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Up for review is a U.S. Masters Guitar Works LeGrand Floyd.
This is a high end Strat copy made by U.S. Masters in Middleton, WI. I really don’t know much at all about the company, but I’d say they are much like a lesser known Anderson or Suhr. You can visit their website here: http://www.usmasters.com/
This was my huge pawn shop score, and in the couple of weeks I’ve owned the guitar, I’ve contacted the company and gotten fairly limited information about the guitar. Here’s what I do know:
Body: Alder (2 piece)
Neck: Special oil type finish on birdseye maple with a thick Pau Ferro fretboard.
Bridge: Original Floyd Rose
Tuners: Sperzel non-locking staggered height.
The guitar is right around the average weight for an alder bodied Strat…I’d put it around 8 pounds, though I haven’t actually weighed it. The company was unable to tell me what year the guitar was made.
The frets on this guitar may be stainless steel. I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve read some reports where they do use stainless steel fretwire, and these frets have absolutely no wear on them, so that leads me to believe they may be stainless steel. They are also perfectly finished. I haven't measured the radius, but it seems to be a compound radius...probably 10"-16". The guitar plays like a dream.
I’ve tried to get pics of the fret ends, but I don’t know if you can tell in the pics just how well finished they are.
You may be able to tell how thick that fretboard is in some of the pics too.
I was surprised when I took the measurements to find that the nut is 1 5/8” wide. I generally prefer 1 11/16” nuts, but this neck was so comfortable that I really assumed it was 1 11/16”. I didn’t remove the strings to get an accurate measurement of the thickness, but I did put a caliper on the first and 12th frets and it measured about 7/8” thick on the first and right at 1” at the 12th. The neck shape seems to be a deep C shape, though to be honest, I don’t really know much difference between the C, D, and U shapes. It’s definitely not a thin neck, and it’s definitely not a V shape.
The heel is sculpted for easy upper fret access, and also contains a lip to keep the neck from shifting. It’s held on with 4 allen screws.
The truss rod adjustment is at the heel and has a spoke wheel adjustment so you can adjust it without removing the neck or the pickguard.
The guitar wasn’t stock when I bought it. Someone had put a Kent Armstrong humbucker in the bridge position. I found that pickup very bright and thin sounding, so I replaced it with a Dimarzio Tone Zone. Made a world of difference. The bridge position is now full and warm, but still has plenty of power to cut through a mix.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with this guitar. I think it’s gonna be in regular rotation for a long, long time. The only mod I have planned is to get a new pickguard and set it up with a master volume/master tone configuration. The volume knob location on Strats just doesn’t work for me…I tend to anchor my pinky and end up turning the volume down accidentally. I played two shows with it last weekend, and while I didn’t turn the volume down accidentally, I was always a little bit more careful with my pinky placement than I normally am, and I still found the knob got in my way from time to time. That’s an easy fix though.
These guitars are quite pricey. I was told the list price on this guitar is $3000. However, since they are relatively unknown, used prices seem to be reasonable. The pawn shop where I got this had no idea what it was and sold it to me for $275. That’s almost unheard of, but I’ve seen a few on eBay over the last few weeks for under $1k.
This is a high end Strat copy made by U.S. Masters in Middleton, WI. I really don’t know much at all about the company, but I’d say they are much like a lesser known Anderson or Suhr. You can visit their website here: http://www.usmasters.com/
This was my huge pawn shop score, and in the couple of weeks I’ve owned the guitar, I’ve contacted the company and gotten fairly limited information about the guitar. Here’s what I do know:
Body: Alder (2 piece)
Neck: Special oil type finish on birdseye maple with a thick Pau Ferro fretboard.
Bridge: Original Floyd Rose
Tuners: Sperzel non-locking staggered height.
The guitar is right around the average weight for an alder bodied Strat…I’d put it around 8 pounds, though I haven’t actually weighed it. The company was unable to tell me what year the guitar was made.
The frets on this guitar may be stainless steel. I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve read some reports where they do use stainless steel fretwire, and these frets have absolutely no wear on them, so that leads me to believe they may be stainless steel. They are also perfectly finished. I haven't measured the radius, but it seems to be a compound radius...probably 10"-16". The guitar plays like a dream.
I’ve tried to get pics of the fret ends, but I don’t know if you can tell in the pics just how well finished they are.
You may be able to tell how thick that fretboard is in some of the pics too.
I was surprised when I took the measurements to find that the nut is 1 5/8” wide. I generally prefer 1 11/16” nuts, but this neck was so comfortable that I really assumed it was 1 11/16”. I didn’t remove the strings to get an accurate measurement of the thickness, but I did put a caliper on the first and 12th frets and it measured about 7/8” thick on the first and right at 1” at the 12th. The neck shape seems to be a deep C shape, though to be honest, I don’t really know much difference between the C, D, and U shapes. It’s definitely not a thin neck, and it’s definitely not a V shape.
The heel is sculpted for easy upper fret access, and also contains a lip to keep the neck from shifting. It’s held on with 4 allen screws.
The truss rod adjustment is at the heel and has a spoke wheel adjustment so you can adjust it without removing the neck or the pickguard.
The guitar wasn’t stock when I bought it. Someone had put a Kent Armstrong humbucker in the bridge position. I found that pickup very bright and thin sounding, so I replaced it with a Dimarzio Tone Zone. Made a world of difference. The bridge position is now full and warm, but still has plenty of power to cut through a mix.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with this guitar. I think it’s gonna be in regular rotation for a long, long time. The only mod I have planned is to get a new pickguard and set it up with a master volume/master tone configuration. The volume knob location on Strats just doesn’t work for me…I tend to anchor my pinky and end up turning the volume down accidentally. I played two shows with it last weekend, and while I didn’t turn the volume down accidentally, I was always a little bit more careful with my pinky placement than I normally am, and I still found the knob got in my way from time to time. That’s an easy fix though.
These guitars are quite pricey. I was told the list price on this guitar is $3000. However, since they are relatively unknown, used prices seem to be reasonable. The pawn shop where I got this had no idea what it was and sold it to me for $275. That’s almost unheard of, but I’ve seen a few on eBay over the last few weeks for under $1k.
