Eastwood Guitars Del Ray K56

Standard Ice Blue Del ray, 3 pickups, seem to be mini humbucks,not sure

Kind of a fat strat sound. Hasthat out of phase strat thing going, but not so wheedly like strats are

Shows up like a new guitar should, perfect paint, chrome etc. I always fool with intonation and string height,as I play fat strings (11 thru 52) as they tighten up these kind of uitars nicely

Looks to be a solid guitar. It is really lightweight, and the resin body is thin and comfortable to play standing up. I am a vintage guy live so am extremely cautious, so think it will play live just as well as my old stuff

Haven't had to send anything back. I am going to call and ask to get some chrome knobs for this, like the EKO rokes guitar, so we'll see

Nice very unique guitar. I love Gretsches and Gibsons, hate Strats, but love the strat sound, so for me it is a perfect anti-strat strat..if that makes any sense. Love tele's Jags and Jazzmasters though !

This guitar has three mini-humbuckers, 3 on/off pickup selectors, volume and tone controls. It has a cool brushed-steel pickguard. Very well-made. Solid.

The biggest problem with this guitar and the reason i sold it was because it had a weak sound. The pickups were considerably quieter than any of my other guitars (SG and Strat) and they lacked any real tone. If you don't plan on putting new pickups in, i wouldnts get this guitar.

I'm not sure if i got lucky or what, but this guitar came set up beautifully. No fret buzzes of anything. The only flaw was that there was a chip in the paint on the back of the guitar. Otherwise, very sturdy. Well-built.

Definatly. I practiced with my band with this guitar for months almost every day. Never let me down. I would definatly gig with it. Strap buttons and everything are solid.

I never had to deal with the company, but ordering it through them was easy Mike was helpful.

I wish i hadn't sold this guitar. I was sick of the weak-tone and needed money so i sold it. If i could do it again, i would just put in some seymour duncan fire-bird mini humbuckers. This guitar is amazingly well-built and just cool looking

Please see other reviews for features. I wrote a review for this guitar a few months ago and it's not posted! Does that mean it was never posted or did someone remove it?

I didn't like the sound at all. No depth. just a bland, dull midrange sound like a cheap kid's guitar. I was very dissapoint because i was excited to buy a guitar that looks so cool.

Great action. played beautifully.

I didn't have the guitar long enough to find out.

Mike at myrareguitars.com was great and refunded my money with no questions asked. Great guy!

Looks cool but I don't like the sound.

Mike Robinson runs a company in Canada called "My Rare Guitars". He appears to have taken it upon himself to organize the reissue of certain, sometimes cheesy but groovy guitars which originally saw the light of day back in the sixties and adjacent decades.

This is a fair approximation of the Teisco Del Ray K56 and it's a stunner - one of the most individual and outrageous looking guitars I've ever seen.

It has three, what appear to be, mini humbuckers each separately switchable so that seven overall selections are available. It has a bolt on neck with a four-plus-two arrangement tuner-wise, a unique striped, anodised aluminium scratchplate and a vibrato. The fully adjustable bridge looks not unsimilar to that fitted to a Fender Jazzmaster or Jaguar although, whilst not a rocker, has roller saddles fitted. The body appears to be moulded from a white plastic material and the neck is apparently maple with a dark, hardwood fingerboard.

The guitar arrived with a jack lead and tools in a cardboard box, not particularly safely wrapped or protected, with no anticipated gig bag. Not that a gig bag was mentioned in the sale - simply that someone else on this site seems to have received one!

This guitar suits my style of music which is generally old-style rock'n'roll and clean, instrumental stuff or surf music, although that's something of a misnomer here in the UK.

The pickups look like minihumbuckers and I thought it would be interesting to make a comparison between this guitar and my Gibson Firebird V11 which has an identical configuration. Whilst not as loud, the Eastwood surprisingly has a warmer, richer sound than the Firebird. The pickups actually sound more similar, to my ears, to DeArmond 2Ks. Whatever, the sound is excellent with a good deal of twangy variety although I found some of the combinations (bridge/middle; middle/neck) to be a little muddier than I'd anticipated. All three on is hardly ever very useable so no surprises there.

