The Marlin Sidewinder. Much maligned and often found lurking in the depths of Ebay where they sell for small change.
I picked this one up with a job lot of guitars. It was dirty. So dirty you could have grown potato's in the accumulated grime. The intention was to break it for parts or to sell it on as it was. However curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a clean, fret dress and see how it played.
Usually the sidewinder comes with a two point floating tremolo with fine tuners this one when I picked it up had a weird chunky Japanese 6 screw trem. The saddles of which where all adjusted to be as far back as they could go which for perfect intonation wasn't far enough. mm! someone had changed the original two point for this one but no when I took it apart no extra holes so it was originally fitted with a 6 screw but just not this one so replaced it with a typical squier style one which fitted perfectly and with room for adjusting the intonation.
Also they usually have a bar string retainer whereas mine has the two round string trees.
Marlin also made the Slammer which was a single coil version with the 6 point trem and the round trees so this is some sort of hybrid I guess.
after cleaning I put it all back together strung it up and wow the neck is gorgeous so playable and feels like an expensive neck. The body is plywood. big solid heavy plywood. Now I'm not a believer in saying a particular material is better than another for making a guitar body out. don't get me wrong, I'm sure a rubber body would be pretty awful but some people would have you believe that the best wood for tone is swamp ash or mahogany and anything else is rubbish. this is such a contentious issue. My opinion is that the material a guitar is made of gives it it's own unique tone.
Anyway back to the Marlin. It has a humbucker with big fat bars in it in the bridge position and two Alnico (yes Alnico) single coils in middle and bridge. It also has a mini switch that puts the pick-ups in phase or something.
Sound wise it's just great. it sounds a bit fender but also a bit Gibson but not really you see it has it's own unique sound and I love it. especially in the bridge middle position with the phase (or whatever it does) switch on.
It's not all rosy The machines are rubbish but I will change them when I next change the strings which is a bit of a shame as the retaining lug is not in the standard place so I will have to drill some extra holes. also I find the neck although beautiful to play is not that stable. Some days I pick it up and it plays like my dream guitar then a couple of days later the strings are hitting the frets! I can put up with this as I'm not going to gig with it.
Click HERE for a very good article about the Marlin Sidewinder.
Here's some pics. notice the industrial pickup selector switch!
I picked this one up with a job lot of guitars. It was dirty. So dirty you could have grown potato's in the accumulated grime. The intention was to break it for parts or to sell it on as it was. However curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a clean, fret dress and see how it played.
Usually the sidewinder comes with a two point floating tremolo with fine tuners this one when I picked it up had a weird chunky Japanese 6 screw trem. The saddles of which where all adjusted to be as far back as they could go which for perfect intonation wasn't far enough. mm! someone had changed the original two point for this one but no when I took it apart no extra holes so it was originally fitted with a 6 screw but just not this one so replaced it with a typical squier style one which fitted perfectly and with room for adjusting the intonation.
Also they usually have a bar string retainer whereas mine has the two round string trees.
Marlin also made the Slammer which was a single coil version with the 6 point trem and the round trees so this is some sort of hybrid I guess.
after cleaning I put it all back together strung it up and wow the neck is gorgeous so playable and feels like an expensive neck. The body is plywood. big solid heavy plywood. Now I'm not a believer in saying a particular material is better than another for making a guitar body out. don't get me wrong, I'm sure a rubber body would be pretty awful but some people would have you believe that the best wood for tone is swamp ash or mahogany and anything else is rubbish. this is such a contentious issue. My opinion is that the material a guitar is made of gives it it's own unique tone.
Anyway back to the Marlin. It has a humbucker with big fat bars in it in the bridge position and two Alnico (yes Alnico) single coils in middle and bridge. It also has a mini switch that puts the pick-ups in phase or something.
Sound wise it's just great. it sounds a bit fender but also a bit Gibson but not really you see it has it's own unique sound and I love it. especially in the bridge middle position with the phase (or whatever it does) switch on.
It's not all rosy The machines are rubbish but I will change them when I next change the strings which is a bit of a shame as the retaining lug is not in the standard place so I will have to drill some extra holes. also I find the neck although beautiful to play is not that stable. Some days I pick it up and it plays like my dream guitar then a couple of days later the strings are hitting the frets! I can put up with this as I'm not going to gig with it.
Click HERE for a very good article about the Marlin Sidewinder.
Here's some pics. notice the industrial pickup selector switch!
