been playing 11 years. My other guitars of interest include another Blade (a tele - mentioned before), 2 Ibanez (RG, Custom Shop), Dean 335 copy, and a Yamaha BBG5S... my amp is a Carvin XV-112 and I'm using a Marshall 1922 and Lexicon MPX-100 with it.
I hope I never lose this guitar for any reason. I love both my Blades because they're so rare in the US, they sound awesome and their construction is perfect. This guitar is slowly becoming my favorite. It's light, the body is contoured wonderfully and it's very comfortable to play (perhaps true of all strats??). It's hard to find all those features on another strat especially for what I paid.
I've been looking for this guitar for a long time and now that I have it, I'm not ever letting it go. It's a shame they're so hard to find in the US (only one dealer left now that MF is no longer carrying them) and that they're not more popular.

This guitar was made around 1993. It uses an alder body without a maple top. So it is a fairly usual guitar in that point. 22 frets. TZhere is a volume and a tone control. The tone control has a push-pull function to get the guitar in active mode. It adds a boost wich is adjustable on the back of the guitar trough a plastic plate. Three single coils. These pickups have a kind of shielding that make them nearly noiseless. Wintage trem but with roller saddlwes to minimize friction. Locking tuners.

I play many kinds of music, but I was looking for a strat with more versatiltity. The sound is very bright. If ayou like the tradditionnal strat sound, this guitar is for you... It could sound a bit more precise though.

Te guitar was perfectly set, it plays well. The finish is excellant...A real guitar, man!!!

Strings don't bereak easilly. It stays perfectly in tune. I've been playing several times opn big concerts with it, and it never causecd any problems...

Never dealt with em. Guarantee is one year.

Hghly recommended! That is the only thing I can say about this guitar.