Wesley Vermont Vintage SG

Purchased off ebay in a mad moment, very surprised at quality of a low cost guitar.

Maple body and Alder neck set and glued nice rosewood fretboard, bound in cream with inlays actually looks better than original SG.

Usual SG type bridge controls etc. with quite good pickups at this level.

I later purchased an Epiphone SG 310 which I found a disappointment in both sound (very muddy) and build quality (or lack of it being made from PLY WOOD construction after looking inside) being over twice the price.

Sounds above its price range if the SG310 is any measure to use.

There is a nice crispness to the bridge pickup and a heavier but quieter tone from the neck.

Bearing in mind this is a ??90 guitar it is head and shoulders above the Epi. in my opinion for what its worth

Action needed setting up but but most new axes need a setup from the box anyway.

The Cherry lacquer is excellent and makes a great looking instrument contrasting with the chrome hardware and black scratch plate.

One tuner broke when it was dropped, easily replaced but you are not supposed to treat them like that after, all they are not real axes are they?

I have had it over a year now and it has out lived the Epi 310 I was going to upgrade to, need I say more!

It has a strong resemblance to its intended target, and with the cream binding it surpasses other would be clone SGs.

Improved pickups, would in my humble opinion take it into a much higher level but at these prices its hard to beat!

This came with a cable, plus a padded gig bag I ordered separately.

Arrival was quick, within a day or two every thing well wrapped and boxed.

I was impressed by the finish on a budget guitar with the transparent red lacquer showing the attractive wood grain on the body & neck, the chrome fittings were very good & solid.

The neck was a surprise as it bound in white something I have not seen on even a Gibson SG nice rosewood white trapezoid inlays giving a quality look to a budget model

The sound from the pickups in again reasonable for at the price, my daughter has an Epiphone Les Paul which has better sounding units but was 4 times the cost but subjectively only twice as good "you pays your money and you takes your choice" comes to mind.

We only use a yamaha and stag practice amps with a zoom effects pedal and it gives plenty of variety.

Sounds are ideal for rock etc but happy strumming along too.

Action was a bit too high on arrival, had to adjust at the nut and adjusted down at the bridge to get it as I liked it ie nice and low.

Neck is nice to work with especially for a beginner

All in all I was impressed with this instrument at the price mark and felt it probably punched above its weight, you would have a problem finding better at the price

I have only used it at home but seems quite sturdy unless Pete Townsend gigged with it!

Nothing has let me down as yet

N/A

For a beginner it is ideal, good price, reasonable sound and quality it is very like the Gibson it emulates in body shape & layout more so than other look alikes I have seen for more money than this.

all in all I love its shape & feel

I hate putting it away until the next time

Cost ??79 new. Very basic features, excellent laquered finish but rather thin, overall very smart looking guitar. The pots seem to work reasonably well. The guitar design is based on a Gibson SG but has a slightly longer body slightly Strat shaped, the headstock is angled slightly less than an SG, reducing the inherent string tension (saving my poor fingers) making this one much easier to play but as a result doesn't have the brittle twang when played unplugged.

Very rich Gibson-like sound, much deeper than a Les Paul copy, careful adjustment and signal run through a mixer with effects abd eq yield very good results, though there is a very very faint tremelo effect on sustain. Very easy neck to play, sounds very good on clean and distortion.

Careful setting up and string choice (slinky 9's) revea very good results, slightly raising the bridge and some neck adjustment cleared the buzzing of the low strings even with 9's. Pickups set to their lowest setting otherwise they have too much attack. The frets seemed even enough, though some tidying up at the edges of the neck was necessary - all these cheap guitars seem to fail the yellow duster test. Pickups are very good quality, doubt if they will need changing. The bridge posts were all loose, I had to glue them in with shims. Tuners are very smooth and accurate, wish they'd fitted a bat-shape pick guard. Pickup switch works ok.

Not owned for very long, seems to need little tuning adjustment day to day. Strap buttons seem big enough, I don't use strap locks as they rattle, just a simple light strap is all you need. Nut seems to be very good and not binding the strings, some pencil lead in the slots cures this if needed.

Not known.

Playing 6 years, have owned many Strats, Les Pauls and one or two SG's but very pleased with this guitar, it is good looking and has a character of its own, but seems fragile - I look after my gear so won't be doing any Pete Townshend or Hendrix impressions. Very good sound for the money and comfortable to play, but not for professionals obviously.

I won this guitar, very cheap, on ebay. I didn't even need another guitar, and was just messing about. When I won it, I was expecting the biggest pile of crap I'd ever seen to arrive. When i took it out of the box, I was stunned. The finish on the guitar is as good as any ??500 guitar I have seen. I love the SG style and shape. It's got a Tune-O-Matic type bridge and die cast tuning pegs and a stop tailpiece. Two humbuckers. All the hardware is in quality looking chrome. The tone and volume knobs look a bit cheap, but are ok. It has a set neck with a rosewood finger board and 22 frets.

I play mainly contemporary christian worship stuff and have used this guitar a couple of times.
I use a Peavey Bandit and a Boss ME effects pedal.
The guitar sounds great but is all bass or all treble with not much in between. The guitar has a huge amount of sustain which has a vibrato effect. This was slightly disconcerting at first, but now I like it.
I had some problems covered in the next section,
Likes: Finish fingerboard and comfort standing or sitting
Dislikes: The front strap button is mounted on the back where the neck is attached. This makes the strap twist awkwardly. The tone controls are a bit vague.

