Feline Guitars Honey 58

Delivered March 2003. Made with a Stew Mac book matched Louisiana Swamp Ash vintage routed Strat body with a see thru nitrocellulose butterscotch blonde finish (they don't sell them finished anymore as far as I can see and this finish is ageing beautifully), gotoh vintage strat bridge and vintage tuners. The one piece 21 fret maple neck with walnut skunk stripe on the back was built by Feline to my specs which were for a D/U profile neck with a chunky feel, the dimensions were taken from an original 58 neck, the finish is nitrocellulose also, jumbo Dunlop fret wire, blank headstock and feline logo on back. I supplied Feline with a set of Fender US 57 reissue pickups from another Strat and they put it together. Since then the guitar has had a calibrated set of Van Zandt Blues models fitted (again, taken off another guitar which had custom order VZ's fitted). The guitar came with a Hiscox/Feline LiteFlite molded case. This is all I personally need from a Strat so i'm giving it a 10.

First off, a Strat with a maple board is going to be more toppy than a rosewood board model but the guitar still has a really nice warm sound and sustains really good, retaining the warmth until the note fades (possibly due to the ash body), this is true with either the Fender or Van Zandt pickups, however, it's possible with a bit of digging in to unlock some serious Jimmie Vaughan/Jimi Hendrix bite, especially with the VZ's. I've used this guitar with loads of different amps but I prefer Fenders by far and own both a Fender '65 R/I Twin and a '65 R/I Super so naturally i'm going to say it sounds better through one of Leo's creations. I've used this guitar for lots of gigs but i'm primarily a BluesyFunkyCountryRock type of man and it can't really get better than this and if i'm playing slide, this is the one for me every time, i'd say that this guitar doesn't do Traditional Jazz to well though, my rosewood board guitars are better for that but since i've no desire to be doing a full set of standards and bebop, that's fine by me. If you want to hear the guitar in action go to www.myspace.com/afreshplayers it sounds great here and this is through cheap amps (Hughes+Kettner, Marshall MGDFX) at a practice space, we're recording this week so hopefully it'll be heard through the Super very soon!!

This guitar was beautifully put together but the action and pickups needed adjustment, no biggie. I also had the fingerboard finish taken down a little when it was given a fret stone and polish about 2 years after I got it.

This guitar has never let me down and like most guitars it's actually playing better after a few years of play, I look after my guitars too, so they look after me, but strings do break so I always carry a spare. The finish is wearing on the neck a little and even on a couple of frets, some minor dings on the body but this is cool, it's seen a lot of use. No problem with hardware, gotoh hardware is built to last, the tuners do go though (esp with medium and heavy string guages) but I reckon i've a couple of years left on these.

No warranty but didn't need it. My problem here is that this guitar took so long to deliver (around 9 months) when all Feline actually had to build was a neck and then put it together. I thought that they weren't being totally straight with me on timescales it kept moving and moving and moving, i'd rather be told "look, we're really busy it might take nearly a year". The same thing happened with me when I sent a Strat for a refinish to Feline, that took even longer and left me with no spare for about a year!!! Phone calls weren't always returned either, however, the jobs done on both occasions are top class so maybe I should be more patient.

If this guitar was stolen i'd break down, for 6 years this guitar has been just about everywhere with me, it's part of me and my life now. This guitar cost about half what a Fender Custom Shop version of the same guitar would cost and has made other guitarists green with envy more than a few times, especially when they find out what I paid for it!! I might well be buried with this beauty.