Positive points
- Roswell pickups are usually good and they do their job here; if you roll off some highs, it sounds like a tele.
- Neck profile is comfortable to play.
- Guitar is not too heavy.
Subjective thoughts
- Inca silver colour is not close to the original. It could have been called Coca silver or VW beige instead.
- Satin neck finish is a bit rough and would benefit from polishing; though it's better than a gloss finish.
- A black pickguard would be more elegant than this piece of white plastic but as the dimensions are not standard, I'll have to live with this.
Negative points
- Slots in the fingerboard are cut 3 times deeper than necessary for inserting the frets. The fretboard is almost cut in several pieces of wood. The slots have then been filled with a whitish wood paste which ruins the aesthetics of the roasted neck.
- After 3 months, frets ends are becoming a little sharp, although a roasted neck should be less sensible to weather change, which is clearly not the case here.
- On the body's back, in line with the screws holding the neck, there is a 10 cm long "wave" under the finish. Bad sanding, bad gluing of 2 pieces of wood, unseasoned wood? I don't know, I just hope it is not a crack.
- Square jack plate is screwed at an angle with the body. A correct placement would have required a little more attention, about 5 seconds. I can not correct it due to the existing holes.
- Jack was loosen; not a big deal but should not happen fresh from factory and after control quality.
- As noted by other customers the switch wobbles laterally. Crappy part. Has to be replaced with something better.
- Curiously, pickups hum is not cancelled in the mid position. Electronics to be checked.
- Some frets are roughly crowned and need polishing.
- Like other low cost instruments, the body is just an assembly of poplar, one of the cheapest woods on the market. As I have seen many more matches made out of poplar than violins, I am not totally confident in the long term.
Conclusion
This guitar is certainly playable.
But remember that building a correct instrument is easier now thanks to CNC machines and robots making a good part of the job.
Several parts are of low quality: switch; copper is exposed on the bridge plate; TEA Pickups are from Roswell but in a cheap version with plastic wires instead of the old fashioned clothed wires.
Most of all, the handworking is terrible on some points (was the guitar assembled by a kid or by a drunken worker? not both I hope).
Unfortunately some of the bad things can not be easily corrected or upgraded.
This might sound as a severe appreciation, but what could I say when a factory is not capable to fix 4 screws at the right place?
Update:
- When I took off the original strings, I noticed that the nut was broken near the A string. In need of a replacement.
- The neck was definitely not straight, with several bumps. It had to be carefully filed, sanded and refinished.
I can just confirm the poor workmanship of my exemplar.
