«  A reasonable alternative to his GIBSON »

Made in CHINA, which is recent enough to PPE, no problems, the Chinese are working really well ... Is it worse than the Korean model? I had a flying 58 Korea, very well finished too, so I will not comment, I XPENDITURES that the guitar is very specific to the purchase after, hard to say how this will stringed vielle.
The neck is very good in the sense that it is not the baseball bat Gibson 50 ', the next one is rather slim type so late.
the pickups are classic 57 PPE (shame ...)

UTILIZATION

The handle is very nice, it has a fairly pronounced radius, medium jumbo frets and pearl graduation, plastic) that make the joke ....
The truss road works, I set myself the handle was too concave, and lowered my action too high without any problem.
The access is very acute in the way, especially when playing on TV and Start for ages, in key of A pentatonic around the 17 th box is not obvious, I would say that I must make myself use, the cutting is not as pronounced as on strats, one is surprised to come up against, in short hand must pass over more than a Start or a TV. So to know.

SOUNDS

I bought a epiphone lucille because I wanted (cheap), get closer to the big sound Gibson said "fat blues" or the guitar that attacks an all-tube Fender amp in the records of the Women and blues crunch tone but also clear in his being a great fan of his light.
Achieved? not really, electronics PPE. is definitely a problem; knobs to discard (all 4), microphones not too bad but not really good either ... Heureusment the Deluxe Reverb is an amp that can straighten a fabulous little sound and make the joke in the crunch but not always in the clear, we are far from soft or hard-hitting BB KING freddy king and that's where it feels the limt microphones PPE.

Do not forget also that the guitar did not have gills, so it is more a guitar "chambered" with acoustic chambers, a real Thinline 335; sound is chubby + / creamy / compressed, as in all the chambered.

If you are in your period "obsessed chicago blues, between Freddy King, Joe Louis Walker, and all those guy who played the blues on it, you will approach a subject that's relatively modest ivestissment.
Note: the violin type 335 lends itself to slide through a tube screamer.

OVERALL OPINION

So I buy this guitar to have in my armada, an ersatz Gibson sound, the violin is really good, great sound reasonable, good action of the handle, Grover first choice, the violin is campaigning for a set of microphones Gibson Classic 57 that sooner or later I will install it myself because all the welds can be accessed much more convenient than the Sheraton or 335 Gibs, there is a plaque at the back and everything is there.

Finally, I am happy with my purchase, I knew I would have a proper violin, electronics M. .. rebuild (this is the challenge ...), and a guitar that I can take it anywhere without a pinball as GIBS.
I wait just a little before 57 and paste it to change the knobs & capacity.
And if I'm really bitten by the 335, I would pay a one day 335 cherry red with a slim stick type and I sell my old EPI tampered with.