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Good find

I think I made a pretty good score today and may go back for more. One of our local stores is blowing out their stock of "First Act" guitars for $49.00 each. I bought a solid body one just to strip it for parts and was totaly impressed with it! It sounds so good that I'm leaving it as is and buying another one to strip. It has a trussed, maple neck with either a mahogany or rosewood fret board and nicely bedded frets. Low action, a humbucker pup and adjustable bridge. It has tone and volume controls and flush fit jack. The machine heads are cheap but they work. The body is probably particle board or another composite with a melamine like plastic finish. The whole unit is very solid and comfortable. The bolt neck alone is worth the money, let alone the pup, bridge and matched electrics!

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on August 10, 2010 at 12:46am

Same neck as my tele copy, nice guitar for under $100. Play it till your tired of it, then pirate it for parts. I had plans to pull mine apart also but I'm still playing it.
Tracy Tomlinson said:

Here are some pics of the $49.00 First Act Guitar

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Permalink Reply by Ben on August 10, 2010 at 2:09am

Hey Andy, definitely a better second act for this guitar. You did some really nice work on it.
Andy Estabrooks said:

I bought one at Target on clearance for parts, but found it had good bones. I took it apart, leveled and crowned the frets, made a new corian nut, reshaped, planed and veneered/ inlaid the headstock, made a new walnut pick guard with abalone inlay, then set it up nice. I'm very pleased with it - I think it rivals my esp ltd.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on August 19, 2010 at 10:38pm

The rumor is that Walmart is phasing out their music instrument line.Probably due to low sales. But what do you EXPECT when you hide them in the toy section?
How many people go in Walmart looking for strings etc and never think to look in the TOY dept.Sometimes I wonder if those folks that make a living designing Walmarts set ups are just graduates of kindergarden.

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on August 20, 2010 at 1:29am

I agree, I have 2 walmarts near me, one had them in toys and the other had the music instruments in the eye department !?! which is after the checkout.

Roger Martin said:

The rumor is that Walmart is phasing out their music instrument line.Probably due to low sales. But what do you EXPECT when you hide them in the toy section?
How many people go in Walmart looking for strings etc and never think to look in the TOY dept.Sometimes I wonder if those folks that make a living designing Walmarts set ups are just graduates of kindergarden.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Gajeski on August 20, 2010 at 10:11am

Lyon are made by washburn and in my experiance are pretty decent. I have a friend with a lyon strat copy that has been beat to hell and still sounds fantastic.

Scott L said:

I picked up on a similar deal a couple of years ago at a flea market. It was a Lyon which I think they used to sell before they called it First Act. It had been dropped which left a nasty ding in the body but for $45 I couldn't pass it up because it came with a gig bag, small practice amp, tuner, strings and strap. Screaming deal for all that stuff. I still have it but can't decide if I want to strip that crummy plastic finish off of it or scavenge it for parts. I was thinking about steampunking it after stripping. It would need parts too because it doesn't stay in tune for crap so I thought about putting a locking nut on it. Either that or take the neck off of it and stick it on a CBG. I'm still split on the decision but I'm leaning towards just rebuilding it because I've really outgrown my red Squire II Strat.

I really need a higher end guitar now, I wouldn't mind a Tele or a Gibson even since I have a Strat. I actually had a job offer from PRS a couple of years ago but I couldn't walk away from some vestments coming up at my current IT job. I would dearly love to have an emerald green PRS.