Nurse, fetch the spandex.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s there was a 'guitar war' going on. Metal was big in the US, shredding was cool and the guitar manufacturers were falling over themselves to make more and more over the top models with super thin flat wide necks, active pickups, locking tremolos and crazy finishes.
It was this arms race that brought us the Ibanez Universe and this piece of shredder madness, the Washburn EC29 Challenger.
The luthier Stephen Davies had perfected making a guitar with no heel to the neck whatsoever by supporting the neck with the upper section of the body. Once you've done this, you can just keep sticking frets on until you run out of room. This he patented as the "Stephen's Extended Cutaway". He teamed up with Washburn who licensed his design and the EC29 and EC36 were born.
At its time the spec. was insane, 29 frets on a through neck, Reflex active pickups, redesigned Floyd Rose style locking tremolo with a quick release nut and a variety of very rock finishes. It was priced suitably highly and without a high profile endorsement they didn't sell.
When it came down to it, nobody really knew what to do with the extra frets, reviewers were nonplussed by them and any discussion of the guitar focused on them.
When shredding fell out of favour the 7-string guitars found a market in nu-metal and death metal but nobody wanted the ECs. So Washburn stopped making them and they disappeared, with only the Nuno Bettencourt models using a bolt-on version of the Stephens Extended Cutaway.
Come 1992, I'd got a reasonable job and wanted a
good guitar. I remembered the launch of the ECs and was thinking about buying either one of these or a Universe. This was mostly because both appeared in my local guitar shop, Monkey Business Music in Romford, for a reasonable price.
The idea of a 7-string intimidated me slightly so I bought the EC29. What all the discussion of these missed at the time was that the ECs are simply fantastic guitars and there's no obligation whatsoever to use those extra frets.
The build quality of these is about the best Japan has to offer. Which in reality is about as good as you'll get anywhere beyond something individually handmade for you. The Reflex pickups were astounding and the tremolo rock solid.
The SEC means that when playing the usual questions about upper fret access become moot. There is just simply neck and more neck until you're trying to play well above about the 24th, which frankly you won't bother with. It's almost disconcerting as you lose the heel as a 'landmark'. The neck isn't quite as flat and wide as you'd expect either and it's a much more versatile guitar than the looks would suggest.
I played this heavily for years until I took my long break. When I came back the active circuit seemed to have failed where the wires went into it and as it's all potted there was nothing I could do about this. So I rewired it using some Kent Armstrongs, a Cool Rail at the neck, which is more like the middle position and a Motherbucker at the bridge.
This has resurrected it but it's not as nice sounding as it was. I have a plan to put Seymour Duncan Blackouts in it soon. This should be a good contrast to the passive Duncans in my other EC29.
This was my first Vintage, bought brand new because I fancied a semi-acoustic and liked the idea of the slightly smaller body and minor design updates.
Hang on what's that sound? It's an 80s Washburn collection creeping up on me.
I bought this mid-80s Washburn purely because it has a 600T tremolo that matches the one on my teal EC29. These are almost, but not quite the same stud spacing as a standard Floyd Rose. Also the saddles are pretty much unique to them and obviously spares are totally unobtainable. So I figured a cheap Washburn of the same era was a good bet as a spares donor.
EC29s simply don't come up very often so when this one appeared on eBay I thought hard about picking it up. Then I thought about it the second time. Then the third. Finally when I think it had been on four times I bought it.
In modern times, Washburn have contracted out the bulk of their manufacture with only the 'custom shop' models being made in the USA. In the early 90s, the Chicago series were their standard superstrat offering and mostly made in Korea. Nowadays they're not in the slightest bit desirable so if you want a good quality cheap superstrat one of the KC models would be right at the top of my list. The electrics and pickups are even of a decent quality.
Nurse, fetch the spandex.
This was the first of my makeover projects. I'd always liked the Mockingbird shape and fancied a neck-thru model so I bought this unseen on eBay. However when I got hold of it I found it was in worse condition than I'd expected.
