Tanglewood FST 32 Outlaw Reviews 5

I bought this guitar for the hell of it. I decided I wanted to play, it'd look cool in my room, and my mate was selling one. I bought it off him for £80 including amp, stand, glow in the dark plectrums and a chord sheet.

The first thing that hit me about this guitar was my god its white. Since then I have grown to like it's weight, it must be made of balsawood coz it don't weight half of a £700 strat. It also boasts a very low profile, which makes it piss to play and looks quite nice. The design is an exact strat copy to everything but the fender labels. The Tremelo arm was very nice but broke when I dropped the guitar on it

The strings twang acoustically when struck, this often comes through the amp and sounds bad. The tremelo arm disintegrated after a mere 3 foot fall and its an electrical nightmare. The pick-up, pickup selector and most recently volume control have all gone wrong at some point giving some probs. Most were sorted with some wirewool. Others I just put up with. I also wish it had 22 frets as I can't play some radiohead stuff

As far as guitars go, I can honestly say this wasn't built to survive me. After 3 years in someones loft, I was surprised to find it unscrated, shiny and immaculate. A year and a bit later it has some very large dents and several electric faults. Ignoring those though, it still shines where it should, and keeps tune very well. Doesn't fit strap locks so I had to use rubber seals from Grolsch 65cl beer bottles, which are an ace alternative. Like I said before it is made of balsawood and comes in a nice cream with bolt on rosewood neck which hasn't come off.......yet! On the positive, I've given it a lot of shit inc. dropping it at least 20 times and its still here to tell the tale

Overall, its a steaming pile of derby county, but its my guitar and I love it. It is stupidly easy to play, holds tune and I've written some ace songs on it. Also very resistant to getting thrown around. It'll be famous and worth a million some day!

Da Blue Spiky One (Russ) rated this unit 5 on 2001-08-29.

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