Chandler Pathocaster

this is a 1994 with a natural ash body and came with a bridseye maple neck with rosewood fret board and grover deluxe tuners,i dont know if the pickup,s were chandlers or seymour,3 single coils,it is a strat style with vintage style trem,

well for sound it sounds great for a vintage single coil style strat,prefect for blues,surf,R&B,country,60,s-70,s rock,i run it trough a marshall JCM800 combo and a laneyVC30 1st year issue and a fender blues jr.and a legend rock n roll 50,it sounds realy great through the laney on the clean channel,you can get a real nice fat clear tone on the neck P/U, a nice jazz sound with neck middle position,the middle position has a nice midrange,not to bright,but the middle bridge position is the one i love, you can get real good SRV tone in this position,think tin pan alley and you get the picture,bridge P/U is bright, great for a surf tone, i like doing some venture,s stuff here, P/U sound great no complants herefor what i play, not a shred axe though,but not bad with a little overdrive through a tube screamer though, just a nice vintage vibe.

ok this where i had problems with this axe, the neck had a nice soft V shape with a 9.5 radius, but after a year or so it warped badly, i sent it back to chandler and they did replace the neck free of charge but and this is a BIG but, i got it back with a real flat radius neck no bridseye no soft V, had a flat back also, i hate that style neck so i bought a mightymite neck with a radius i like, but this was an expensive fix.

everything is solid now and will last me a while, but the neck thing really screwed up this rating, but the sound is amazing in my opinion, the body finnish had faded to a nice lite brownish

chandler was great at 1st, but when i tried to contact them about the new neck they went silent,never heard from them again, was very unhappy and for this reason i give them an F.

i have been playing for 30 years and this is my go to strat,i did compare this to a G&L S500 and a legacy which were nice,i did by an ASAT classic which i love also, but with the trouble i had with the neck, and this along with the sound is why i bought it, i would have bought the G&L,s if i had known the trouble with the neck, but to be fair it sounds great.

This USA mad Chandler Pathocaster is a strat type guitar with an alder body, curly maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. Vintage Kluson tuners, 3 Seymour Duncan alnico II pro single coils, standard Strat type tremolo arm/bridge. Finished in a classy Dakota red: solid but not overly heavy and nicely made. Neck shape/readius feels excellent and great for bends.Made around 1994 but bought new in 2002.

Using this with a hand made point to point wired Reynolds Valveart amp which is a 25W cathode biased class A amp which has a Blackface type clean channel and a cranked VoxAC30 type overdrive channel. The guitar sounds fantastic for all styles except metal. Jazz, country, blues,surf, funk and rock are easily handeled with warmth, clarity, sustain and character. Can be bright if you need but not thin and tinny like some Strats. Output is medium: pickups not so hot so you can get fantastic clean headroom but dig in that bit harder and you get a fat blues voice.

This is a bit hard to evaluate. The guitar was made in 1994 and I bought it new in 2002 but the string tree had rusted and the tremolo needed lubrication. I spent an extra $100 for a full setup which included a fret dress, tremolo lube and adjustment, new graphtech string tree and a wax pot of the bridge pickup to minimise feedback at high gain. The nut was fine and no trussrod adjustment was needed. It has been fine since and the intonation is excellent. I have to mark it down howver. The setup was probably fine in 1994, but it was not looked after following that.

This is a much better/more solid guitar than the Fender. It is probably the equivalent of a Fender deluxe Start but those are three times more expensive over here. The finish it good, the fittings are good. It is dependable and giggable without a backup

Emailed Paul Chandler and he replied with some info on the guitar. Emailed again about the pickups and got no response: strange. Found out the pickup type (Seymour Duncan) when it was removed for wax potting.

This was a bargain buy even with the extra $100 for setup. A professional quality guitar that sounds and feels excellent. I hope to buy a Chandler Tele as well. Been playing for 28 years and have 2 valve amps and a Hamer Echotone. Compared to Fender, these guitars are way superior. Give them a try. Have a look at www. chandlerguitars.com