The Winyard Stealthcaster: Hands-on Review

 

Could this be the guitar that I am looking for?

A few weeks ago, I had the joy of visiting the London International Guitar Show at Kempton Park Racecourse.  I really like this show.  It brings together not only some of the larger brands in the guitar industry but it also gives punters like myself the opportunity to get one's hands on guitars made by luthiers who are not featured in guitar shops.  One such luthier was Guy Lewis who had brought his collection of independently made electric guitars.  In this article I am going to give you a hands-on review of the Stealthcaster and 'Esquire-esque' looking T-Style with some awesome tonal and visual tricks up it's sleeve.

So by way of background, I don't have a single coil based electric guitar such as a Stratocaster, Telecaster or similar.  I have been looking for a guitar of this type for quite a while now.  In 2012, I tried out a Fender Deluxe Nashville Telecaster in Las Vegas at the Guitar Center there and absolutely loved it and at the time, the exchange rate meant that I could have almost gotten it for half price.  Anyway, putting hindsight to one side, that experience told me that I wanted to get a Nashville tele.  More recently I have purchased two guitars, the PRS SE Starla and the Epiphone Emperor Swingster which I adore and whilst they have some tonal tricks that give me some single coil type tones, I still am holding a light up for a Nashville.  Believe it or not this is a huge problem! Why?  Well, I have tried some Fender Telecasters and in particular the Nashville too and I appear to be no longer excited!

Since 2012 I appear to have upped my learning about electric guitars and tone (remember that I have been a bass player for most of my life) and it would also appear that whilst brands like Fender are iconic, over the years they seem to have modernised the tone on many of their guitars but I do like the 60's almost 'ice-picky' sound that comes from those early Fenders.  "Try a Vintera' you say, and yes they are close but whilst they are great guitars (all Fender's guitars are great) in terms of personal choice, I just don't seem to be inspired by Fender at the moment.  

Maybe I am looking for something a bit quirky? 

Meet the Stealthcaster from Winyard Guitars.

So there I was wandering around the Guitar Show and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a powder blue T-Type.  I turned to have a closer look and found myself chatting with Guy Lewis the owner of Winyard Guitars.

I asked him about the guitar thinking that whilst it looked great, as it was obviously his version of an Esquire the single coil pre-runner to the Fender Telecaster.  The Esquire was the very first electric guitar that Fender launched in 1950, it had only one pickup in the bridge.

The Fender Esquire - Picture from Wikipedia.

It seems that I was wrong!

I was looking at what Guy called a 'Stealthcaster' and as it's name suggests, there was something going on that I wasn't aware of!

The Stealthcaster actually is an S-Type with an S/S/S configuration but the middle and neck pickups are actually hidden below the scratchplate.

Guy explained that he did a lot of development to find pickups that provided the right amount of higher output so as to counteract the difference between volume and tone with the bridge pickup being only 2mm from the strings versus that of the middle and neck being some 10 to 15 mm below the strings.

The reality is that he settled for the bridge pickup having an output in the region of 7 Ohms  with the middle and neck being around 12 Ohms.  I have to be honest I can't remember who made these pickups but my sense was that they were purchased in from someone like Bareknuckle or Monty's.

The specs for this guitar can be seen below:

The Stealthcaster Specifications

OK, so I have found a guitar that could give me that 'Nashville' vibe, but what else could it give me?

This guitar with a swampash body and maple neck was nicely finished with nitrocellulose and a light aged relic look.  The controls are similar to a Tele but there was an additional pot on it that enables the neck pick up to be gradually introduced with the bridge pickup which augments the standard use of the five way blade switch.  The pickups were Alnico V based pickups.  The fretboard was rosewood and the nut was a Graphtech nut with Kluson staggered tuners.

What did it play like?

Guy let me plug it into a Blackstar combo and I mostly used it clean with some reverb.

Tonally, I found the signal from all three pickups to be very balanced (not easy to do when you hide the pickups like this) and I was able to very easily enjoy playing riffs from Country to Blues to Rock.  What I really liked is that it had that 'bite' that I was looking for with the position two and four pickup settings as per a more vintage sounding Strat whilst retaining that Telecaster twang.

Brass compensated saddles.

Note the third pot for combining the neck PU with the bridge.

Can you see the light catching on the nitro relic finish?

I played three different versions of the Stealthcaster that day, Guy just kept getting me to try different ones and it is clear that each of his guitars have their own personality, a 'mojo' that got me very excited.  Each were impeccably set up and gave enjoyable tones.  The neck profiles were comfortable and the fretwork was exemplary.

The tuning on the Stealthcaster was rock solid.

For me personally, I could absolutely have one of these guitars in my collection as it would totally give me something different to play with on my live sets and would complement my Starla and Swingster.  Each of Guys guitars, end up being different in some way and so I guess that is the fun bit, in having one of these, no one else can claim to have the exact same guitar.  When he takes commissions he also provides a hardcase and a lovely booklet about the build of the guitar that one has purchased.

The price tag is about £2.3k which sounds like a lot of cash but if you think about the time it takes for one guy (excuse the pun ) to build a guitar, source the hardware and work with the client to get the specs right it doesn't really sound like a lot and it does seem to be a price that many luthiers charge for guitars that are inspired by Fender styles.

Personally, I think that I am more likely to spend that money on an independent luthier and get something REALLY special versus perhaps a really nice mass produced professional guitar from one of the big guys.

At this stage, all I can say is that based on a very short time of playing, I was absolutely besotted by the Stealthcaster and in the words of a famous guitarist....

Find out more about Winyard Guitars by clicking here.