The guitar arrived well set up and playable from the off. No intonation problems are apparent, although I will change the 10s fitted here to 11s asap.

The neck is superb for a guitar of this price. It is fairly wide and with a perfect fret job, very nicely finished. It has a zero fret but the nut behind it is unfortunately a little narrow, leaving some edges. The fingerboard is beautifully smooth and polished not unlike a modern Burns. The tuners seem well up to the job and of good quality. The overall finish on the guitar is first class and a joy to look at as long as you don't mind totally over the top glitz and cheese!

In my opinion, the guitar is let down on two points, one of which, the control knobs, is barely an issue since it's simple to change them. The ones fitted are generic, black bell knobs which look seriously bland and out of place amongst all the glitter and shine elsewhere. I will definitely be replacing them with something more tacky later! Maybe the originals came with these so this may be unfair judgement on what is supposed to be a re-issue of sorts - I don't know. The second, and greatest disappointment for me, is the vibrato unit. Everything else on this guitar, despite its flashiness, has an air of good quality about it - sadly, the trem does not. It's a pressed steel affair approximating the design of that found on a Mosrite. The pivots are nothing more than loosely fitting screws and the arm itself, although adjustable for tightness, feels sloppy and ungainly. String changing in a hurry would be a nightmare bearing in mind the inaccessabilty of the string-loading holes in the back of the unit. Whatever, the trem actually seems to work fine as long as you're not over-enthusiastic and it seems to have no pitch-return problems. Everything is well plated and, I guess, in a guitar at this price, money has to be saved somewhere.

I would imagine this guitar would stand up pretty well to the rigours of live work - one thing about plastic is that it's probably less affected by humidity and changes in temperature. As I previously mentioned, the quality of plating is high. Unfortunately on mine, whoever attached the trem to the body caught a couple of edges with a screwdriver, nicking off a couple of small areas of chrome. However, this has exposed what lies beneath and it's copper plating on top of the steel so that's a good sign. While the Eastwood may not ultimately be as tough as a Strat or Tele, it has an air of durability about it and the general finish is very good.

Have had no problems as yet so can't judge after-sales service but Mike Robinson has been easy to contact and communicate with. Mind you, that's often the way when you're in the throes of buying something - things can go awfully quiet when you do have a problem! I'm by no means saying that's the way it is with Mike and I'm sure it's not - it's just that I've had no opportunity to check this situation out yet.

I've been playing for donkey's years and have a pretty extensive collection of guitars, a lot of them fairly quirky. I'm glad I bought this guitar and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something out of the ordinary at a reasonable price - it's a lot of guitar for the money and a lot of fun. I do wish the vibrato unit was of better quality but at $400 you can't have everything. And where's my gig-bag?!

