Wesley Tupelo

I really liked the look of this. A cheap surburst semi with a set neck and gold hardware. I bought two budget Wesleys before (both were suberb except fairly weak pickups). As this was a little more expensive it had to be good, and it certainly is. There is a lovely smooth varnish feel all over it. A joy to have in one's hands. Good machine head, a nice neck that was not too thick. The guitar looks a lot better without the scratchplate.

I have it alongside an Aria TA40 and an Ibanez artcore to compare with. The pickups are not as powerful as my Aria (same price though now more expensive) but far more than my Artcore (more than twice the price). It really can give a crunchy sound if pushed (my artcore sounds as if it's being strangled when overdriven). There is a nice low end as well. Pretty versatile.

Wesley pride themselves on setting and tuning their their guitars for instant playablility. A great service it is, but the strings seemed like 8 gauge one so their was a lot of fret buzz. I put 9s on to improve it slightly then put 10s on. Now it's brilliant. Note to Wesley: semi's need higher gauge strings. Asides that everything was perfect

I'll take care of this one even though it was fairly inexpensive (one hundred and forty pounds). I'm sure it will last for sometime and it could be stage decor as it looks so good.

When this arrived I could not get any electric sound out. I emailed Wesley, someone arranged for someone to collect the guitar fom my home and a few days the problem was fixed (or I received a new one). A great service.

This is my third Wesley. The tele and Coloma strat were great to play but weak pickups discouraged me from using them at band practices. However, this is a beaut! When I used it in my church group so many people wanted to have a go on it (rather than talk to me!). This is the first semi I have bought without trying out first and after buying worried if that was a mistake. It wasn't. Highly recommended.

I had my eye on one of these for some time on ebay.
Full price from the Wesley web site is ??169, and popularity meant paying under ??100 was going to need perserverence.
I eventually got it for 87 quid.
Not sure where made - I presume Korea or China.
Thoughts? - This is actually the 4th Wesley I have bought - my sons also play, and I got great deals via ebay.
Previousl models - the acrylic strat, 12 string acoustic, and flying V have all been impressive at the price.
This is a pretty accurate copy of the Gibson remake of the classic ES355.
Maple top, sides and back, Mahogany set neck , 22 frets.unbranded humbuckers, with the solid centre, and hollow sides of the original guitar.
The Tunomatics are direct copies.

I`ve been playing [some would say messing about] for 27 years or so.
I play mostly blues and rock .
The pick ups are noise free, and surprisingly good for cheap copies.
In particular, the front pickup alone gives a lovely meaty bluesy sound.
Great sustain and little feedback.

Messing about with both a line 6 spider 212 and a small practice amp, there is a noticable difference to the sound of this and the other electric guitars in the house.
It sounds similar to an old Hofner semi-acoustic I played years ago, so full marks there.

Dislikes - I will say more in the fit and finnish section, but this guitar seems to lose tuning easily .
It may be a feature of the factory strings, but my feeling is it is the fit of the neck.

Action is excellent.
There was a little fret buz, but minor adjustment of the action sorted this easliy enough.
The guitar is very playable indeed .
The body is beautifully made, and the glaze is deep and lustrous.
The Wesley logo really should be mother of pear and not painted - pisses me off that.

One notable problem was the fit of some of the machine heads.
As it arrived there was a 1-2 mm gap where the machine head wasnt properly aligned and screwed on.
I ended up removing the strings and refitting them - not a huge problem, but should have been noted .
As I fixed it myself, I didnt contact the company.

Having said that, I`ve seen bigger flaws on expensive branded equipment.

In general a well made guitar for the price, though I am not convinced the neck is sufficiently strongly braced.

Body looks very durable...
I dont trust the neck not to bend with misuse.
I would treat this instrument with kid gloves as a result.
The wiring looks very sound indeed and the general build quality is pretty good.

If the neck warped what would I do?
Pay to get it fixed, that`s what.
lets face it, I got a guitar for well under 100 quid that is a copy of one costing 3 grand.
I have been looking for a decent copy of a 355 for years.
Others that I have seen cost more, and offer less, so I`m prepared to accept the odd flaw.

never needed to contact them, and given return postage costs I suspect I would try to get any problems fixed locally.
I`m not hard on my instruments, so fingers crossed - I will be keeping my sons away from this guitar though!

I have played original Gibson Les Pauls, copies by Epiphone, Strats [real vintage ones] and various bits and pieces over the years.

I have owned some utter crap that superficially looked good, but played badly and sounded like nothing at all.

I must admit that my experience of this company`s products has been very good indeed.
The Flying V my son owns sounds far better than his friend`s 300 quid eiphone SG copy...and it cost me 40 quid on ebay.

