Washburn #10 - 'WI66 Pro-E'

I quite like the WI64 so have been looking at other Idols on eBay as there are several different flavours. The WI64 is a 'thin, flat top' and the most common of the 'thick, carved top' models is probably the Indonesian made WI45 nowadays. A few have come and gone but never quite cheap enough for a gamble.

I've also seen a few of these for sale but didn't think I'd get one at the sort of price I'm happy to pay as the WI66 Pro-E was near the top of the old Korean made range. You get a mahogany body with set neck, flamed maple top, three ply binding, ebony fretboard, the classic 'very metal' EMG 81/85 combo, all black hardware (inc. 18:1 Grovers) and a single large abalone cross inlay. Pretty much the 'metal Idol' without resorting to the Floyd Rose and pointy headstock of the WI50V. I wish it had no inlay at all as the cross is a bit hackneyed but beggars can't be choosers.

This one was dead cheap because it's slightly beaten up with dings and scratches all over it but most importantly a small piece chipped out of the fretboard. There's a picture of this on here and the crescent shaped mark makes me think it was done by being hit with a tube of some kind.

This may look terrible but you can barely feel it while playing. Likewise, despite all the finish marks none of them have actually chipped it. Korean Idols must be pretty tough. So I paid about £20 over what a pair of EMGs fetches secondhand for a really decent rock guitar.

It was absolutely minging when I got it, the general lack of care shown apparently also included never ever cleaning the fretboard. No matter, I always clean up a secondhand guitar when I get it unless it really is spotless.

If I can think of any way to fill the fretboard that won't look terrible and wear away instantly I may have a go but to be honest it doesn't need doing. It could easily end up looking worse than it does right now too.

Washburn #8 - 'WI64 Idol' vintage white

Hanging around on the Washburn forum has exposed me to their range and I've become interested in the Idols. These are a quite nice variant on the 'inspired by Gibson' theme most makers have somewhere in their range. It's just a shame that Washburn have now relaunched the Idol with some much more conventional Les Paul copies in it.

The original Idol comes in a genuine variety of models with the same basic silhouette, from cheapo bolt-ons with a Fender-esque hardtail, through various stop-tail models to a spiky reverse headstock Floyd Rose equipped HM model. There's even a gold-top with P90s and some semi-hollows. In principle something for everybody but I'm not sure the Idol ever really made much of an impression in the market.

This is the WI64, which is the all mahogany thin body, set neck SG-alike of the range. Most you see are the thicker body, carved top more Les Paul-esque models. I deliberately picked this one as it's a slight contrast to the large number of Les Paul copies I have. That it was cheap and came with a nice Hiscox hard case helped too.

It's astonishingly like an SG without being a straight copy. Washburn did a really good job in making their own design while keeping it familiar. This is unlike the ESP Vipers, another not-quite-SG, which I always think looks odd. The WI64 is pretty low down the range but it's a very nicely turned out example of a mass produced Korean guitar. Later production shifted to Indonesia and those guitars have a slightly worse reputation, but I doubt there's much in it.

The serial number suggests it's maybe one of the first Idols and ten years old. It's certainly been played plenty with lots of honest wear and ageing to components without it looking tired.

The hardware is decent enough, the 18:1 grovers are great and it's got the Buzz Feiten tuning system again. This will at some point force me to buy a BFTS compatible tuner as I like setting my own stuff up. The pickups are Washburn WB630s and seem adequate.

The new feature here for me is Washburn's Voice Contour Control (VCC) system in lieu of tone controls. This is a progressive coil tap arrangement but it works much better than the ones I've experienced before. From what I can gather this is because instead of simply progressively shorting out one coil it keeps both live and fades them from series to parallel using a special stacked blend pot.

This works really rather well and you don't lose as much output as you do with a standard coil tap. Although I still suspect I'll occasionally miss the tone control as even I sometimes wind the tone down a bit and VCC only makes things brighter.

It's certainly not to every players taste as there are often threads on the Washburn forum about removing VCC but some must like it as almost as many ask about fitting it to other things. I definitely don't like the way the controls have VCC stamped on them in tacky gold print though. It looks like some kind of showroom sticker that should peel off, but it's not. I guess it'd be easy enough to find some matching plain knobs.