I purchased this goldish-green Teisco K-56 reissue from a dealer in Japan, I presume it to be 2004 production as it looks & smells like recent production. Includes a truss-rod adjusting tool and a "cheapy" cord like you'd expect. The seller included a link with his ebay auction to this web page for user reviews. Although my guitar has a "Teisco" label on the headstock instead of "Eastwood," it seems identical in all regards to the Eastwood K56 and I assume they came from the same factory, presumably in Japan, although it is not indicated anywhere on the guitar. Body is made of some kind of molded resin (white,) like they use for boat hulls & surfboards. Very nicely painted metallic "soft" greenish-gold color with clear-coat, neck is maple (painted body color) with nice rosewood fretboard, finished, and small vintage-style frets. Nut is tight and nicely cut, and just beyond is a "zero fret," common back then but uncommon today. Tuners are unmarked, very good quality, could be Gotoh "Grover" style, incl. tension adjustment, with small lima-bean knobs. Has aluminum-plate pickguard with stripes, 3 mini-bucker pickups with chrome covers (all 3 meter between 7.0 to 7.2K ohms) with individual switches, wired so they are in series when combined. 1 vol. pot and 1 tone pot (both small Alpha 500k) with .02 or .033 "Chicklet"-style capacitor. Bridge and tremolo-tailpiece appear to be very good quality pieces, with particularly high quality chrome plating. Although the body is made from molded resin, the material appears strong, and holds screws as good as wood. I suspect that the resin was chosen instead of wood, because of strength and splitting issues. These bodies are quite thin, and when you recall that back in the 60's this model originally had 4 pickups in it, and was made of hastily seasoned "crappy wood" with a HUGE deep "swimming pool" rout in the center, and all down the treble side of the body, forming the control cavity.... it's a wonder they didn't ALL split or crack from seasonal changes, warping and or inadvertant abuse. One of the reasons I'm only giving it a seven is due to the selection of pickups... they are WAY "over-the-top" if you are going to put three of these suckers in a row (excessive string-pull, but thank goodness you have the clearance to lower them (WAY WAY) far enough down. If I had been the designer, I would have replaced the middle minibucker with a Lace "Chrome Dome" single coil pickup. It would have blended in appearance very well with the mini-buckers, and would have provided something hugely desireable which is now lacking... a Strat-type tone option for surf music. After-all, what is this guitar going to be most "at home" playing on stage... "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain, or "Wipe Out," by The Surfaris?

Remember... it's a toy. Buy it with the intention of having fun with it (in which case I feel that it is way over-priced, this guitar should street for about $300. with the resin body. It is priced where it should be, with a carved-wood "heavy" swamp ash body. You can use the denser swamp ash that no-one else wants to use, because you are going to rout "half" of it away, anyhow.
This guitar sounds different as you might expect, due to the resin body. Actually the acoustic tone has a pronounced "metallic" ring to it, which..after pondering why... quickly led me to consider the resonance of that thick aluminum pickguard plate, suspended over a vast cavern of air space (the huge body-rout.) There are also numerous slight buzzes & rattles heard when played acoustically, I believe most of it is the pickup mounting hardware, due to vibration of the pickguard. After several hours spent doing the mandatory setup work required to make the guitar basically playable, I played it through the clean side of my Valvetech amp (version 2, custom 1x10 1x12 combo,) with a little reverb...actually sounded pretty decent. Frankly, all 3 minibuckers turned on at once is not something you will be needing...just mostly one huge "mud pie." I envision basically using one pickup at a time, based on their tonal variations. I will report further on it's actual tonal capabilities in the near future, after I have had a month or so to play around with it some more.

Remember...it's a toy. The guitar as received was unplayable. Needed a total set-up. I noticed that the neck-attaching screws were not totally tight, and as I started to snug them down, I noticed that the chrome neck plate closely resembles Fender's neck plate. This caused me to pause, and think of adding a (black plastic) pad under the plate, for the usual reasons...if it would fit. Lo and behold, it will fit. I had a number of the pads on hand, as I regularly build custom Strat & Tele. guitars. In order to install the pad, I needed to remove the strings, remove 4 plate screws and the plate. The neck is free to be removed at that point, so it was when I looked at the neck pocket, that I discovered the body to not be made of wood. I added shims when re-installing the neck to correct angle and improve the neck fit in the pocket. I turned the truss-rod a little bit either way to be sure it was working ok, before re-fitting the neck. Performed full set-up, after deciding to use 9's for strings, to start. Needed to lower the pickups drastically from where the factory had them, due to extremely powerful magnets (times 3 pickups.) The front two are now about 1/4" above the pickguard, the bridge pickup is about 3/8" above. Tone-testing proved this to be the best setting, also. Don't move them any closer or you'll suffer instant "Strat-i-tus." Ended up with 4/64" treble-side clearance at 17th. fret, and 6 to 7/64" on bass-side. Wanted 5/64", but had to go more, until just a very slight fret buzz on low E & A. Intonation was "way" off on lower 3 strings, had to crank the saddles back until the springs were totally scrunched. The bridge should have been mounted about 1/8" further back.

