Red, and now seeing your customers' I feel better about my decision. Besides, it'll match my baby which is an early 90's candy apple red strat.

The Squares - 1995-2002
The Mystery Men? - 2012-
MOONBASE - 2012-2017
The KBK - 2017-2022
The Frigidaires 2021-
Southern Surf Stomp!

Thank you, Chad and Jeff! OMG, the red one looks just STUNNING!!! Much better than in the early photos! The black one is beautiful, too. One really ought to have the full set!

Here's the YouTube version of my demo, in glorious HD!

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Great demo Ivan! Thanks!
And I really dig the foam green color! When I saw the pic of your guitar I was also thinking whether I made the wrong decision choosing a red one. But the red one looks rad as well. And the black one! You might be right that the solution would be to own the hole model one set!

IvanP wrote:

Here's the YouTube version of my demo, in glorious HD!

Thanks for that - what a pleasing demo, with you on guitar and percussion (he's everywhere, he's everywhere).

Mine is riding around in a UPS truck somewhere in town. But they are excellent in these parts & don't leave town w/o everything that could be delivered being so.

Don, sorry to hear about the handling of your box (I'm sure you're right), but glad it seems to work ok. Hell, the way Ivan's box was marked I'm surprised Jeh Johnson and a platoon of ATF agents didn't deliver it to him.

Red - yumm.

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.

RECEIVED 1 Sep 2016, Metallic Red (Wife: "probably the most beautiful guitar you've ever owned.") SN (possibly) on back of headstock, might just be part #, don't know: 1601450 Strap, nice gig bag and the hex key (thank you!) for the truss rod.

Rcvd in tune, zero damage, packing in fine shape, pulled in the new strings.

Vibrato bar swings a bit too loosely; changed strings & set action next day and tightened the collet a hair - a-ok. Tension on it is, for me, PERFECT. Right amount of resistance, good expression.

Neck was at .012-.014" - adjusted this at string change. With .011's going on, 1/6th of a turn did it. Given the radius it did enable dropping the bridge a bit & result is a nice action in terms of string height, sitting probably at .009-.010. Nota Bene!: The neck screws are IN THERE. Before you go to pop off the neck for a truss-rod adjustment don't lolligag selecting the correct bit for these screws & put some pressure on, backing them off under (your) full control.
The guitar intonates easily; didn't need much, a couple of strings were a tiny hair off.
Edit to add: Note when you remove the neck if you do. On mine there was a small shim in the pocket, .018" (don't ask how I know).

Certain strings exhibit the sharp-fretted syndrome; I'll take it over to my guy and have him adjust the nut slots, this is something I've had to do to all my guitars. (As Jake has mentioned many times, 90% of issues are bridge or nut.) I've also played a bunch of really expensive ones with the same issue and they just hardly ever seem to cut these things deep enough; of course, easier to fix later than have a nut slot that is TOO deep or butchered already.

Notable appointments: Really like the solid switching and both pots really DO what they're supposed to do; this aspect was well thought out. I'm not much about furniture but LOVE the knobs. I want to put some really tiny Baby Moon eyes on them 'cause they look like hubcap refugees from Boss Fink. After Ivan mentioned that the back of his neck was also painted (his Foam Green) I thought "hmm, not sure I'm gonna care for that." However, in this red, it works. The whole guitar pops and says hot-rod, country, rockabilly, whatever you feel like - from a visual approach. Like it alot; kind looks like my buddy's Nitro bass boat.

"Vintage Voiced Eastwood pickups (Single coil in a Humbucker footprint):
Neck: 6.98K Bridge: 13.38K
I've never bought a guitar because of its pickups - ever. I buy them to play and this one's fortunately a fairly comfortable little player; weird because I'm not usually into a shorter-scale as ham-fisted as I am. Other than my AVRI Strat I'm used to changing out pickups so that's not an emotional event. The scale & radius thing seems to work pretty well and I'm comfortable on it now. However, I may have to do something about these pickups, or at least the bridge.

I know that Ohm'ing something out doesn't tell a whole story, but the bridge pickup (in mine) is inordinately hot and, worse, it's nasally on the low-end. For me, the notes are "too round" and the bark isn't there without approaching too boomy. To balance them out and get a decent in-between sound as well I have them both pretty much decked to the covers. I don't care about where it ends up but that's what I've had to do. The neck pickup is pretty nice and I'd keep it; it's good for those things you'd typically use a neck pickup for.

