Rapier Guitars, ie: Alan Entwistle is at it again.

[ekwatts]

So, Burns is still out for the count since its purchase by Andertons guitars. They've said that it is coming back SOON (SOOOOOOOOON!) but there appears to be no real word on that at this point. So, in the meantime....

A little bit of background; the designer of these guitars is Alan Entwistle, who was part of the inner circle at Burns London. He's mostly a pickup maker and you can buy his branded pickups separately, but he seems to have a real passion for old pieces of shit from the 60s. Some of you will remember Alden guitars from waaaayyyyy back, and more recently the Revelation guitars line (there was another inbetween those two but I can't remember the name). At this point, he's had a hand in most of the wacky budget-to-mid level guitars that have emulated some of the weirder end of the spectrum, models that don't often get their own official reissues. While many of these are only vintage-looking, using mostly off-the-shelf modern parts, he will occasionally go for a pickup design or trem system that genuinely harks back to the instruments' past. Old models to look out for are the Revelation range's Les Paul Recording model which had accurate recreations of the weird and amazing pickups that model originally had, or the Burns-branded bigsby trem systems that popped up on the Alden range, as found on older Gretsches, which was pretty bizarre since actual Burns guitars hadn't used that trem system since Baldwin went under in the old days.

Anyway, all that said, it looks like he's trying to fill the Burns-shaped gap in the guitar market with another brand using a name that should be familiar to anyone who knows old British guitars and brands: Rapier. The Rapier was a model manufactured by the Watkins/WEM company.

They currently have only a couple of models, and I hope they bring a few more out because I really like them. Unlike the Hagstrom or Framus brands that were resurrected some years back, these basically just straight-up emulate the old British models pretty closely. One point worth making is that although the Tri-Sonics in the 12 string model aren't Burns-branded, they'll likely be exactly the same since they're being made by the guy who made them for Burns.

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[Freddy V-C]

Aw yeah, these look ace. Big fan of the 22 in particular.

Am I right in thinking the 44 is pretty much just a Hofner Galaxie?

[sunshiner]

The three top guitars seem to be the knock offs of vintage Hofners model 172 and 173. By the way, Hofner used to make a range of its own pickups that some people consider to be the best guitar pickups ever made - transparent with a full range.

The above reissues seem to have mini humbuckers in funny covers

[ekwatts]

I'm not sure what came first, the Hofner Galaxie or the Watkins Rapier. I'm going to do a quick search and then tell you:

Okay so the Watkins Rapier was made in the late 50s, I think, and the Hofner Galaxie was around the early 60s. BUT the Galaxie name was the name given to the guitar in English-speaking countries or something, so the model could have been around as long as the Watkins in reality, I have no idea.

Anyway, it doesn't matter, strat-style guitars with Jaguar-style bridges were ten-a-penny at the time. Hagstroms, guyatones, Burns, etc.

The Hofner pickups were called "staple" pickups I think because they had square polepieces or something. I couldn't tell you how good they are, I've never played one. A friend of mine had a Entwistle-produced Galaxie copy (in pink paisley) that had staple-style pickups and they were okay, and, knowing Entwistle, they were probably pretty faithful. I dunno, this sort of thing is terribly subjective, but I am also remembering something from over fifteen years ago, too.

[Doog]

Fuck yeah, have loved those Rapier 22s forever. I love that they haven't wussed-out and used the generic offset vibrato on it. Pretty flat radius too, sick.

On sale for £299 at Glandertons

[sunshiner]

The Hofner pickups were called "staple" pickups I think because they had square polepieces or something. I couldn't tell you how good they are, I've never played one. A friend of mine had a Entwistle-produced Galaxie copy (in pink paisley) that had staple-style pickups and they were okay, and, knowing Entwistle, they were probably pretty faithful. I dunno, this sort of thing is terribly subjective, but I am also remembering something from over fifteen years ago, too.

There were several other models with only big screws for polepieces, with the diamond, without the diamond, with a center blade, without polepieces and all of them as far as I understand were differently built. Jaime Hince has been mostly playing Hofners, one of the Wet Leg guitarists also plays a Hofner Galaxy from time to time.

[ekwatts]

Fuck yeah, have loved those Rapier 22s forever. I love that they haven't wussed-out and used the generic offset vibrato on it. Pretty flat radius too, sick.

On sale for £299 at Glandertons

Yeah, Alan knows his shit when it comes to this... shit. If you notice, the trem on the 33 and 22 is different to the one on the 44 (it's more accurate to the vintage models), which is, I believe, down to the fact that the 44 is a newer model, so he's likely made an effort to source a more accurate reproduction. I've spoken to him on facebook and via email a few times about this sort of stuff and it's the kind of nerdy detail he would obsess over and really want to get right. I wonder if it'll be rolled out across the range?

