McNaught Guitars VSC Jr.

Handmade custom guitars from in North carolina, USA. 22 6105 SS frets, mahogany body and set in neck, awesome maple top and ebony fretbord with square MOP inlays. Guitar has two humbuckers of your choice, 2 volume and 2 tone with a push pull pot for the bridge, a Tonepros Tune-o-matic Bridge and a Stopbar Tailpiece and Sperzel locking tuners. Body is a singlecut Les Paul type. Comes with TKL standard black Tolex hardshell case.
This guitar came with somekind of Manilius pickups in the neck and bridge.
The finish was a tiger burst - a book matched flamed maple top, natural mahogany back and sides, the neck is also bound with flamed maple (very nice touch).
The VSC Jr. differs from the regular VSC by being a flat top - non arched and has a forearm cutaway.

UTILIZATION

Being a Les Paul shaped guitar the access to the upper frets is better than Gibson. The heel is not bad to get around, and now Dave McNaught has a heeless option - that would be awesome to have!
The neck on this McNaught is truly a work of art. The neck is not as bulky as say a Les Paul Custom, and certainly isn't a Strat radius either. It is just right. Enough neck to grab a hold of but does not feel like a baseball bat. Les Paul lovers will love this neck. Dave McNaught has a very clever way of shaving a bit on the high "E" end side to allow flawless access on that side of the neck to upper registers. It is kind of a soft V shape.
The low "E" side retains enough bulk to wrap your thumb around. Standard medium jumbo 22 fret neck perfectly dressed. McNaught utilizes a construction design of a "Set thru neck", utilizing proven concepts of the stability of a set neck and the added sustain of a neck thru. Here's the genius. This neck designs extends a full 12" into the body.
It is medium heavy in weight, just enough but not too much.
And with two humbuckers and a 3-way switch you can get a nice array of sounds.
The addition of a forearm carve was a nice touch for comfort.
I bought this used and I think there was a problem with the truss rod. It never seemed to latch or catch and would just kind of spin when I tried to adjust the action.

SOUNDS

I use this guitar with custom built Peters amplifiers, which are kind of a cross between a Peavey 5150 and high gain Marshall/VHT with a little Boogie thrown in, a VHT Sig-X and an Egnater MOD 50. The amps were paired with an Avatar 4x12 that had Celestion G12h -30's and a Splawn 4x12 with Governor/ManOWar speaker combo, a Earcandy Buzzbomb 2x12 w/ Scholz speakers and a Mojotone 3x12 w/ Celestion CL-80's.

I usually go for a nice thick Jerry Cantrell AIC tone, to use with my modern rock/metal band.
Acoustically, this particular guitar is very nice across the whole sound spectrum. It gives an even tone.

The problems occur when plugged in. I don't know if it was the pickups or bad wood but this thing was harsh, shrill and stiff playing under gain and clean plugged in. It did not suit my style of music very well. The pickups/sounds did not do well under high gain.

My favorite sounds were it unplugged, which I would never use it for. I found it unuseable for most other applications.

OVERALL OPINION

This was definitely a lemon - or bad one out of the group. I am glad I gave these guitars another chance - because now I own two that sound great. (see my other McNaught reviews).
I wish it sounded as good as it looked - just flawless like all McNaughts.
My least favorite sounds were all but the unplugged ones. I just could not get this guitar to work for me and I didn't want to mess with putting new pickups in - so I sold it.
I did not try before I bought and just went off of McNaughts reputation. Knowing what I know now, I would not have bought this guitar - I did lose a little on selling it but it was useless to me.
Value to price was not good for me - but I am glad I tried another one!
I have owned many guitars and had a number of years where I would buy, try and flip, which enabled me to have many guitars around to try out.
This McNaught is ranked very low on my list. I could not get rid of it fast enough.