Eastwood Guitars Five Star Tele

Mine is a S/S Telecaster - with a smashing silver sparkle finish. Rosewood/Maple neck, noname parts/pickups, made in China and inspected by someone named C. Lim. Supposedly made of ash - very light. Neck is rather flat fretboard with a C back, thin frets. Bridge is a 6 saddle tele ashtray, but not through the body. It came with a throwaway cable. Really ugly peghead - teles should be all curves, no pointiness. It looks suspiciously like the Johnson telecaster - hmmm...

Anyway, its perfect for what I wanted, a cheap sturdy solidbody that I don't need to worry about.

This guitar has your basic telecaster sound, but not too rich in the mid-low end. It has all the twangin high-end you expect. Not bad for the $$, and good enough tone for lots of music, but I'd probably replace the pickups if I really wanted to start using it.

Guitar was poorly setup, all buzzes and too low action. I tweaked the truss, shimmed the neck, and adjusted intonation and pickups. Tone, playability and sustain are much better now. Frets are finished fine, and guitar finish is good.

The neck pickup came without springs - duh!

It seems pretty sturdy and solidly built. I wouldn't worry about dropping this guitar...
I've taken the guitar apart a few times to adjust, and all the parts seem nice and solid.

Mike at Eastwood seems pretty nice and helpful.

I've been playing for 27 years now, and play Gibson and Rickenbacker hollowbodies. This guitar satisfied the need for a cheap basic guitar. For the price, it is extremely nice and playable (though the fretboard is too flat for my tastes). If it was stolen, I wouldn't worry about it too much - this is a cheap guitar.

Basic tele clone. Quite a bit lighter but no apparent effect on tone or sustain. Stock pickups pretty damn nice. Smooth volume control and the tone knob has a nice, wide sweep to it. Neck size is perfect ( for me anyway) . Bound body adds to its look.

Humbucker on the neck side makes it more versatile than standard S/S tele. Middle position is real nice (which I rarely use on my other tele's

Needed just a tiny tweak on the truss rod and the standard intonation. For the money, these Eastwood guitars are hard to fault.

I have several Eastwoods and they are holding up well. I suspect (based on low price) that the switches are the usual Korean crap that will die young, but so far they are all tight and quiet with no shorting out. I would not hesitate to play out without a backup.

No experience with the Eastwood people.

I have several tele incl a couple of the big F's (american standard and power tele) and, as hard as it is to admit, they have nothing on this Eastwood. (No, I am not affiliated with Eastwood in any way). In fact, in view of the light wieght and the nice neck (no hand fatigue) I prefer it when I play for extended periods.

2003? Made in China. Fat-tele copy, except for a Carvin-type headstock. Neck hunbuckler, single coil bridge, 3 position selector. Mine is a brownburst with a typical tele pickguard. Flat "C" shape maple neck with what looks like a rosewood fingerboard. No other accessories included.

This is a terrific pickup setup for acoustic players like me. The neck humbuckler is quiet and mellow and loud. A little bassy, but EQ tweeking helps. Bridge single coil is also quiet but a little weaker than the humbuckler so there is a bit of imbalance between the two. Far more disappointing was the middle selction. I was hoping to get a blend of the humbuckler and the single coil, but instead all I get is a thin weaker version of the single coil sound. I'd rate this category lower, but the humbuckler is so good that it makes up for the other deficiencies. The single coil is nice mind you, just alittle too weak. I imagine I'll be replacing the single in a while. This sound is very flexible from jazz (almost acoustic-like) with the neck pup to the more typical tele sound at the bridge.

The brownburst woood is gorgeous. I love the finish. I've learned from experience that the first this I always need to do is switch out the strings to heavy gauge, that way when I switch from acoustic to electric I don't have to change my touch as much. Otherwise I sharp the strings with my heavier acoustic touch. I needed to intonate after the switch, but it was no big deal. The jack input came lose after a couple hours of playing and I had to fish it out of the body to reattach it, no big deal and fairly typical of cheap labor construction. Also the pickguard had a slight pucker between a couple of the screws so it didn't lay absolutely flat, and the pickguard had a rough edge around the neck edge. I'm also not so crazy about the headstock, I'd rather have the traditional tele style, but there may be a copy violation for that, I don't know. All in all though, these are little things and I really like the looks.

I'm pretty sure I can gig with it. I plan to at least. But I always, ALWAYS have a backup now. No matter what. At times, like tomorrow morning, this guitar will be the backup to my acoustic, since my other acoustics are elsewhere. Everything seems very solid now that the input jack is stable.

I got this off Ebay and Mike Robinson was OK about responding to questions before delivery, I don't know how he'll be afterwards.

For the price, ($171.50 including shipping) this guitar is a heck of a deal. I love the humbuckler-neck, single-bridge configuration. It is a very flexible setup. As I said, the middle selector setting is basically worthless unless you want a one-touch gain cut for some reason. It's beautiful, sounds great, and it's cheap. The purists will want a Real fat-tele, but this sure fit my needs nicely.