El-Degas Double cutaway Les Paul Jr copy

Dont know what year made but was bought in the mid 90s
2 volume knobs 2 tone one Tone falls off sometimes,
Single coil screw pickups sound very bluesish
Unkown wood for neck and body but the neck is glued on not bolted
It has an awesome cherry finish and I love the cutaway style
The bridge is a classic Les Paul, like the bridge behind the bridge on a Gibson today
I had to replace the tuners for the ones on it were ****e when I bought it second hand
The neck is pretty thin but it is the perfect size for my hand but thats all that matters

Its pickups turn alot of sounds into blues but it can realy pull off any thing from Punk to Country to Metal
I use overdrive and a heavy metal distorsion with it along with other basic gear(wah, chorus, ect)
It is LOUD on anything above 6 and has a full sound with tone on 0 and a bright sound with tone on 10
I love the sound this guitar makes

I havent had any troubles with pickups and everything works top notch
I love the Finish on it

I play live with this guitar no problem or questions asked!
The finish is good and thick and durable
I would trust my life to this guitar (if it were a person)
I use it without a backup but I do have a backup in case it gets stolen

NA

I love thjis guitar and have played it for 12 years.
My gibson Explorer is a very nice guitar anmd have tested them against each other and this guitar came close to the quality.
I wish it had a whammy bar.
This guitar was my third and was a gift to me from my mentor.

Purchased in Feb. 1978 for $151 Canadian
Made in Japan
Carbon copy of Gibson Les Paul Jr with double cutaways(Les Paul TV of late 1950's)
22 frets
Solid top
2 volume, 2 tone control, 1 toggle switch (3-way)
2 single row pickups (neck and bridge), no humbucking
Serial number is 901

Unknown wood for body and neck, but it is light!
Rosewood fingerboard with plastic inlays, but very well finished
Nice and thick clearcoat over a burgundy red coulor and nice wood grain
The neck is a little fat (a la Gibson) but well rounded
I would prefer it had a tremolo
It has black pickguard and knobs

The original sound is just awfull and the bridge piece belongs in the garbage. The original pickups will pick all the noise around.
Luckily I found a used dual humbucker from DiMarzio and put it at the bridge. Bingo! No more hum. It pulls a lot on the strings, even with a low setting. Sustain is weak due to the softness of the wood. I also tried a couple of bridges until I put in an Ibanez with tunable saddles. Without those two don't bother, it's useless.
This is a definite rythm guitar, not a gear for a front man.
With a good distorsion pedal it gives you the perfect sound to play Judas Priest or AC/DC, but not suited for blues licks or rich solos.

Finish is superior and the neck is straigth. Original pickups and bridge are just useless.
Machine heads have cheap plastic caps, but are holding and generally reliable. The G strings won't stay in tune for long.
The rosewood fingerboard is easy to play for beginners, or just for chopping chords, but lacks the fluidity or a maple fingerboard. This ain't a Gibson SG nor a Stratocater and my fingers feel fat and clumzy on this neck.

I've had this one for 22 years and it still plays like new. But I only use it for backing tracks.

none

22 years, but I prefer my other El-Degas (Stratocaster). This is a beginner's guitar and I got tired of it quickly. It is worth little these days, so I just store it. I like the looks though. I would much prefer it had a tremolo. Maybe one day I will have one put on. This may give it a second life.

Another file out of my "I used to own one" vault, in fact the very first solid body electric guitar I ever owned. I must admit they paid good attention to detail: El-Degas logo inlaid in the headstock a la "les Paul" and the trapezoid inlays, pretty sharp!

Mother of plastic inlays no doubt, but nice touches! Clear burgundy finish, no clue of the wood used, rosewood fingerboard (trapezoid markers) neck was bolt-on.

The fret job was a disaster though, with plenty of buzz and "note-outs", the intonation was a joke due to the one-piece tailpiece/bridge. The electronics were pretty standard: 2 pickups P-90 knock-offs), 2 volumes, 2 tones and one pickup selector toggle switch.

The pickguard was screwed on to the body to hide the pickup wire groove - the mark of a chain assembled axe I guess ...

For ANY type of music it sucked equally. The knock-off
P-90's sounded nasal, muddy and attracted so much 60-cycle hum ... uuuuuugly!

The action was awful due to uneven frets, improper neck angle, and that 1 piece bridge made matters worse by making proper intonation virtually impossible - I don't care how vintage it looked.

The combination of a bolt-on neck and cheap P-90 copies made for little sustain (if any). The guitar looked nice (and I admit in retrospect close to the real thing on the surface), but was a disaster to play, and it was on the heavy side.

On the other hand, it was definitely built to last. With a fret dress, a neck adjustment, a better bridge, humbuckers and better tuners (the stock ones were cheap acorn-type ones rather flimsy), that guitar would have been road-worthy, and even perhaps studio-worthy.

Don't know.

That guitar was purchased at a point where I hadn't a clue what I was looking for, it was cheap and built solid so I went for it. Since back then I couldn't tell the difference between humbuckers, P-90's and single coil pickups, finding replacement pickups was quite the riddle.

I knew it needed a lot of work and replacement parts in order to sound the way I wanted, so it ended up in a long string of replacements (El Degas, Hondo etc).

Unless the Degas has already been worked on, I'd stay away.