You can grab up to the 18th fret with ease, which may seem a shorter reach than most guitars but is well in line with authentic ’60s cheapos. The neck has that wide, flatter D shape typical of many imports, but the setup on the tester was good – ready to help a player with their fastest licks.
It takes a minute or two to get used to having three sets of dedicated volumes and tones, but they can be preset for performances, which would save some time in the heat of battle. The Eastwood sounds great clean or with moderate amounts of gain to bring out that garage-rock charm. The VVSC pickups are more tonally akin to Gibson P-90 models than Strat or Tele tones, which proves refreshing. It’s not a terribly convenient location, but it is historically accurate to original ’60s Airlines.įired through an Orange head and Fender cab, as well as a Musicvox tube combo, the Airline was a strong performer.
Bringing order to this mass of knobs and pickups is a five-way selector (with sweet vintage-style switchplate), and a master Volume knob next to the input jack. Each has its own Volume and Tone control to make up that long bank of six knobs traversing the bass bout. The metallic-faced headstock is dressed with vintage Kluson-style nickel tuners, and a Bigsby vibrato sits on the other end.Įastwood fits the Airline ’59 3P with three VVSC single-coils that are, interestingly, housed under humbucker-sized covers. The fingerboard is inlaid with big-block pearloid markers with a sparkle to match the gold-flake finish, and its black, white-trimmed pickguard adds to the spectacle. Its scale length is a Fender-sized 25.5″ with a nut width of 1.688″ (111/16″). The Airline ’59 has a bound maple bolt-on neck with a rosewood fingerboard sporting 20 frets. An interesting tweak is the rubber binding, almost like a car bumper! It’s a hefty axe, weighing just north of eight pounds, but the tonal advantages of tonewood over fiberglass are obvious. Unlike the Res-O-Glas originals, however, Eastwood makes the body from mahogany. The Airline ’59 3P – with three pickups and seven knobs – is offered in white, metallic blue, seafoam green, and a snazzy gold-flake finish. They were among the quintessential “cheapo” guitars of the era, and those made of composite Res-O-Glas have since become highly sought-after and seen in the hands of indie rockers like Jack White, PJ Harvey, and others.ĭoing what they do best, the retro-minded Eastwood company has taken the design and resurrected it as a reliable and playable instrument – unlike some of the hard-to-tune vintage models out there with iffy truss rods and junky hardware. The original Airline electric guitars were made by Valco from 1958 to ’68 and sold through the now-defunct Montgomery Ward catalog and department stores. Info: Long before the brazen, pointy electrics of the 1980s, Airline created a model with all kinds of modern angles and attitude.
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