Just got done scrolling through Eastwood's catalog and I am salivating over some over them. For those that don't know, they have tons of 50's catalog guitar copies. Stuff like Supros and Airlines....but what really got my attention was this Mosrite copy.

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I'm hoping someone can she a little light on the quality of these guitars. They're not ridiculously expensive, but certainly high priced enough that I don't want to just blindly order one.

Last edited: Mar 01, 2013 14:33:38

I've always been curious about the Eastwood Sidejack necks. Are they as thin
and narrow as the 60's Mosrite necks? Are they as thin as the Hallmark
necks? I love the 60's Mosrite thin and narrow necks, which is why I haven't
seriously considered the Hallmark, since Hallmark made the necks a bit
wider. I keep holding out for a Mosrite, but may not be able to afford one
in my lifetime! So, that's why my interest in the Eastwood Sidejack is
always aroused when I see a post about them! I've sent these questions to
Eastwood a couple of times, but they've never responded.

Last edited: Mar 01, 2013 14:16:12

BTW, the Sidejack has bigger, modern frets as well.

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Beautiful fit and finish, nicely dressed frets, but terrible setup on mine. If you are handy fixing and tinkering around on guitars know that you WILL spend time making it playable, otherwise as long as you budget about $100-$150 for someone to get it in playable shape you'll be happy with it.

When I put 11's on mine the nut split at the high E (it's hollow plastic). It was already buzzing up and down the fretboard on every string so I took it to a well respected tech in town who put on a bone nut and did a truss rod adjustement and complete set up and it was a different guitar when I got it back. I'm all smiles now.

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I have been longing to upgrade the pickups in mine in hopes of better matching my Hallmark. I spoke with Bob at Hallmark and he has agreed to retrofit it will the Hallmark pickups for the price of parts. This will include some routing work. It will make all the difference in the end. The pickups in the Eastwood are hot, but rather aneimic when compared to the Hallmark. Guitar switches during shows aren't nearly as seemless as I would prefer.

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My issue with these guitars is that they are nothing like the guitars they are copying.

Jake, I think to say that they are nothing like the guitars they are copying is a bit harsh.
Some of their Airline and Supro models I have or had feel (neck shape) exactly like my vintage Valco made stuff.
Their H44 has the proper huge neck and feel. We've retrofitted a few of these with original hershey bar pickups and they were just about as cool as any original H44 I've played.
The Tuxedo has the feel and damn near the sound of an old Kay.
I often change out the pickups, need to do some fret work, replace a nut but you know what? We have to do that on many brand new Custom shop guitars by other larger companies, on more expensive guitars.
As far as serious overhauling I've gotten a few that went right out on tour with no work at all and then I've had some that needed bench time before they could be gigged with.
Once again, I find the same type of consistency with most instruments in their price range these days.

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I got a set-neck "Hi-Flyer" new in 2008. Jagshark has made the accurate assesment in that "You will need to 'UPGRADE' some areas"..!! I replaced the tuners w/Gotoh 15:1 ratio teardrop tuners, put an "Electro-Socket" jack & it sounded and played OK. Then I put a BIGSBY B-5 Vibrato on it using a "VIBRAMATE" (so no holes in body of Basswood) & it plays & sounds OK now. You will undoubtedly need to do "some upgrades", whichever Eastwood candy You decide to munch on....Sorry Eastwood, but these are the facts.

Last edited: Mar 02, 2013 11:02:24

I have two Eastwoods. A Sidejack DLX, on which the finish was excellent and the fit was abysmal. The neck had to be sent out to dress, level the frets, and the pick guard was jammed into the pups so you couldn't adjust them (multiple holes were drilled under the pick guard so whoever aligned it missed a lot).

Whoever applied the finish filled up the pup wells so I had to carve that out as well. When I mentioned these things to Eastwood they admitted they had some quality control problems. Ah yea. Understatement.

After getting it sent out to be fixed by a luthier, I spent a lot of hours just tweaking little oversights on it. Thus after a lot of hours, it plays easy and the single reason I kept it in the first place, it sounded great to me.

My second Eastwood is a Baritone Sidejack Dlx. Because of my previous experience with quality control, I went over it closely. First off, the whammy bar doesn't screw in like most. It's a press fit and really the way Eastwood built it, it doesn't go in far enough to grab and it falls out easily. You might be thinking this is a bad thing, well, the bad thing is the whole whammy assembly is mounted about 1/8" off center and skewed as well. So the whammy post actually pushes the high E string on the side. When you do use the whammy, you get this not so cool grating sound as it rubs the E string. Eastwood did offer to let me return it and they'd send another. But the rest of the guitar is perfect so I chose to keep it and fix it. Again, like the other Eastwood I have, I love the sound of the baritone and it's an easy player.

My advice for anyone considering an Eastwood is that if you don't feel like fixing it yourself if it needs it, order it through a local store that will fix it if required. When you order direct your only option is to send it back (they told me shipping cost was up to me).

A friend of mine owns a store and one of the reasons he doesn't stock Eastwood is they wanted him to order 20 guitars. Since he'd seen the shape of mine, he had no intention of doing that...

Apart from that, easy playing guitars, love the sound of both of them. Someday I hope they work out the quality control issues.

Mel

I have an Airline Map from Eastwood. Replaced the pickups with Jason Lollars, got a bone nut installed, and had it rewired. The guitar's construction is flawless, and it plays really well. After upgrading it, this guitar has become my go to guitar for gigging. Like everyone has said, be prepared to spend money to upgrade.

I recently played a Bighorn, and found that it was fine right off the rack. The pickups were great, but it still had a plastic nut. For the price it was a nice guitar.

Rev

PS: I played an Eastwood Hummingbird copy when I played at the Surfer Joe Fest a couple of years ago. It played really well. Eastwood hooked me up with a dealer in Pisa who let me borrow the guitar for the show. Great customer service!

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