But eventually I'll be looking for something not so hot for the bridge that is in a different ballpark as far as its resonance & curves and all that voodoo stuff goes. If I could fit a Tele bridge pickup in there... maybe someone makes one in the HB foot print. Lollar, for example, makes one specifically to be a Tele pickup in a HB rout (Novel T), staggered poles & all. Can't find a demo on it, maybe someone's played one, but it's interesting. Also, there is the GFS Surf 90 which, not really a true "surf" pickup & more of a P90, but may work in this application.

All in all, I love the guitar - it's light, super comfortable, and is going to be in my hands a LOT. I didn't buy it for surf - it's for a completely different role, one of which is my "reach over & grab a guitar" guitar.

Thank you Jeff Senn & thanks to Eastwood for venturing to get it to the masses. Havin' fun yet?

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.

Last edited: Sep 02, 2016 18:20:17

Awesomeness..... thanks Jeff and Eastwood!

Last edited: Sep 03, 2016 19:55:52

Five days later: still loving my Eastwood Senn!! Can't put it down! I just posted a very positive review on Eastwood's site (currently pending).

I did notice one other issue with the guitar: the finish on the cutaways/horns is a bit rough, like it hasn't been completely buffed/polished. It's not a big deal, but it was a bit of a surprise.

I'm really happy I got this guitar! It's just FUN! And it heals a bit of a wound from not picking up one of the original surf green Charvel Surfcasters when they first came out in '92. I remember playing it the summer of '92 in a shop and really enjoying it, but I didn't have much (ahem, pretty much any!) money back then. Now they're going for $1300+! Similar in concept, though:

Anyway, thanks again, Jeff and Eastwood! Love the guitar! (And thanks Jeff for the explanations about the pickups, fretboard radius vs. bridge radius, recommendation to get a pro set-up, etc. - all taken under advisement, and will probably get it done soon.)

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Last edited: Sep 04, 2016 11:36:02

Badger wrote:

But eventually I'll be looking for something not so hot for the bridge that is in a different ballpark as far as its resonance & curves and all that voodoo stuff goes. If I could fit a Tele bridge pickup in there... maybe someone makes one in the HB foot print. Lollar, for example, makes one specifically to be a Tele pickup in a HB rout (Novel T), staggered poles & all. Can't find a demo on it, maybe someone's played one, but it's interesting. Also, there is the GFS Surf 90 which, not really a true "surf" pickup & more of a P90, but may work in this application.

Wes, that Lollar Novel T is pretty cool and would probably sound great.

Cheers,
Jeff

http://www.facebook.com/CrazyAcesMusic
http://www.youtube.com/user/crazyacesrock
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Got mine Friday! I haven't had as much time with it as I would like but here are my impressions so far. As pretty much everyone has stated, the guitar is absolutely stunning and you're right Jeff, it's almost a metal-flake red. Some of the finish on the neck isn't perfect but to me it's of little consequence. It plays wonderfully, not too far off from my Fenders but still in need of a professional set up. I threw some 12's on and of course within 20 minutes scratched the finish below the bridge :(, but I figure might as well get the inevitable out of the way now. The pickups do sound pretty good but for some reason I was expecting something a little different. At first I thought they were a little dark but now I realize that either a) they're just slightly bass heavy or b) they're actually really well balanced and I've just been working with some brighter pickups. With that said, Jeff had mentioned somewhere trying the guitar with some of the GFS Surf 90s, which I'd be curious to hear.

I'll be playing it at StompFest for darn sure so expect some action photos/video from that.

The Squares - 1995-2002
The Mystery Men? - 2012-
MOONBASE - 2012-2017
The KBK - 2017-2022
The Frigidaires 2021-
Southern Surf Stomp!

Last edited: Sep 06, 2016 11:37:55

Comment from my Luthier, Andy Green, of Hollywood Guitar Shop.

"This is the amazing Jeff Senn Eastwood Model 1 Easily one of the best guitars from overseas I have ever seen. Eastwood is doing a great job with the licensing side of things, guess they been watching Shark Tank"

The pic is from Andy's workbench.

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