The Viking got here. Maybe the best packing job I've ever seen, but the case flaps were glued, yowch, hard to pry apart to save the flaps for reshipping.
Inside the case, not so good. Seller loosened the strings, and the bridge and heavy stands fell out of place and were floating around inside the case for 5 days on the road, chipped through the finish in one place down below the knobs, possibly dents that weren't there before. A flat out miracle - thank you guitar gods - it wasn't just totally hammered all over the place by that sharp bridge. I may need to to a PSA about this somewhere on the site.
Also not mention, cracked pickguard, cracking in a V that will get worse unless it gets some patching from underneath, cracked bass pickup ring from overtighened screw. Strap buttons were Dunlop straplock with the lower one having the screw barely screwed into the body, strange.
Seller is a "Hagstrom expert" who didn't even know that what he called "Orange" was actually a standard light sunburst finish, and definitely not one of those clean and test a guitar before you sell it type. The guitar was dirty, misc old handprints all over the body, old sweat, loose strap buttons, loose bass pickup volume knob in the body, pretty much "as is".
In other news, I found out that a Bigsby is a major PITA to restring, but started developing a technique by about the third string using trusty Kyser capo to hold tension on the string/bridge post while winding string on tuning posts, much better.
The Ghent tuners are a real pleasure, smooth and secure.
The guitar has a very odd acoustic quality. I guess I've never had a non solid center 335 guitar, and it has the oddest projection, even tuning it up, I felt like my amp was on across from me in the room, when it was not.
It's got the acoustic quality of my D35, just happens to have a whammy and electronics.
It some point wife who was downstairs popped upstairs and asked me to "play quieter", it just weirdly sounds amplified when it's not.
It only weighs 6lbs 5oz, so it really is feather light.
It has low action but the strings are stiff with GHS .10-.46 Boomers, interesting. Great Jazz or Rockabilly guitars, a lot of string tension.
All pickup tones are good, even the neck pickup makes a fine and bassy "one sound does it all tone". Responds well to pedals.
Stays in tune well, tuning changes are about on the par with Tremar equipped guitar, slightly fussy but not bad. A Strat takes more resettling between open/standard tuning changes.
