Keiper Guitars 104 BK

The finish is great in my opinion. The shiny black (ash) body with the white pickguard, just looks awesome. The bridge is some unknown (probably chinese) brand but seems to be good. The tuners are also unknown cheap kind but holds the string in tune quite good.
The neck is quite okay, the fretboard is good with no dents. There are 22 jumbofrets, and the are also just fine.
Of included accessories there was a cable (which, surprisingly, was of much better quality than the one that came with my ESP bass guitar that cost four times as much as this guitar) and a umbraco-something (sorry, I don't know what it's called in english) to adjust the tuss-rod.
It was made in 2007. No date on the guitar, but when I ordered it they didn't have it in the store and were going to make some new in the middle of june.
There are two volumecontrols and one tone, and a 3-way switch for the pickups. The pickup configuration is H/H and the pickups are some unknown PAF-style that has a decent sound compared to the price. Passive electronics.
The body is made of ash and the neck of maple. The fretboard is made of palisander.

I play primarily 80's metal. My primary instrument is the bass guitar but I like to sit at home and jam guitar to some old tracks by Metallica, Diamond Head, Mercyful Fate, and other 80's metal bands. The guitar is often associated with that kind of music but it is actually quite versatile. Sadly people don't realize that. Not only this Keiper but also the real deal Gibson Flying V. It sounds decent on a small practice amp. I have yet to try it on my friends Randal RH200 stack.
I have actually not noticed any noise from the guitar, surprisingly. The sound is a little thin and not too powerful, but what can you expect of a <125$ guitar? I am surprised of the quality compared to the price.
Since i both play rythm and solo with the crispy thin bridge pickup i don't use the neck pickup much. But both sound decent, though it wouldn't hurt to switch them with EMG81/60 or Seymour-Duncan Distortion or something like that!

The guitar was not well set up from the factory but they included a tool to adjust the tuss rod (it was probably cheaper than to have a man standing and adjusting every guitar) so no problem there. The bridge is quite high though. I have adjusted the strings as close to the frets as possible but I would prefer a millimeter or two more. But it's okay.
The pickups were not adjusted just perfect, but with a screwdriver it wasn't hard to adjust them to the better.
The guitar was with very few flaws (there was a little dent in the head) but else it was very pretty and the body is just looking awesome. The pickupselector and the pots are surprisingly not noisy at all, they all work just fine. The jack-plug is also quite good quality.

I actually think this guitar will stand a lot of abuse. Though at that price it's not a problem at all to get a spare of the same kind (or maybe the red one if you'd like). The hardware seems to be okay, the tuners are metal and not plastic, the bridge seems to hold and to be good mounted.
The finish is okay to last, but this kind of guitar just looks cooler when it looks worn. Mine has already been smashed in to the wall and other things, and it still looks fine. The strap buttons are actually quite good and holds the strap just fine. Some Schaller locks wouldn't hurt though, but I am not willing to pay 20% of the guitars price just to get locks on it.
I could depend on it but at that price (and if i ever played guitar live) I would not blink a second before buying a spare. I am very positively surprised about its quality vs. price.
Yes, I could use it on a gig without a spare. But I have learnt to always have a spare instrument, if a string breaks.

They were very kind, telling me about the delays in delivery. Very fast response.

I have been playing guitars for real for a year now, but for fun in 5 or 6 years, though I stopped at some time. I don't own any guitar gear, but have tried it on a friends practice amp and is going to try it on another friends Randall 200 Watt halfstack.
I would definately buy another one if it were stolen or lost. It is so cheap that you instead of taking the wife in the city for dinner could buy this one!
I just love that it is so cheap, but at the same time looks much like the real deal, the finish is great and the playability is surprisingly good.
I can't really allow myself to hate things about it since its so cheap.
I didn't compare it to other guitars since it was bought on the internet. I just took the chance and said to myself if it were to bad to play on, it would hopefully look good on my wall in my bedroom. But it was better than I ever hoped.
I wish it had a vibrator system. But that would jug the price up too high, and make it loose it's classic look and feel.

So if you are interested in a good looking, okay quality, extremely cheap guitar, buy this one!

This guitar I bought on eBay for funny price. Beside of it, guitar in On-line shop has also low price. This is shiny black satin body solid guitar, 3-piece solid body of ash, neck is of alder and fingerboard is rosewood. Body style is like Gibson Flying V, model '67. Bolt-on neck has 22 medium frets, tuners are encapsulated Kluson-type and doing well their job. Ordered guitar is shipped well just in paper-box, with one cable. Guitar is made by Germany factory, no serial on neck or anywhere, early 2005. Guitar has like genuine V truss rod cover, a little short than genuine, with title Keiper. Possible to get in black (BK104) and red body color, chrome hardware. She has H/H combination, two passive black open coil humbuckers, two volume and 1 tone controls. Switch is 3-way. Name and model of pickups is unknown, just engraved "R" (neck) and "F" (bridge) bellow but have high DC resistance: 15.8kOhm and 16kOhm! Only two wires per PU, no splitting coil option.
Finish is on few places weak, here and there but not so easy noticeable. But, when you open fingerboard then you can see clumsy work on body: in my guitar like a little kid played with drilling machine: many holes along cavity for pickups! Very, very ugly view. Beside this, guitar is very handsome and looks nice on stage. I had intention to replace present TRC with original of Flying V but seems doesn't much holes on peghead...
"One small point... The 'hardware man' left the protective plastic on the fretboard when fitting the hardware. So to peel it off, you need to either unscrew the bridge, pots, and switch -- which is a bit of a drag, to say the least -- or do what I did, and cut 'round the offending items with a surgical scalpel." - Ditto.

