Chandler Custom Built

1992 Strat-style w/Chandler logo on back of head stock.

21 fat frets

Swamp Ash body/Rock Maple Neck

3 EMG Select pick-up with standard single volume/two tone controls

Originally had a Moonburst finish (transparent Black to trans gray) refinished natural.

Standard five spring tremolo w/o arm (arm purchased aftermarket)

Original Kluson style button tuners replaced with Sperzel locking tuners. Came with a cheapo generic case.

This guitar replaced my 81 Gibson V2 as my main ax. The sound is as good as any early to late 60's Fenders I have played. It reproduces the full range of strat sounds, and in the second position on the five position switch, it has a really good Stevie Ray Vaughn sound. Usually the only effect I have used with this instrument has been a Boss CE 5 Chorus ensemble, but I have also used my Pandora PX1 to recreat an early Zeppelin sound on the ZOSO setting.

The instrument was professionally set up by Miller Music of Salinas CA. The only flaws were the finished cracking within three years of purchase, and the plastic knob on the five position switch will not stay in place. I have lost and replaced the plastic cap two time and finally gave up. The tuners were replaced due to an accident, I wasn't aware that they had used a substandard machine on the guitar. The Sperzels fixed the problem. No other problems.

I have used this instrument on stage for 11 years. No shorts or surprises. The heavy frets have withstood the test of time and probably need to be recrowned and filed. Strap buttons do require the plastic strap locks to prevent problems. I usually carry a back up guitar in case of string breakage or strap breakage (happened once on stage).

I own two of Paul Chandler's products. I have only contacted him once concerning availability of replacement parts and he wrote me back in person the following day with the information. Never had to use the warranty and have be overall very pleased with the product.

Been playing 40 years. I own a reissue 72 Fender Tele Custom, 60 Gretsch Single Anniversay 6125, 73 Ibanez copy of a 1275 Gibson double neck, 96 Guild Starfire IV, several high end acoustics, two banjos, a mandolin, a bazouki and other paraphenalia.

I purchased the Chandler neck new in 1987 for a body that I made myself that had a poor finish (paint cracked due to wrong primer), and purchased a New Chandler body with a metalic blue finish. 1 volume and 1 tone knob control an EMG 85 set in the bridge. The body is Poplar, and the neck is maple with an undyed ebony fretboard. I put a black Floyd Rose on it, and black Schaller tuners. I'm not sure of the scale, but it has extra jumbo frets, and a Jackson style headstock on a thin, wide neck. I give the features a 10, because I made it the way I wanted, and spared no expense o the hardware.

My style at the time of assembly was Dokken, and Rush influnced, but I spent a lot of time studying Jazz and Classical as well. My amp is a Mesa Boogie .50 caliber with the 4 power tubes - highly reccomended. I also have a Boogie quad preamp and a valve FX that doesn't get much use. It's very quiet, as EMG's are known for. Very deep, rich sound and full sustain and smooth on distortion, not harsh at all. Very sweet sounding with the power section of the amp clipping, and not the preamp. No single coils or bridge pickup, but surprisingly clear, but meaty, on clean settings.

Not applicable. Hand built to my specs.

It's survived a flooded car, seen some wild stage antics, and its even been in a pool while I was playing - ouch! Schaller strap locks keep it on me at all times. It's been my only guitar for over 16 years until now.

Never had a reason to call Chandler.

I've been playing for 23 years, I also own a Mexincan Fat Strat, A Schecter Vampira S-1, A BC RIch Vampirella Mockingbird, and a Guild 12 string acoustic. If stolen I would mope around for a while, but would probably build another, but parts from Chandler are only available used now. I played a George Lynch ESP that cost 3 times what I paid to build this, and it felt the same, but EMG's blow the Seymour Duncans away. Nowadays, I look for products with the features I want aready, sometimes its cheaper, but not as fun as building one yourself.

Made in 1992, Standard strat-copy with maple neck/rosewood fingerboard, maple body. Gold hardware, standard strat non-locking tremolo, Sperzel tuners, 3 Chandler single coil pick-ups. Passive electronics. Locking-strap buttons.

This guitar is the best sounding strat i have ever heard! I play rock, blues, jazz, fusion, sounds amazing no matter what style I play!Just beautiful buttery tone...I've owned it for 11 years, just keeps getting better, traded it for at broken-neck Les Paul, and a busted Fender Twin at a local guitar builder shop. Got a great deal in my oppinion!

Needed som action-tweaking, neck adjustments etc., no problems at all.
Has taken it's share of heavy gigging,looks pretty worn and beat up by now...cool :-). Has survived several stage "accidents", falling on it's neck, getting pushed of stage etc, never had a problem with intonation, tuning, this guitar is built to last, and will probably survive me!

Never had a problem, electronics has been refurbished, it's been refretted 3 times...I play a lot :-), just simple maintenance stuff, nothing serious. Would take it to any gig, and depend on it without hesitation...a true workhorse.

Never had to deal with Chandler directly, the guitar builder I bought it from has always been great in keeping it in good shape.

I've been playing for 14 years...used to play professionally...have had tendon problems for the last 2 years, so have slowed down a bit, still play a lot at home and teach, this guitar has followed me from the early beginner days, where a barre chord hurt for days :-), never let me down, I play with 009, cause of my tendon problems, other strats sound thin without 010's but this Chandler just sings. Feels like I could put spaghetti (008 anyone?) on it, and it would still sound amazing! I've owned a lot of guitars, old Les Pauls, Washburns, Ibanez GB's, Blade's, Ibanez's, sold them all of, this is all I need. My friends have even named it "Georgia Rae", after the John Hiatt song...!
I wish all guitarist could experience a guitar, that's this closely tied to their heart and soul...I'll never get rid of her!

