Whats your best cheapo?

sev112

£90 Wesley ash orange tint thinline tele with 2 P90s, bough as new from Old and Vintage in Bath !
plays surprisingly well, looks quite nice except the headstock is too orange but can’t be bother to sand down.  One piece neck (ish) too.  It’s really quite fun and quite rocky next to a strat

guitarmangler

   My red Hondo lead ii copy. I think I paid £130 for it about 5 years ago? I almost immediately had it refretted by Bill at Corvus guitars ( who is amazing). He also gave it a new nut). It plays incredibly well and I don’t think I’ve done a gig without it since getting it?
Pickups are original and sound great. It has an out of phase switch which I use all the time to get a pseudo clean sound. Pots feel really smooth. Stays in tune. Looks cool. 

I bought a white one just before lockdown for £110 to use as a spare ( also refretted by Corvus guitars ). 

scrumhalf

Westbury Standard - £115 inc case.

Squier Bullet HSS Strat - £65.

skullfunkerry

hollywoodrox said:

I used to have a squier contemporary strat in white with the 2 point bridge  it was amazing 
  Almost Charvel like  even a tech mentioned this once ,lovely neck . I put gotoh locking tuners on it & I think some sort of graphtec string tree disc instead of the regular ones . Absolutely superb I’d have a job to ever get one like it again 

I'll second that, I had a Contemporary Active Strat and a Charvel San Dimas at the same time and I preferred the Squier, due to the neck feeling almost identical to the Charvel but the pickups sounding better (imo).

Best cheapo I have now is my Soloist:


It's an SL3X, cost me £399 and it's absolutely superb. Replaced the bridge pickup with a Djenerator from Oil City, and added a push in Floyd Rose arm from Feline. It's my number one and has been literally since it arrived, seeing off my Performance, a PRS Holcomb, an RG and a few Schecters along the way.

Very close second is this:


Harley Benton Fusion III EMG. Really nice to play, sounds great, can't remember what I paid (it's a b-stock).

aconitethrill

Depends slightly how you define ‘cheap,’ but I only payed £250 brand new for my CIJ Blue Flower Strat in 2006 and I’ve not played many Strats that I’ve fancied more since. 

I also nabbed my Parker PM20 (the Korean singlecut line) from eBay for £200 around 2010 and it’s still the most playable thing I’ve ever touched. 

Sarge

Probably my Jet Js400 which is actually a Fazley Phynica something something with a swapped out Jet Js400 gloss maple neck.
Put an alnico 3 neck and alnico 4 middle in and kept the stock HB. 
effortless to play, sounds how I want it to and apart from the terrible holographic headstock logo monstrosity, it looks great.
Not bad for a total of £130

AK99

Aria ZZ - explorer type thing. €150. Came with what looked like matt black car underseal used to touch-up the horns and base of the guitar, which I peeled off to repaint but never got round to it:



Also came with an SD Invader in the bridge, which makes the most wonderfully raucous rawk sounds  

Funkfingers

That Aria could be ex-HarrySeven! 

AK99

^ T'was nearly H7 bound at one stage..but life/events intervened. Kinda glad really - he has enough of them I'd say

snowblind

Probably the Squier standard tele. Cost £125, Added some Wilkinson tuners, some brass saddles and swapped the neck pickup for a SD Quarterpounder. Probably comes to £200 all-in but its as good as a lot of Fender American standard stuff I've tried and better than an MiM equivalent. 

I'd say the saddles had the greatest effect in terms of how it plays. The original neck p/u sounded like it had a sock over it but it was the saddles that really brought out the twang. £16 off Ebay IIRC.

TheMarlin

I have to say, I had a classic vibe tele year ago. Other than the super skinny neck, which was regardless quite comfortable to play, was as good as any Fender tele I’ve had my hands on

GoFish

My Harley Benton carbronita with upgraded pickups.

Actually I have Blacktops ready to go in, but the Roswells are fine.

It's light smooth, and  stays in tune. Looks hideous but my child sorted that by helping me apply some stickers. It's still hideous, but now personalised.

robgilmo

The bestest cheap guitars I have ever owned were Epiphone LP's made towards the end of production in Korea and the move to China, around 2003 ish, superb guitars, at this stage the factory was ontop of its game and these guitars are really very good.
I had a Black one that I sold to fund something else, a guy who needed it for a Led Zep tribute band bought it, it was a total gem of a guitar and one that I would buy back in a heartbeat, the only fault with it was the headstock finish having slight blooming. It had the most amazing long tennon neck and fretboard.

Pete.R

robgilmo said:

The bestest cheap guitars I have ever owned were Epiphone LP's made towards the end of production in Korea and the move to China, around 2003 ish, superb guitars, at this stage the factory was ontop of its game and these guitars are really very good.
...........

€pis had been made in Korea (at the Unsung factory) at least up to 2014, probably up until the banqcruptcy of the 'mothership'

there was not one factory (that was ontop of it's game) there were many like Saein, Peerless, Samick or Unsung)

robgilmo

snowblind said:

Probably the Squier standard tele. Cost £125, Added some Wilkinson tuners, some brass saddles and swapped the neck pickup for a SD Quarterpounder. Probably comes to £200 all-in but its as good as a lot of Fender American standard stuff I've tried and better than an MiM equivalent. 

I'd say the saddles had the greatest effect in terms of how it plays. The original neck p/u sounded like it had a sock over it but it was the saddles that really brought out the twang. £16 off Ebay IIRC.

I had one of these years ago, it was a great guitar, I sold it to fund another and it was like loosing a limb. Another guitar I would buy back given the chance.

robgilmo

Pete.R said:

robgilmo said:

The bestest cheap guitars I have ever owned were Epiphone LP's made towards the end of production in Korea and the move to China, around 2003 ish, superb guitars, at this stage the factory was ontop of its game and these guitars are really very good.
...........

€pis had been made in Korea (at the Unsung factory) at least up to 2014, probably up until the banqcruptcy of the 'mothership'

there was not one factory (that was ontop of it's game) there were many like Saein, Peerless, Samick or Unsung)

They moved to China but kept production of higher end models in Korea, Ive had a few early Korean Epi's and they were brutally pants compared to the later ones. The Black one above is a 2002 guitar made in the Samik factory.

Barnezy

This is my Squire CV Strat. Upgraded the tuners to vintage locking, bridge to a US vintage, PUPs to CS 62’s, vintage correct wiring and pots, plastics to vintage correct from CrazyParts. Painted the cavities with non-conductive paint and added a shield. Lastly, spent many hours rolling the frets and getting the board to CS levels. All in cost around £600. 

One of the best strats I’ve owned. 

Speedy

Encore strat 22 quid off ebay, doesn't play very nicely doesn't stay on tune too long, sounds ok.

Keefy

1985 Squier Tele that I bought nearly-new in 1987 for £175. I’ve done no end of gigs with it over the years and still enjoy playing it, despite owning much better and more expensive Teles. It's an E-series rather than the more sought-after JV, and it’s had a couple of pickup mods, but it’s very much electric guitar home for me.

Funkfingers

robgilmo said:

snowblind said:

Probably the Squier standard tele. Cost £125

I had one of these years ago, it was a great guitar, I sold it to fund another and it was like loosing a limb. Another guitar I would buy back given the chance.

I nabbed one of these about a year ago. Same colour. Same stupid cable channel running along the centre line of the body, between the two pickup cavities. It came to me with non-original pickups and pickguard. A TUSQ nut and a couple of Alegree pickups later, it is a joy to play.