I'm playing heavy metal, thrash and sometime blues, classic rock. In many case I'm playing Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas priest... but also Primal fear, Iced Earth, Alice in chains, UFO, Dio-band, Scorpions...
I'm using at home Marshall Valvestate VS8040, build-in boost and Boss DS-1, and sometime Marshall MG15. On stage is Marshall JCM800 / JCM900.
Even PUs aren't protected like Gibson are in wax, they aren't so oft noisy. Bridge PU is very good for solo, sweet hot, lot of treble and midrange but not too much, easy tapping, shredding, just need a little more sustain. I put PU near strings but not so much result. Neck PU is warm, good for rhythm, little muddy and rich.

Guitar arrived in "just assembled" condition so I made necessary action in order to put it in working condition. Correction was necessary for hardware (bridge level) and level of pickups. After that all was good.
Action is low, very easy playing if you like to stay and to play. To sit and play isn't so comfortable except you put between legs with lower horn...
Finish isn't so high but for so low price of this axe it is not so big error. Switch is a little noisy but... I can live with it. Pots are quiet but not so quality, too easy turning.

Guitar is reliable and could be first or backups guitar on stage. has remarkable sound of classic rock school and is working nice with trademark pedals and processors. Many visitors noticed it and can't believe what you got for so little money. Finish is enough good, like many of middle class manufacturers, strap buttons are reliable but replacement would be "plus". As she has fixed bridge I dare to use it on gig w/o backup.

I never contacted them like a complainant, just a few e-mails about power of pickups and asking for new models that aren't still in production. They were kind and respond very fast.

I'm playing more than 20 years. beside of this axe I have Dean ML and Gibson Explorer '76. Too bad is that they not producing Explorer body guitar, I would to buy two white of them with same PU.
If some fool steal it from me I would vote to hang him on tree for such act and for sure I would order other one again.

From their online shop:

Body: 3-piece solidbody, ash
Length: 1017 mm
Neck: maple, bolt-on, one piece with bolt-on headstock
First fret gauge: 43 mm
Fretboard: rosewood with dot-inlays, 22 frets
Scale: 645 mm
Hardware: chromium-plated
Colour: black
Pickups: 2 PAF-style humbuckers
Insert Jack: 6.3mm
Tuners: Encapsulated Kluson-type
Bridge: tune-o-matic with stoptailpiece
2 volume controls (hat style)
1 tone control (hat style)
3-way toggleswitch

Accessories: Lead and Allen key for truss rod.

Finish: Black/white/chrome.

Slightly dismayed over one or two of the 'finish' points, I plugged the guitar into my '66 Vox AC10 Twin expecting the worst, but I was really surprised by the quality of the sound straight out of the box. The strings it comes fitted with look likely to wear down the ends of one's fingers pretty quickly if you like bending notes, so I changed them for Fender LG's. After setting up the action and pickups, I was further shocked to discover it sounds and plays better than my current favourite, a US Fender Telecaster. I changed the Tele's strings, but this Flying V copy still sounds better. Very much like a Gibson in fact, except it's actually 1mm narrower at the nut (which takes a little getting used to.)

To get the intonation right with the new strings, I had to screw the top string length adjuster on the bridge all the way back, hard against the cast bridge housing. A bit too close for comfort really, suggesting that the bridge posts are set at slightly the wrong angle.

When playing, it has a precise feel to it, and I would describe it overall as a very musical guitar with a pretty impressive range of sounds, since it's very sensitive to playing style. It sustains very well with a nice rich tone. I suspect the pickups are good quality, or at least, they're a good match for my old Vox. I also tried it through a pedal board into a Zoom G2 and it really worked well with that, for almost any style.

There's a soft but audible click from the amp when switching pickups with the volumes up. Otherwise not too bad for noise, though I suspect it's a bit low on earth screening in comparison to my Tele, but I haven't looked under the pickguard yet.

The action was on the high side, the pickups very low. The upper intonation was out by about 3/16" with the strings supplied. However the body was well finished, as was the neck, except as noted below.

It arrived very well packaged within two days of ordering from Keiper. And the style looks great. It's odd to see a registered trademark symbol inlaid in mother of pearl next to the maker's name on the headstock. Presumably the neck and body are run off on computer controlled milling machines in China. I tend to think if you get a good cheap guitar, then you got lucky. But if they're all made on computer controlled milling machines and assembled in jigs these days, then I guess all those in the same batch should be fairly consistent, not allowing for the random human element, of course...