Custom-guilt strat-copy, more routing to give it extra ring. 3 single coil pickups with splits assigned by push-pull pots to thin the sound out. std. trem and locking sperzels. Other than that, a std strat.

Sound was good for lead and articulated picking, missed out on bottom for good biting strat growl. Some nice chimes and a good smudgey-dirty sound. Played it through a gigging rig of blackface fender twin and Roland JC120, nice mix of tube and solid state clean, with a couple of rack processors in between. Preferred to play with cord as wireless tended to make it sound thinner.

Neck was a std. rosewood strat Chandler neck - I had a friend there build it for me, and he left the decal off at my request (since I don't like to advertise unless I am getting paid for it<g>). I liked it - felt nice. Action was fine, but my friend wasn't very good at setup, so it had problems with intonation. Took it to more experienced luthiers for setup and the intonation always seemed a problem. 5-Spring loaded trem and the damn thing STILL went out of tune if I used the bar. Still, it was a good strumming guitar.

Electronics were very reliable. Never had a problem with them during two years of gigging with it on the road. The intonation was annoying, but it wasn't something I would use for lots of heavy play anyway - just live sound.

None. I got this for price of parts basically - my friend built it - so I never really had any recourse if anything went wrong. Other thana receipt - but I think that would have put my friend into some hot water <g>.

I sold this to someone who was looking for a guitar to play with at home - he was interested, and I was happy to offload it. Would I buy a Chandler again? No, I thought it was disappointing. I heard lots of horror stories from my friend at the factory. I bought one of those overdrive pedals of theirs too, the one with the 12ax7 tube in it - now it is considered a classic by some people, I always found it brittle and metallic. Got rid of that too. Seemed cheap to me. Overall, a copy maker. I have been more satisfied - in my experience - by bucking up and shelling out for the originals. In the long run, you will get what you pay for.

This is an update to the previous submission. See it for most of the information. Since I made the first submission, I have talked to Chandler and the Jackson Custom Shop via E-Mail. The folks a Chndler answered my questions quickly. They said that they had been in the parts buisiness back in the 80's, when my guitar was built, and that they had made 1,000s of the necks featured on my guitar. They further said that the necks were made in regular and reverse headstocks. They were very helpful.
I took the pickups loose and found that the bridge humbucker was a Jackson J-90. I contacted Jackson and got a response from the custom shop. They said that the J-90 is a distortion class humbucker that was made from about 1986 - 1992 "When we got out of the pickup business". I take it the new Jackson pickups are not made by Jackson.

This review is of what I believe to be a custom built guitar, utilizing Chandler parts. At least the neck is Chandler. I don't know of Chandler being a parts retailer, but aparently the person who put this guitar together was able to get ahold of at least a neck.
It is a rear routed strat body made of what appears to be oak. I weighed it at 9 1/2 pounds. It has the standard strat dimensions with the rounded edges. 22 fret maple neck with a rosewood board. Very simple dot inlays. There are dots running down the edge of the board on the top and bottom. Not just on the side you look at when playing. It is a reverse headstock, or a lefty that has been used on a right handed guitar. The neck is a single piece except where the headstock is glued in a luthier joint. A fairly thin neck a lot like a standard Ibanez. Medium frets.
The hardware consists of a Kahler tremolo, not a Flyer or any other type of Kahler I've seen. Japanese tuners, and a behind the nut locking system. All hardware is chrome.
The pickups are an unknown, but hotter than hell, humbucker at the bridge and a very strat sounding single coil at the neck. Controls are one volume, one 3-way mini toggle. It is finished in a see-thru high strength green. It came with a hard case.

Under the humbucker, the guitar sounds very bright and crunchy. Sustain is never ending and gently fades into feedback, even with noise gate. The single coil provides more depth to the sound when used with the humbucker. When used by itself under distortion it provides a very strat like sound. Thin and bluesy. There is no mud here. Played clean, there is an obvious volume difference between the single and the humbucker, but that's to be expected.

I rescued this guitar from a freind who hadn't played it in years. The frets were corroded as were the pole pieces on the pickups. The neck needed to be adjusted and intonation set. In short, it was a basket case. But I knew it was a great guitar underneath all the corrosion and neglect.

The components used in this guitar are all first rate. The finish is cracked from age and lack of care. Everything else is in remarkable condition and I have no doubts that it will be a good stage guitar. Whoever put it together knew what they were doing. All solder joints are solid.

I have located Chandler on the net, but they offer only a few models that are pre-built. How this guitar came to be is a mystery to me. I heard at the time my friend bought it back in 1988 that it was put together by a local player who had finished it also. I would like to know any info on Chandler and if they indeed made parts or if someone just happened to get a neck and built a guitar around it.

I've been playing since 1987 and have known this guitar since 1988. It has always stuck out in my mind as what I would like to build if I had the money to build my own. I love the extreme power of the bridge pickup and the versitility of the neck. It is a rock solid experiment in guitar construction. It is traditional, yet has an individual flair that makes it special. I play it through a Fender super 100 watt that I have hooked to my custom cab. featuring Pyle 12" speakers. I use a DOD tec 4 for all but wah, which is supplied by an original Thomas Hendrix unit.