DavidRF
Member
- Messages
- 27
After many years of reading how good the old Road Worn were, I finally decided to pull the trigger and buy one. It's not so easy to find one, and they recently went up (a lot) in price. Still, I managed to get this bad girl here:
It's a 2009 in Olympic White. I have to say, I owned many MIA Strats up to Elite/FSR/Select and a bunch of high end MIMs (you can check a couple of them in my signature); still, this RW really impressed me and made me a firm believer. It's not hype, these guitars are just good.
For the most part, the guitar is exactly what I expected it to be after having read so many comments over the years. The relic job is a bit "artificial", yes. The guitar is very (very) resonant, probably because of the nitro finish, yes. The guitar is very light, yes (7,2lbs / 3,26kgs). But what I've never read/heard and I didn't expect, was the quality of neck and fretboard.
The neck shape, smoothness, feel, totally blew me away. And the fretwork is absolutely perfect, giving me the ability to make extreme bends even with a 7,25 radius. The fingerboard edges are perfectly rolled, the frets are like you could see in very high-end guitars. The general feeling is simply awesome: this guitar feels like home. Again, I owned many Strats that were much more expensive than this one, but in certain aspects this is the best Strat I've ever owned. What the hell.
I was never a fan of relic, especially if made this way, but I have to say feeling, playability and sound trumps everything, and now even the looks of this guitar are beginning to grow on me. By the way, it didn't came with its stock pickups (that were given to me anyway) but with Custom Shop Texas Specials. I have to say they're not my ideal pickups for a classic Strat but they sure have their use.
In the end, by the way, I think I'm going to sell the Custom Shop Texas Specials and get something closer to my idea of "vintage strat": a set of Vineham Smokin 62s. I don't think I could ever praise enough the exceptional price/quality ratio of Craig Vineham's creations.
That's all folks!
It's a 2009 in Olympic White. I have to say, I owned many MIA Strats up to Elite/FSR/Select and a bunch of high end MIMs (you can check a couple of them in my signature); still, this RW really impressed me and made me a firm believer. It's not hype, these guitars are just good.
For the most part, the guitar is exactly what I expected it to be after having read so many comments over the years. The relic job is a bit "artificial", yes. The guitar is very (very) resonant, probably because of the nitro finish, yes. The guitar is very light, yes (7,2lbs / 3,26kgs). But what I've never read/heard and I didn't expect, was the quality of neck and fretboard.
The neck shape, smoothness, feel, totally blew me away. And the fretwork is absolutely perfect, giving me the ability to make extreme bends even with a 7,25 radius. The fingerboard edges are perfectly rolled, the frets are like you could see in very high-end guitars. The general feeling is simply awesome: this guitar feels like home. Again, I owned many Strats that were much more expensive than this one, but in certain aspects this is the best Strat I've ever owned. What the hell.
I was never a fan of relic, especially if made this way, but I have to say feeling, playability and sound trumps everything, and now even the looks of this guitar are beginning to grow on me. By the way, it didn't came with its stock pickups (that were given to me anyway) but with Custom Shop Texas Specials. I have to say they're not my ideal pickups for a classic Strat but they sure have their use.
In the end, by the way, I think I'm going to sell the Custom Shop Texas Specials and get something closer to my idea of "vintage strat": a set of Vineham Smokin 62s. I don't think I could ever praise enough the exceptional price/quality ratio of Craig Vineham's creations.
That's all folks!