This sounds at least as good as the old Hofner my friend had years ago, as well as the Les Paul gold top owned by another pal`s dad .
Make no mistake - the quality of cheaper guitars has come on leaps and bounds since I began to play in the 80`s.
The electronics are much much better, and every guitar we have got from wesley has had lovely action.

Because you arent paying for the name, I suspect you are getting much better quality.

If like me you will never be BB King, or Jimi Page, but still like to mess about with a nice instrument , without ending up in the divorce courts blowing ??3,000 on an original....it is well worth the money.

Even if I decide to change the pickups and rebuild the neck, I suspect I would still be quids in.

335-copy, red finish (classisc 335-color), tune-o-matic bridge, non-locking tuners, dunno about the brand. 2 vol. knobs and 2 tone and a 3-way selector. 2 x passive humbucker pickups.

Nothing extraordinary, just the nescessary.

I bought it very cheap, so i am still really impressed with how well it sounds. I usually play a lot of diffrent things. mostly psychedelic rock, garagerock, bluesrock and stuff like that. but also punk rock and stonerrock. it fits these styles perfectly. i play it over a Fender Hot Rod amp, sometimes with a Proco RAT 2 in front. But even though im most of all impressed, im also a bit disappointed. Whenever you remove the tone entirely from the pickups, the sound becomes almost non-excistant. and also that pickups don't sound THAT good. they sound good at the price. It makes less noise than my MIJ Fender Jazzmaster, thats for shure.

Nothing noticeably wrong with it from the previous owner.

The sound is ok at the price, but the construction of the guitar is crap. I believe it is one of the least reliable guitars i have ever had. Including my 100$ Squier Strat. It feels really cheap when you play it. And if you grab a bit to hard around it, the neck will bend a bit and make the guitar go out of tune. Also you can't really bend the notes without the guitar getting out of tune. The finish seems nice and solid. I would never play a gig with this guitar without having a backup. I don't trust it enough to do so.

I have been playing for 5 years at the moment.
Besides this Wesley guitar i have a Fender Jazzmaster, a wrecked Squier Stratocaster, and old acoust??c Levin and a Fender Jazzbass.
My amps are a Fender Hot Rod and a Fender Frontman 15W

All i can say is, the only thing i would love to have done before i bought the guitar was to actually try it out. I bought it because i needed a humbucker-guitar similiar to a 335, or thereabout. If it got stolen or lost i think i'd just save up my money for the real deal. And i think you should do that too. Or else you're welcome to buy mine.

Gibson 335 copy, sunburst finish, flamed maple veneer top, tune o matic bridge, 22 frets, neck and bridge humbuckers, 3 way switch, 2 tone 2 volume controls, came with free lead, I guess it was made in the far east.

To be honest I usually fingerpick and bought this guitar cos it was cheap and looked ace, and I needed something that's quiet when I play at home so I don't use an amp. My mate reckoned that the sound was good and it had good sustain, but there was some hum from the pick ups, when using a fender amp of some sort, not very descriptive I know. I'll give it a 7 cos of the slight humming, but I really know nothing about what a good electric should sound like.

This guitar is very nicely made indeed. The finish is great, there is attractive binding and purfling. When I got the guitar it was playable but it benefitted from lowering the nut, setting the bridge, altering the truss rod, and filing a couple of frets. It now has a great action that conforms to specs that gibson recommend. However I have 2 criticisms. One is that the truss rod nut had no washer so got all chewed up so I needed to make a new nut, (easy as I have access to a lathe at work but not so easy if you don't) but this could be an isolated incident. Also the blades in the bridge are all the same height despite the fact that the fingerboard is radiused so it was hard to set it up without the d and g strings getting buzzy. It stills plays well though, my mate reckons it plays as nicely as his genuine 70s fender telecaster! Generally very impressive indeed.

Finish is very hard wearing and my guitar has been knocked around a little and still looks like new. I only play at home or with mates so don't know about gigging, but it is very solid and well made.

When I emailed Wesley they got back top me very quicky. I told them about the truss rod nut and they seemed concerned and asked fopr more details but since I made the new nut I have been happy so didn't persue teh matter. I think they would have been helpful but don't know for sure.

Playing about a year, have an acoustic too. I am happy with this guitar, and it seems to perform when I plug it in but electric is not my preferred style. I really like this guitar and is exceptionally well made for a budget model, (apart from the truss rod nut), it looks incredible, the flamed maple front is beautiful, lacquer thick glassy and hard wearing. I didn't compare it with other guitars but I think I got lucky because it is fantastic compared to other cheap guitars I have seen.