Nash Guitars Timewarp S-50s

First of all, I never would have thought that I'd go for a relic guitar; IMHO: a waste of extra money. However, I did not buy this guitar for looks - it is quite ugly primarily due to the finish which is supposed to be "Fiesta Red", but is actually a shocking "Barbie Doll" pink color! The store owner dared me to pick it up and play it and that was all she wrote: I bought this for the great playability and setup and the fantastic sound. This category gets a "7" because the features are standard on just about any Strat with the exception of the aging, setup, and perhaps the Fat neck.

Here are the specs from the Nash Guitars website with my notes added:

Ash or Alder body with "period correct F colors", 100% nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Maple neck with 10" radius fretboard and Dunlop 6105 frets (22), 25.5" scale. Single action truss rod with heel adjust. Vintage Kluson style tuners. Tusq nut. Back Shape: Fat. OEM pickups are a Lollar Hybrid set. Light aging. Other: Vintage style tremelo bridge, standard Vol/Tone/Tone, single-ply white pickguard, and this guitar is very lightweight.

Like many players, I've played and owned a lot of Strats and find they are pretty much "hit" or "miss" on the sound, i.e. you have to actually play it before you buy it no matter what the specs say about weight and other features. However, this is the best sounding and playing Strat I've ever owned.

Nash sets his pickup heights gradually higher going from the lowest on the neck position to highest on the bridge and I find this setup to be a great idea soundwise. The neck pu is still fat, but the bass is not too overwhelming and the other positions add more "gain" and presence as you click back to the bridge. I find that my favorite positions are actually the middle/bridge and the bridge alone for overdriven parts and sparkly cleans while the neck and neck/middle are great for mellower jazz or darker sounds.

One really annoying problem: when static builds up on the pickguard from my hand moving around on it, the sound gets "scratchy" through the amp in a very irritating way, i.e. every time I brush the pickguard a "scratchy" static sound comes through...perhaps this is a result of poor shielding in the cavity?

I play mostly blues/blues rock and jazz and this guitar really complements my Gibson ES-335. I use a great-sounding Vox DA5 for practice and a Marshall Vintage/Modern half-stack for playing out. I've always loved the sound of a Strat through a Marshall set for "on-the-edge-of-breakup" so you can adjust with your volume knob and tone knobs. The Marshall can be set to sound like a cranked 4x12 Fender Bassman and again, you use the volume and tones to get different sounds. My effects are simple: Fender tuner --> Home Brew Compressor --> Ibanez TS-9 --> Maxon AD999 Analog Delay.

Overall: I love the sound of this guitar; it's what a good Strat should sound like. The pickguard problem or poor shielding brings down my rating for this category.

This is where the guitar shines the most. Nash's nut-work is great and if you look at his FAQ on his website, you'll see that he makes the grooves wider and angled toward the headstock to minimize "string hang-ups"; apparently he uses Chaptstick to lubricate it! Whatever, it works great.

The feel of the guitar is just like an old favorite that is setup just the way you want it to be. I love the fat neck shape. As far as the aging goes: I don't really love it or hate it; it's pretty cool, but I would not buy a guitar for it. The shocking color is growing on me and because of the aging, I don't have to worry so much about it getting banged up; that's a cool feature.

One minor quibble: the fret ends tend to stick out a bit from the fretborad edge due to the aging process, but the frets are still a bit sharp-edged...it will go away with time playing it though so no big deal here. I don't give "10" ratings for anything so this is my highest rating.

I have a thing against older guitars: in my experience, they just need a lot of up-keep and special attention to tuning, set-up, and electronics. However, as this guitar is "new", but with Vintage style hardware, I expect to not have many problems. On Nash's website, he says something like, "if you do not maintain your guitar (due to changes in humidity, temperature, etc.) it will eventually sound like sh**t." I expect this level of up-keep, but not failure of parts or real tuning problems. I would not go to a gig without a backup anyway, but definitely feel I can rely on this guitar.

I have no idea what it would be like to obtain warranty service. From his website, it sounds like the man is swamped with orders so I expect that he would be hard-pressed to do a fix-it job, i.e. I would expect to wait quite some time. This is just a guess though and is a problem for every custom maker (and I am sympathetic to the smaller builder's problems here). I usually use a very good guitar tech/builder in VT so really do not need to count on Nash for service. Nash's website is a hoot to read as well as informative.

I've been playing for 23 yrs and also have a Gibson ES-335 which I am going to get setup or try it myself as Nash recommends; I can do minor setups but am getting more adventurous with Nash's encouragement. I compared this guitar to used (but in good shape) Fender '62 RI's, Eric Johnson Signatures, a '62 or '57 Closet Classic, as well as just about every other Strat I could find: this guitar beat them all in terms of playability, feel, and sound. A bit of spin: according to the dealer (whome I greatly respect), an experienced collector/player came in and played this guitar and found it played and sounded better than his own vintage 50's Strat.

One final word on the finish: the dealer lowered the price by about $200 because it is so bad (besides the color, it has "organge peel" all over it" and is overall not that good). But, as I said, I don't care what it looks like: it plays and sounds fantastic and I would definitely try to get another one if it were lost or stolen.