Unlike the original, this copy has a bolt-on neck, which is dead straight and very securely fixed. My only real complaint is that the rear of the neck was a touch dented on mine. I imagine that this was the handiwork of the 'human element' or more precisely, the person who screwed on the truss rod cover - 5mm skewed off-centre. But apart from that... it has a perfect finish, and nothing that a dab of varnish, a light touch of flour paper, and a screwdriver, won't fix.

One small point... The 'hardware man' left the protective plastic on the fretboard when fitting the hardware. So to peel it off, you need to either unscrew the bridge, pots, and switch -- which is a bit of a drag, to say the least -- or do what I did, and cut 'round the offending items with a surgical scalpel.

Oh, and there's one other rather annoying thing; the balance is slightly neck heavy, which is surprising, because the body is 1.75" thick and not exactly light. But when the guitar is hanging free from a guitar strap, it tilts neck-downward by about 30 degrees. The front button won't really go much further forward, so the only solution I can think of to bring the weight backwards (short of fitting a Bigsby type tremolo perhaps), might be to replace the metal tuners with lighter Gibson Deluxe style Machine Heads (the ones with the plastic knobs), as per the original Gibson Flying V.

The tuners aren't that great, but credit where it's due, they do stay in tune. It might be worth adding some pickup covers at some point before gigging it, since the bridge pickup coils are a bit exposed to knocks, save for the cloth wrapping tape 'round the coils. The bridge itself is well chromed, but the captive screw ends tend to pop out of their holes when adjusting.

For the type of guitar it represents, it seems quite rugged except for the exposed pickup coils. I think I'd fit pickup covers if I were gigging with it. Apart from that, the neck is fairly slender in comparison to a Tele and there's also a mitre joint in the neck about 4" below the headstock (so the grain orientation lines up with the headstock angle). For these two reasons, I wouldn't expect it to be as bullet proof and rugged as a Tele for gigging. But unless you're going to do a Pete Townshend with it, I suspect the style is likely to be the ultimate decider. In any case, at this price you could buy a spare one as a backup. The strap buttons are good...

I'll only give it a 6 as I think at the very least it needs pickup covers and the balance problem fixed with light weight tuners and/or a Bigsby type tremolo, for gigging.

They seem quite a pleasant and approachable company by e-mail. I suspect they offer some sort of return policy, but I dont know.

Overall, to my way of thinking it's definitely a bargain and a nice guitar with a few hardware changes. I've been playing about twenty-five years and I don't recall ever playing a guitar under ??300 that sounded or played quite so well. With a change to a lighter style of machine heads, and perhaps a higher quality bridge with wider string adjustment, it could be a great all round guitar. Pity it doesn't fit in a standard sized case though, because I've got plenty of those... If it disappeared, I think I'd probably replace it. Be nice if it came with a tremolo option. I've got several guitars, mostly Fenders and Gibsons. At one time I used to have a nice Yamaha SG copy, which is what this Flying V most reminds me of, to play.

I'll give it a 9 for style, value and sound.

i believe it was made in 2005 in China.It has 22 nickel silver frets.3 piece ash body,2 volume,1 tone and 3-way selector.2 paf style humbuckers at bridge and neck.Rosewood neck with pearl dot inlays.classic flying v shape.tune -o-matic bridge.encapsulated kluson type tuners.6 grover type tuners.comes with jack to jack lead and allen key.well set up,strings a bit cheap and nasty.

i've only started playing about 8 months ago but tend to lean towards a rock style hence the v guitar,having said that with my limited knowledge of guitars i think this could and would suit a wide variety of styles.i am using a zoom 505 ii multi fx pedal and a vintage kay amp.i would say it delivers a rich/full sound.i think the guitar has bags of sustain.Like the amazing quility for little outlay.dislike the cheap strings supplied.

the guitar was set up very well with i believe great attention and care,the action is very low for ease of playing.the pick up set up seems fine.there was no obvious flaws on the guitar.excellent finish.having never seen the real mccoy other than in picture in my opinion this guitar is a deadringer.

as i am some way away from playing live i'll let you know-see no reason why not though.again the hardware seems ok.i think the finish will last.strap buttons are solid.i think you could depend on this guitar and if i get to play a gig this will be slung over my shoulder no probs.

have not needed to contact them and i pretty sure it has a 1 year manu standard warranty.

i've been playing for 8 months.i own a late seventies early eighties cmi telecaster copy which i believe was made in the ibanez factory,i also have a Marlin classical guitar and as i said earlier a zoom fx box and a kay amp.if this guitar was stolen i would be gutted and would replace it.i love the v shape and the many standard features.i dont like the cheap strings.i chose this guitar because i've always wanted a flying v,if i hadnt i of got this i think i would of got a les paul copy and probably from keiper.with my limited time playing i think the same rules apply to guiar as anything else keep practicing and dont lose heart.