The action was very high and the intonation was a clogg out, so I had to set it up as best as I could. The bridge adjustments made this quite easy. I figured that they had just chucked it in a box and posted it without setting it up because I got it so cheap. Fair doos! The biggest problem was the fret height at the 13th fret. It was so bad, I thought the guitar was scrap at first. I had to dress the frets to prevent buzzing when playing any higher than the 7th fret.

Now it is set up a bit better, it seems to stay in tune and can stand long periods of playing.
Hadware seems solid and reliable, and the strap buttons are ok
I would not want to rely on it as my only guitar, but it is great fun.

No dealings with Wesley

I've been playing about 5 years on and off. I also own a Yamaha electro acoustic and a Brian May signature.
If it were lost or stolen, I would try to get another one cheap on ebay.
I may sort out the electrics and fit better quality pickups and pots. The quality of the build warrants it.

My Brian May is still the best!

The Vermont is a Gibson SG style electric guitar with twin chrome plated humbuckers and a three way switch. The body is solid alder and an attractive woodgrain is visible through the glossy cherry colour finish. It is an SG shape but differs in that the two horns are the same size whereas the top horn is larger than the bottom on a Gibson or Epiphone SG. The curves and chamfers are spot on and I think the overall look is great. It has a half sized three ply black/white/black pick guard. It has a set neck with a rosewood fretboard and 22 frets. The headstock is black faced with a gold 'Wesley' transfer and is attractively shaped rather like a Taylor acoustic. The machine heads are of the sealed type and are smooth and accurate. The strings terminate at a chrome stop tail and tunamatic bridge. It came with a lead although it would have been so much better had it come with a strap.

I like to play Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Dire Straits, Eagles etc. I have an old 20 watt Fender amp and a Vox TonelabSE valve effects processor. My first impression was not great because the supplied strings are thin - possibly 9s - and I could not get it to sound in tune. Open chords, particularly Em sounded dreadful so I fitted a set of Ernie Ball 10s which transformed it - how can a simple set of strings make such a difference?. The acoustic sound (important to me because I practice a lot unplugged) is brighter and livelier than you would expect which is probably due to the alder body and having a stop tail it sustains really well. Plugged in the neck pickup was very muffled and saturated with bass. It was quite close to the strings so I lowered it as far as it will go and now it has a really dark vibe which is great for rhythm playing. The bridge pickup is good and hot and the accoustic liveliness of the guitar comes through. It's easy to get really great lead solo sounds from it. The middle position has an interesting quack to it so I would say that there is a good range of sounds available and the pickups are way better than I expected given the price I paid for the guitar. The tone controls do very little other than at position 1 where they seem to act more like an on/off switch. I suspect the pot values are wrong. It's not a problem to me because I usually have tone controls on 10 anyway.

The overall quality of workmanship is very good with one exception which I will discuss later. The set neck is very nicely done. In fact I had a close look at various Epiphones in a guitar shop and noticed quite a lot of messy varnish built up around the body/neck joint. The Wesley's neck is cleanly fitted. The paint job is superb all over with not a blemish in the gorgeous cherry paint. The tunamatic bridge doesn't look as nice as a Gotoh I have fitted to another guitar although it works perfectly well. For some reason the three bass strings' adjustable bridges are reversed, I guess to allow for greater adjustment range, but it does look a bit odd. Moving up to the neck, the rosewood board looks nice with an even colour and the trapezoid fret markers are faultlessly inlaid although there is some very slight scoring in some of them where they have been sanded down. The neck binding is done well too. The machine heads are smooth in action but when I changed the strings I found the top E machine head was loose. I gently tightened the nut but it seemed to have a stripped thread. I got it to 'nip up' slightly but beware, the metal is a bit soft.
The big problem with this guitar was the truly awful fret job. The action was set very low and every other fret seemed to buzz. I like a high action so I raised it (which is easy with a tunamatic bridge) but there was still a lot of buzzing. I took the strings off and put a steel rule along the frets and they were all over the place. One of them (the 20th) had been hammered so hard that it had a dent in the middle! Quite a few of the frets had a rough surface where they had been filed so I decided to dress them myself and see if I could do any better. Fortunately(!?!) the frets are quite soft and easy to file and by working with the steel rule to find the high frets, I gradually filed them down until they were all level. It took about an hour. I finished off with some fine abrasive paper to remove the file marks and applied some lemon oil to the rosewood. I am pleased to say that with the new strings fitted there are no buzzes. I feel that the accuracy of the fretboard is the most important part of the construction of a guitar so I can only award 6 for this category.

While I was waiting for it to be delivered I had it in mind to just use it and abuse it and not worry about chipping the paint etc. but it looks so fantastic that I have bought it a stand and am really careful not to bump it into anything. I don't do gigs but I do go to a guitar lesson every week so it will get transported around. I suspect it will stand up to it though.

I have not contacted them but myself but from what I have read John Wesley is a genuine guitar enthusiast and not just a trader.

When I won the auction for this guitar I had a sick feeling because I didn't really want it. I had been bidding on some quite expensive Les Paul Juniors and got back from the pub one night, checked My eBay only to find that I had lost the one I really wanted and in a reckless moment put on a low bid for this Wesley and next day to my sober horror I had won it! Fortunately after a bit of enjoyable work with a file I have a guitar that I really like so I have changed my mind about buying one expensive guitar and am going to buy several low cost ones of diffent type so John Wesley, how about making a single pickup mahogany bodied LP Junior?