Remember... it's a toy. If you don't abuse it, you should be fine. The biggest problem will be wacking the body and causing a chip in the resin, or worse, breaking off one of those 2 points on the upper bout.
But once you've done that...you might be able to use a Strat-type hardshell case to carry it, instead of the gig bag you have to use bcause of the shape...LOL

I have no knowledge of the current "company" (Teisco or Eastwood), Kawai Gakki? No known warranty, I could not read (in Japanese) the 2 pages of info that came with it.

I am 51 yrs. young, been playing on & off since a teenager. Am a hobbyist builder & collector of guitars, favor Strat(tm) and Tele(tm)formats for my creations. Own instruments by Hamer USA, Gibson, Yamaha, Orville, Fender, Michael Kelly, Epiphone, plus my own creations. Favor Valvetech amplifiers, Callaham Guitars -for Fender(tm)guitar-related parts,) Pete Bilthoff pickups (Vintage Vibe Guitars,) Bill Lawrence pickups, Wagner Custom-Rewinds pickups.
Note:
If you wish to contact me, send me a fax note containing your email address, and I will contact you via email. Send your fax Mon.-Fri. between 12:00 noon and 6:00pm (only) to 215-453-2219 (fax line only.)

This is a really cool looking guitar. Sort of pointed, slanted german carved strat type body. A homage rather than a direct copy of the '67 Teisco version, as the 4 single poles are gone and 3 mini-humbuckers in it's place. The striped alumnium pickguard looks great. My guitar is metallic blue and the finish looks excellent. 1 volume, 1 tone (which seems to work pretty well). 3 sliders controls at the side of the pick-ups allows you to switch each or any combination of pick-ups on. Vibrato unit isn't too clever. It's stiff and a real pain to re-string. Maybe it'll settle in. It came with a very nice soft Eastwood bag.....if you like those sort of things. Personally I wouldn't trust any guitar to a soft bag.

I have to say, that I've only had this a week or so, and haven't had much experience of the various sound options available. I dived straight in the deep end and used it at a gig. I only had the bridge pick-up on and it sounded great. Tough, but twangy, which suits my style well. I play through a V-Amp and Fender Twin Reverb, and play surf music. I've given it a 9 for sound but had I had more time to experiment I may have made that a 10.

This is difficult, because I imported this from Canada and it arrived totally trashed. Mike at myrareguitars is an excellent guy, and after me sending him some digital photos of the damage, sent a new body in exchange for the trashed one. I bolted the neck on, which took a bit of shimming, but it was okay. Therefore it's not really fair for me to comment on the set-up as I did it myself.

It sounded great at the gig, although I had to retune a few times and I'm about to go to Europe for some shows with it, so it had better stand up to a mauling. I don't baby instruments. If I thought it wouldn't stand up to the rigours of touring I wouldn't take it. t I was a bit concerned when I saw the smashed original body, but I don't know what it went through to get like that.

Mike at MyRareGuitars couldn't have been nicer. Great guy, and I'd definately buy from him again. I guess the warranty is a year, as it's a new guitar.

I've been playing for about 30 years and normally use a Mosrite Joe Maphis as my main guitar. The Eastwood was bought as a back-up, just because I loved the look of it. I like unusual things. I love the way it looks, and the pick-ups sound great. I dislike immensely the way of trying to thread the strings through the vibrato. It's impossible to do a quick string change.

If it was lost/stolen would I buy another? That's a difficult question, because on top of the purchase price, it cost over a 100 dollars postage, then 17.5% import tax, then a Parcel Force customs handling charge, not to mention the cost of mailing back the broken body, which I'll try and claim for. It doesn't mean I wouldn't import a guitar again, but I'd have to be sure what the final cost would be!

This guitar is a reissue of the old Teisco ET-460. But instead of 4 crappy pickups it has 3 great sounding ones, each w/ it's own on/off switch giving you lots of options. Bigsby style tremolo which isn't as smooth as I had hoped. Nice Ice Blue finish on the body and neck. Rosewood fingerboard and very light weight - similar to my mustang.

