So I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on this lil guy a bit later on this evening and I thought I'd get yall's opinion on Eastwood's Country Gentlemen copy the Classic 6.

Or maybe just Eastwood Guitars -- anybody got one? How do they hold up to serious gigging/touring? Stay in tune? Finish stay all shiny?

Here's some specs form their website:

• Custom Black Finish
• Semi-Hollow Maple Body
• Set Maple Neck
• Rosewood Fingerboard
• 24 Scale
• 1 5/8 Nut
• EW-Retro Humbuckers
• Individual Volume Controls/Master Tone
• Tune-O-Matic Bridge

Yeah, picked it up and I gotta say, there were a few issues with it out of the box: Firstly, those tuners are some kind of Korean garbage. I couldn't get em off fast enough. There was a TON of play in the machine head themselves and with anything more than light picking they'd come right out of tune. So I popped on eBay and picked up a set of Grovers and with a little finessing they dropped right in. Secondly, the nut is dogshit. It may in fact be made out of like Mexican action figure plastic. It was grabbing my strings on bends so I pulled em all off and tried to work on the grooves a little and before I knew it I could see little cracks. So I just said fuggit and swapped it out. THIRD AND LASTLY, that bridge is an embarrassment. It rattled so loud when I was strumming that it could be heard over my damn AC15. I took it off and looked for the little wire that is threaded through the screws on a tune-o-matic style bridge as that is usually the source of a bridge rattle and TYPICALLY you can just pinch it down tight and voila. No such luck. It's on the FRIGGIN INTERIOR of the bridge. Totally inaccessible. So back onto eBay I went to buy myself a sweet little roller style bridge.

And finally -- I have the guitar I paid for. Stays in tune. Has that dark semi-hollow sound. I'm happy with it. In my opinion, I really wish Eastwood had spent a little more on the hardware, especially if -- as they claim -- this is supposed to be the workingman's Country Classic. Kinda turned me off on EW guitars from here on out if I'm honest. I'll keep it, but mostly so I can tell the story of how I turned a hoopty into a solid player.

Did you get the Classic 6?
If so, what'ya think of it.

I first heard about Eastwood guitars when I was looking at a Hofner Club bass. Eastwood offered a $450 version that looked great. I was unsure about Eastwood and before I made up my mind they'd sold out and discontinued production. It must've been about the same time Hofner went back into production with a variety of price tiers.
Since then I've only ever heard good things about Eastwood guitars.

Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks has been using Eastwood guitars on tour for years, and likes them fine. (He even has an Eastwood signature model, based around the Starway guitar he used at the Buzzcocks' earliest shows!) I also know Mike Magrann of CH3 tours with an Eastwood Stormbird (their version of a Firebird). He likes his just fine.

Coming out of lurk mode here.  Anyone know if the Eastwood version of the Eko Roke is a good player?  I've always been curious but I've never played one.  Here's a peek.

 

I'm considering pulling out those stock EW humbuckers and throwing in some TVjones filtertrons.

Well, the Hagstrom Viking isn't in the same price range. The lower end model is still a couple hundred dollars more.

NKOM said:

In the same price range, I'd go for a Hagstrom viking any day. Just sayin'

In the same price range, I'd go for a Hagstrom viking any day. Just sayin'

Hey!

I play an Eastwood Airline Twin Tone, and all I can say is that this is pure heaven.
It's a pretty heavy guitar, so I guess it feels like you can easily smash some heads with it and it's really well built, trustable.
Concerning the tuning, I tune it before the show, and it stays in tune all along most of the time. You can bend, trash some wild chords, do some noise shit, it always stays in tune. Fantastic.
It sounds very very good for a 399£ guitar, most of Epiphone, Squier and stuff don't sound like that. Sometimes mine has some kind of hollow body sound, and pickups are very good. I played a few humbuckers, and it doesn't sound that good for this price.

For the road readiness, Cole from the Black Lips plays Eastwood guitars, I saw him play a Eastwood Classic 6 at a festival, trying to smash it on stage but the guitar stayed alive haha. He played a Twin Tone too for a long time, so I guess, if Cole keeps a guitar that long, it might be a well built guitar haha.

Plus, if I'm right, Christian Bland used to own an Eastwood Classic but a bass guitar, and he was saying -on Youtube- it's a fantastic bass.

All Eastwood guitars have the similar built, neck shape, tuners, so I guess the Classic 6 might be a very good hollow body guitar.
Eastwood guitars staff is very active, you can ask them questions, if you any issue with your guitar they'll do their best to satisfy you. Very good brand.

GO FOR IT haha

That messenger looks pretty freaking cool man. That green is doing it for me. The one concern I'd have is the placement of the pickup selector. I'm a reeeeal sloppy undisciplined strummer and I'd be whacking that thing back and fourth all day long. Those F-holes look freaking cool though!

That's basically what I was worried about -- build quality and road readiness. I almost went with the Hagstrom Viking II, but after reading a couple things about the cheap craftsmanship of the sub 600 dollar Hagstroms I started looking at Eastwood.

well i play the drums, but our guitatist has an eastwood, the mosrite clone, he uses it regularly for gigs without any issues of tuning and the sound well, it is a killer! can not help you about this model, though I know some other people who use eatwood models and they are all happy with their value for money...

i have the eastwood messenger and love it. i've had it for almost a year and find myself playing it more than my tele which i hadn't really put down in ten years. the messenger is extremely durable with a muddy rumble. i've never had a tuning issue. a very solid semi-hollow option if you don't want to spend $5,000. when i bought it, the action was really low, i still have to fix it, and the input jack was a little loose - but both those "issues" are an easy fix.