Product: Guild s280/281
Price Paid: USD 100
Submitted
04/02/2007
at
07:18pm
by
Michael Rodgers
Email: mlr_pa at yahoo<dot>com
Features
:
2
An unusual beasty, from the days when metal ruled! (1985, and made in the USA!)
Strat like guitar, with alder as the body wood, and a 22 fret bolt on neck. Very simple brother of pearl dots on rosewood, with a pretty wild radius to the neck. graphite nut, string retention bar, with the typical 6 in line tuners. One EMG 81, with one volume control. A Kahler Flyer trem bridge. That's it for features. (Funny how there's no locking nut. Hmmmmm?)
Sound
:
10
It is a screamer! Simply put, if you need something to cover a lot of tones, forget about it. This guitar was meant to rock. Period, end of discussion. The EMG can sing like no other pickup, but we have to be honest, one pickup guitars have no variaty in tones! But for scream rock, thru as much distortion as your amp can handle, then this guitar shines! Sustain for days, and a bite that can remove heads. What more do you need in a metal axe?
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
It's another of my pawn shop finds, and needed some help. A broken wire in the HUGE wiring cavity, and the springs were removed from the Kahler. A simple block was put in under the trem, and it's fixed. The neck is a dream, with these super jumbo frets that time, and the previous owner, was gentle to. The black finish still has a shine to it, and all of the black hardware remains mostly black. Great job on the finishing of the parts and of the guitar!
Reliability/Durability
:
10
It's survived 22 years, and will survive another hundred years! It has angled "V" shape strap buttons, and are solid. The fine tuners on the bridge are flawless, and the 6 in lines keep tune well also. Durable as all hell! (Who would have thought that Guild in their last days as a REAL COMPANY could put together a guitar like this?)
Customer Support
:
7
Thru their website, I fould out the age thru the serial numbers. At least Fender got that right.
Overall Rating
:
10
I have callus's older that most people who use this site. (Bass playing for 26 years, and switched to guitar seriously 7 years ago) I have owned 100's of guitars, and worked on 1000's of them. This is a wild playing guitar, with some nice action. The neck isn't as fast as say a Wizard II neck from Ibanez, but it's fast enough. The lack of a neck P/U s a bit annoying, and I'm toying with putting one in. But considering that it's a guitar that was meant to do one type of music, it's pretty amazing.