Good sounding guitar, has decent sustain, and works well with my music. www.TheVanities.net The middle pickup by itself feeds back constantly with my dirty channel so I just don't use it. Lots of options.

I was pretty happy with how this guitar arrived from the factory. The action was great, there are two minor flaws in the finish but that just adds character, and the intonation was way off but I kinda expected that. I guess i was a little upset about the zipper on the case not working, but luckily there's two!

I don't gig without a backup but I'd say this guitar is reliable enough if you weren't beating it up - but what fun is that? It's light but pretty solid, I don't see it breaking anytime soon.

I think these guitars are only available from Mike at myrareguitars.com. He was very helpful and shipped the guitar out very quickly. He gave me a one year warranty, which I haven't needed yet, so I'm not sure about the service. But he's fair, so I don't see any problems arising.

I would buy this again if it was lost or stolen, but would be pretty pissed. I went for this guitar because I love 70's japanese guitars, but they break too easily. This has the look with more solid features, and much much better tone. The only thing i'd change is the tremolo system.

Cool-looking Teisco "German-carved" body, three Firebird-style mini-humbuckers, rosewood fingerboard, sweet aluminum pickguard. Simple controls: one on/off slider for each pickup, one volume, one tone. Perfect for me.

I play a rather eclectic mix of styles. I'd describe my style as "alt-country" meets 80's "college rock", although most of my band's paying gigs force me to play covers of crappy pop-rock and top-40 country. This guitar is pretty versatile. I wouldn't use it for metal, but I don't play metal anyway. The pickups are pretty powerful. I can nail the tone that Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum got with his LP Deluxe with this bad boy.

The setup was great right out of the box. It was even in tune after a trip all the way from Canada! Nice Fenderish neck feel. The machined aluminum pickguard is stunning and the chrome hardware looks great and seems to be high-quality. Mine is Ice Blue and it looks GORGEOUS! This guitar is just so cool-looking. You'll definitely draw attention to yourself onstage with this one.

I think thsi one will hold up well. I don't abuse my gear, but I don't baby it either. I believe that guitars are meant to be played, not treated as museum pieces. I'm going to use it at a gig this weekend. You should always gig with a backup guitar and amp, especially if you use tube amps.

As far as I know, the only place to get these is from Mike at www.myrareguitars.com. He seems like a cool guy and he's honest. This is the second guitar I've purchased from him.

I've been playing guitar for 14 years and I should be a much better player considering that fact. Oh well. I'd definitely replace this one if were lost or stolen. I'm considering purchasing another one, actually. A very cool and unique guitar that plays as well as it looks.

This is the same as the Teisco ET-460 that I already had, except the pickup configuraton is different. The original had 4 single coils. The Eastwood has 3 awesome humbuckers in it that have as much output as my Les Paul. The finish is metallic blue, not sure what type of wood, but the finish is great. The tuners are much better than the original ones from Teisco. The Tremelo tailpiece is different, I like the original one better. The neck and playability are much better than the original guitars from the 1960's. I own 3 Teiscos and one Silvertone that are the same and the Eastwood is my favorite.

Very good sounding pickups. There are 3 humbuckers in a row, very quite with more than enough output. Sounds great distorted and clean. It really has more tonal variety than most guitars I've played because you have 7 different ways to have them switched with just the 3 toggles. 1,2,3,1&2,2&3,1&3,1&2&3! That is awesome and sounds incredible!

I have not found any flaws in the guitar at all other than one slightly loose pickguard screw. No problems and the finish is beautiful.

I would say I will play it on live gigs, but certain songs need certain instruments and Although this has extreme tonal variety, an Explorer with a Floyd-Rose is a different animal. I can very easily say I could do a gig with this guitar and no backup.

Have had no problems. It was shipped originally very quickly upon payment. Very nice to deal with.

I have some Epiphones from the 60's, Teisco's and Silverton's, a Les Paul, and an Explorer,and a Fender Bass, played since I was 12, so thats 21 years! Recomend this guitar to everyone. It is just as good or better than buying a Gibson or Fender any day!