Formentin Signature

-Transparent burgundy gloss finish over Ash wood grain.
-Strat shaped body with tourtus shell scratch-plate.
-Wilkinson VS100 floating tremolo bridge.
-Grover non-locking tuners.
-25.5" scale leangth.
-24 medium frets.
-Medium C shaped neck carve.
-Flat strat-like fretboard radius.
-Made in Perth Western Australia in 1995.
-Master volume, Master tone, coil-tap switch and 5 way pickup selector.
-Passive pickups.
-S/S/H pickup configuration (2x Kinman single-coils and 1x DiMarzio Dual Sound Humbucker).
-Ash body.
-Maple neck.
-Maple fretboard.

This guitar produces almost any kind of sound, Blues, Jazz, Rock, metal.

This guitar is kind of a Super Strat. I has an Ash body, with a 25.5" scale 24 fret maple neck & fretboard.

The pickups are: 2x Singlecoil KinMan pickups, in the neck and midle positions, with a DiMarzio Dual Sound humbucker in the bridge position.

Master Volume and master Tone controls with a coil splitter for the Humbucker.

I have used this through many amps, Marshall TSL602, Peavey XXX etc. I found that this guitar is more suited to 6L6 tube driven amps, and that amps such as Marshalls tend to make this guitar sound a tad thin. But I have never been a big fan of Marshall amps, especially in conjunction with a strat.

I'd say this guitar has just about as much variety in its tone as any guitar could. The Ash body has a nice warm/balanced sound, and the maple neck/fretboard covers the brighter tones.

The Pickup selection, i think, works very well with this guitar. The bridge pickup is great for variety in treble tones and can be made to sound sweet even with heaps of distortion. The single coil pickups are awesome for diferent combinations of clean tones, warm and gentle, but can be made to sound quite fat and articulate also.

What I found not to my liking, was trying to get a fat solo sound out of the single coil pickups. I personally much prefer a humbucker pickup with a coil splitter in the neck position, to cover all of the sounds I would use.

This guitar was fully hand made by Rob Formentin and he set it up just the way I like it before I took the guitar.

Even though I bought this guitar secondhand about 4 years ago (it is now 11 years old) it was like new, virtually no flaws in the finish or hardware.

This guitar is as tough as high quality fender strats, but as on many used strats, the neck-joint has developed a slight crack at the Join on the body.

The hardware is high quality- Grover tuners, Original USA Wilkinson VS100 Tremolo. I have since replaced the Bone nut and metal strung tree with Grapgite components, I find the original string tree was a little flimsy and in the process of trying to get better intonation, I filed the original nut down too far, and it was replaced with a Graphtec nut.

I almost always have a spare guitar at a gig. On the occasion that I didn't, I would prefer to use a simpler guitar (fixed bridge, less complicated pickup/control wiring, locking tuners etc.)

I have taken it to get serviced/repaired and had it done properly, but had to wait over a month before getting it back.

I have been playing for over 10 years and have owned over 75 guitars, 35 amps, numerous speaker cabinets, effects and other instruments.

If it were stolen, I would consider getting another Formentin Signature as they are great value for money and are great handcrafted instruments.

I am not a huge fan of Strat style guitars, but i think there is a place in everyones guitar collection for one. The Signature is definately worthy of my collection even though it is easily the cheapest guitar in my collection and is comparable to a USA Deluxe Fender Fat-Strat.