One of my favorite guitarists was Malcolm Young of AC/DC. I have wanted a homage guitar like his 'The Beast' for a while. The US made Gretsch versions go for $3000+ and that was quite a bit more than I wanted to spend. I thought about making one myself but there really is not much in the way of templates for that model of Gretsch. I saw a review for the Chinese made Gretsch G5222, which is pretty much the same guitar but with a V-tail instead of the '60s Jet tailpiece. I took the chance on a open box mint condition example and it arrived today. To say I was impressed with the quality of this one is a understatement. My experience with Chinese made guitars has been low end budget guitars and they have all needed quite a bit of work to be playable. This G5222 about as perfect as I have seen so far. Glued in neck instead of bolt-on. Perfect frets, good quality tuners, and the only adjustments it needed were to the bridge to get a proper action height and the pickup height. The finish is superb, binding excellent, and the Broad'Tron pickups sound great. They have a single coil sound to them while being humbucking.
I had thought to make it look a bit like Malcolm's guitar by removing the pickguard, pickup rings and the neck pickup. Pulling the pickup selector switch and neck volume pot, and plugging the holes like Malcolm did with chrome switch plugs. Nothing that couldn't be reversed to get it back to stock again. Was not even going to change the tailpiece out. Now though, it is a bit too nice for me to think about modding. If I can get to the point where I am playing AC/DC rhythm licks, which is where I was heading with my learning to play, I think I will just play it only on the bridge pickup. maybe remove the pickguard and bag it up. At 7 pounds 12 ounces it is fairly heavy, especially for a chambered guitar. Here is a picture, black on the side, back, neck, and headstock with a clear finish of the top of the body.
When they are not trying to crank them out to sell for under $200 the Chinese can make a very nice guitar. The one I received retails for $600 and I got it for $450 shipped.
I had thought to make it look a bit like Malcolm's guitar by removing the pickguard, pickup rings and the neck pickup. Pulling the pickup selector switch and neck volume pot, and plugging the holes like Malcolm did with chrome switch plugs. Nothing that couldn't be reversed to get it back to stock again. Was not even going to change the tailpiece out. Now though, it is a bit too nice for me to think about modding. If I can get to the point where I am playing AC/DC rhythm licks, which is where I was heading with my learning to play, I think I will just play it only on the bridge pickup. maybe remove the pickguard and bag it up. At 7 pounds 12 ounces it is fairly heavy, especially for a chambered guitar. Here is a picture, black on the side, back, neck, and headstock with a clear finish of the top of the body.
When they are not trying to crank them out to sell for under $200 the Chinese can make a very nice guitar. The one I received retails for $600 and I got it for $450 shipped.
