Rory Gallagher Strat

[shal1234]

Hi, I played a Rory Gallagher Signature Strat a while back and it was beyond the nicest guitar i've ever played. It had resonance and sustain for days. I'm thinking about taking the plunge but unfortunately i'd have to order it on the internet. There's a lot of new ones on ebay and you can see the pics. I'm afraid I'll get one that doesn't sound as good as the one i tried. I'm referring to the resonance of the body.
Is there a way to tell which is a better piece of wood by looking at the wood grain? Some of these Rory's have lots of grain and others are quite plain, some lighter and some darker. Also, some are fairly "road worn" with not much detail, and others are SUPER road worn with tons of detail. How is a guy supposed to choose? thanks for reading.

[mysteryville]

I never buy guitars over the net. i like to know what I getting. If you have to, ask the guy your buying from a ton of questions. Maybe even ask him to make a youtube video of it so you can hear it. A buddy did that and the guy was happy to do it.

[jomo]

Don't know the answer to your question but I would like to say that you should make sure you ask the ebay seller if they are cool with shipping to the Netherlands, and also it costs about $400 to ship a guitar to the Netherlands from the States. (ask me how I know)

[shal1234]

Yeah I definitely ask lots of questions. I was told that when it comes to alder the more swirls in the grain means tighter wood resulting in more resonance and sustain. Don't know how far that goes, but it's something go off of. Cause all those Rory's look different.
Oh Sorry I hadn't changed my profile yet but i'm in Honduras now. Shipping goes out USPS here, it's usually the same as shipping to a different state. Same as when i was in the Netherlands. The military actually pays the postal service the rest of the fees.

[shal1234]

Well I went for it! It's being shipped to me Tuesday from Wildwood guitars. I talked to one of their guys (Steve) that personally owns like 150 guitars or something and he went down to the warehouse and played all of their Rory's in stock and picked out the best one. Oh man it's a nice one. Wildwood also gets these guitars exclusively from Fender with AA Flame maple necks. It's definitely the most i've ever been willing to spend on a guitar, but i'm glad i did and can't wait to get it. I guess the MIM will take a rest now.
Check the pics here:Wildwood Guitars | Fender Custom | Rory Gallagher Tribute Stratocaster #R40905 3-Color Sunburst

I'll post my own pics when i get it.

[Olli]

Nice... I´m looking forward to the pics when you finally get it.
I´m thinking about getting a Gallagher in the future too.

[shal1234]

Olli and friends- If you haven't played one yet i recommend trying it out even just for kicks. The natural body finish and bone nut give this thing so much resonance it's sick. Very "throaty" sounding.

[Olli]

I´ve tried a Gallagher when I was on the lookout for a Customshop strat just two weeks ago.
Really liked the feeling and the playability was really nice - medium Jumbo Frets are just great as they feel exactly like the Gibson Historics. In fact, Rory´s original guitar has been refretted with Gibson frets.

Because most of the finish is gone, this guitar has some kind of airiness in it´s tone that I have not heard from an alder-bodied Stratocaster before.

I didn´t so much like the look of the particular guitar I tried. Not the relic job, but it had a body seam, that was really visible very very good. I´ve seen some Gallaghers in the past where you could barely see that it was a two piece body. The grain was alligned perfectly and the seam would look like it was part of the grain. Really that good.

On that guitar you could see it from the first glance and I didn´t like that.
Probably would have bought one if they had one with a decent looking body.

[analogsystem]

It's totally safer to buy Fenders over the net than Gibsons because you have many more setup options. You can easily shim the neck to radically change playability. I'd bet the necks on those Gallagher are pretty consistent as well so I'm sure you'll get a good one.

[shal1234]

Thanks for the positive reinforcements guys. I agree about the "airiness", that's what I really loved about it, and the neck really did feel almost like a Les Paul, another reason I was sold immediately. I picked out mine from about 16 different ones they had, so it's quite aesthetically pleasing to my eye. Once again if you're thinking about getting a high end fender or just want to see pics of them Wildwood guitars has a lot of models and a lot of good clear pictures.
I'm planning to get a Super Champ XD amp to play with while i'm in Honduras. Anybody have experience with these? I guess they're much better than the vibro champ from what i hear. There's somebody selling a Super champ with a Rajun Cagun in it on ebay, I wonder if that would be even better.

[Olli]

Get the blackstar HT-5 Combo instead. It´s the better amp and it´s a mystery to me why they sell it for this cheap.