I think the only thing I'm not really mad about on any of these is that little British roundel on the headstock logo. I don't like the fact that the logo has COLOURS in it. It kind of annoys me. Just pull a full-on Burns and slap "Designed in the UK" on the scratchplate or something. I don't want fuckin' flags on me fuck'n guitars!

[ekwatts]

Oh, and they're being distributed by JHS.

No, not the pedal maker. The real JHS: John Hornby Skewes.

[plopswagon]

John Hornby Skewes.

The only thing that could make that name more British is if their first name was “Nigel” or “Vivian”

[BearBoy]

I've got a John Hornby Skewes tuner knocking around somewhere that I bought 30+ years ago. God that makes me feel old.

[mezzio13]

I' dig that green Saphire.

[dots]

agreed. fiesta red looking one, too.

[BearBoy]

So, Burns is still out for the count since its purchase by Andertons guitars. They've said that it is coming back SOON (SOOOOOOOOON!) but there appears to be no real word on that at this point.

And as if by magic...



Although looks like these are something of a stopgap...

[ekwatts]

So, Burns is still out for the count since its purchase by Andertons guitars. They've said that it is coming back SOON (SOOOOOOOOON!) but there appears to be no real word on that at this point.

And as if by magic...



Although looks like these are something of a stopgap...

Blam.

Yeah, these are just the "old" models with a few minor adjustments and some sliiiiightly different colours. If this is all they're offering for now it's still a pretty good start. I hope to see the Bison return but I'm honestly not too fucked if nothing else from the old line comes back if they're going to start doing something more interesting with the line. Retain that classic Burns aesthetic but put out new models that cover slightly different ground. They need to try and mark themselves out as being not just an alternative to a Fender Strat.

Those SSJs are excellent value for the money, though. A six-string, a 12-string and a Bass VI model, each for under £400 is like guitar shopping in 2008 again or something. You remember, that time before food banks were considered normal?

It's nice to have British guitar brands coming back. Sure, nothing is actually made here anymore, but at least they have tiny British flags on the headstocks or say "designed in the UK" on them and stuff. (I'm only sort of joking: I do find it very funny that a "British" guitar brand doesn't manufacture anything here but I'm also glad that there's a whole British guitar design aesthetic that is being kept alive, too)

[NickD]

It's nice to have British guitar brands coming back. Sure, nothing is actually made here anymore, but at least they have tiny British flags on the headstocks or say "designed in the UK" on them and stuff. (I'm only sort of joking: I do find it very funny that a "British" guitar brand doesn't manufacture anything here but I'm also glad that there's a whole British guitar design aesthetic that is being kept alive, too)

There are British made guitars, but they are generally made by hand and therefore not cheap.

[BearBoy]

That guitar company owned by "Chappers" and the Andertons bloke make some guitars in the UK. Like NickD says, they're not cheap though (£3.5k).

They're also fucking hideous. Pretty sure they're not what Eric had in mind with his "British guitar design aesthetic"

http://www.chapmanguitars.com/workshop ... n-england/

[NickD]

That guitar company owned by "Chappers" and the Andertons bloke make some guitars in the UK. Like NickD says, they're not cheap though (£3.5k).

They're also fucking hideous. Pretty sure they're not what Eric had in mind with his "British guitar design aesthetic"

http://www.chapmanguitars.com/workshop- ... n-england/

Haha! I was thinking more of Ivison or Case than Chappers.

[ekwatts]

Yeah, I'm referring more to that US trade embargo period where all British guitar companies really needed to do was cover a Stratocaster-shaped gap and yet, some enterprising designers thought "I know, I'll make the pickups oversized and make the covers out of metal, cut the pickguard up into bits and print words on it and create an absolutely nuts tremolo where the strings feed into resonating tubes that are meant to simulate a reverb effect, and then I'll stick an extra seven switches on there, and maybe four pickups."

Burns, Watkins, Vox and Orange, alongside European brands like Hohner, Hagstrom, Framus and Selmer, put out some weird and wacky stuff when the pressure to compete directly with the US was lifted (in the UK) for a few years. And I like that it hasn't all completely gone away. As an example of what could have happened to Burns, look at Vox, owned as it is now by Roland/Korg, they occasionally issue a teardrop-shaped novelty guitar in their range every few years, but a proper look back at their guitar design legacy hasn't happened for decades. Sure, Vox are still making guitars but go look at them. Decidedly generic. I'm sure they're fab. I bet they play and sound great. But they no longer look like a toilet seat, or an angular slab of wood. They don't have the entire guts of an analog synthesizer loaded into them, seemingly for a laugh, nor do they offer a classic 9-string model (where the top three strings are doubled like a 12-string), either.