Product: Eastwood Guitars Airline H-44 Stratotone
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 09/10/2007 at 06:24pm by daloco

Features : 10
The features should be well known from the reviews below. I bought two of them. A copper colored two PU DLX and a black one PU STD (black with two PU’s are sold out until december this year.)
I liked the slide sound of them so much but i’m not really a good slider.I’m a better lap steeler. So i customized one into a lapsteel (even a fake pedal steel). I mounted a higher nut and a “Duesenberg Multibender” bridge and it sounds amazing.

Sound : 10
I’m playing blues and if you do too, than this is the guitar to go for! The model with two pick ups is so versatile.
I’m playin them through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4×10. Nothing special on the floor but a Ernie Ball Volume, a Whammy for octaving and a TS808. Compared to my Gibson Les Paul Std the sound is a bit warmer and got more bass. I could not say wich one sounds better… the 3000 Euro Gibson or the 300 Euro Eastwood. I actually bought it as a back up for the Gibson… it’s got my main guitar at the time… Amazing

Action, Fit, & Finish : 10
I mailed with Mike from Eastwood a few times and he told me that the H44 is the only model in their program under USD500,- made in Korea.
No flaws, nice finish. Setup was fine. I used that little trick with the ducktape for the bridge wich is loose on the guitar like on the original, so i would not have to calibrate so often. Works great.

Reliability/Durability : 10
Sturdy workhorse… you can play shows, or baseball with it. You even could defeate conan the babarian with it and play on.
I do not have the feeling i have to watch out all the time to keep it in mint condition. I think this is the kind of guitar where one will like every scratch, dent and ding that happens during touring. I’ll do.

Customer Support : 10
Contact Mike… absolutely fast and friendly. When i wrote him the first mail concerning shipping to Europe i got an answer within two minutes. He must have a blackberry in his pocket ore something like that!

Overall Rating : 10
I started playing when i was five years old, thats 24 years ago now. I’m a professional since ten years now (former major recording artist now indiependend and more happy). Got a couple of other guitars from larivee parlor acoustics to sitars from india. My current live set consists of a gibson les paul std hb, a epiphone j200 (’96 korea), a hoefner jazz guitar from the fifties and my two H44’s from Eastwood.

I came to the Eastwood Site cause of the replica of the airline 3p dlx. A friend of mine is playing a white original on stage. I wanted to check out the replicas and watched many video reviews on Eastwood Guitars. The H44 review and sound was so standing out, that i forgot about all the others and went for the H44. I might get a Tuxedo and a Airline sometimes but I’m not a lawyer hanging guitars behind glass in his office… so I’ll need a reason to purchase I’m shure I’ll finde one soon.

Guitar Review: Eastwood Airline H44 DLX Guitar

Bonus clip: Vince Lee and his H44 DLX:

Guitar Review: Eastwood Airline H44 DLX Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

I can’t help myself. I’m an especially big fan of old Airline guitars. I’ve owned many over the years and have always dug their quirky shapes and sounds.

Eastwood Airline H44 DLX Guitar

Catching my eye in particular was an Airline H44 DLX in a copper finish, reminding me of the old 50’s Harmony/Kay Stratotone, which in those days was considered kind of a poor man’s Les Paul.

The H44 sports a really cool small bodied, single cutaway shape with two mini-Humbuckers, a short trapeze tailpiece, three way selector switch and a master volume & tone control. When I got home after NAMM I kept thinking about it and ended getting one a month later.

When I unpacked it, I was immediately struck by how beautiful it looked in its copper finish with just a hint of sparkle to it. I took it out of the box and immediately began twanging away. True to the original Stratotones, this guitar came with a fat “baseball bat” type neck. The advantage of a fat neck is that it’s very stable and practically un-warpable. Also like the originals, these guitars have a movable non-adjustable wooden bridge with a fixed compensated saddle. With a set of 10’s the action was good, and the intonation was pretty darn close.

I noticed the bridge moved around a bit whenever I would bend the strings (just like the old ones), so I remedied the problem with an old bluesman’s fix; I just put a few short strips of double stick tape underneath the bridge and voila! It held like a champ even on my wildest bends.

The tuners are open-faced, again just like the old ones. Some people think open faced tuners “slip”, but that’s a load of hogwash. I always wrap the string around itself against the tuning post, which kind of “locks” the string, and when I do that along with stretching the string a few times it always stays in tune. No problems with the tuners here.

The string slots on the nut were a tad on the tight side, “pinging” now and then when tuning. A little bit of Big Bends Nut Sauce lubricant took care of the problem. Note: Tight string slots at the nut is the number one reason guitars don’t stay in tune. Always keep some lubricant handy and you’ll be a happy (and in tune) camper.

So how did it sound plugged in? Very cool indeed! Mini humbuckers typically have a darker sound than single coils, plus they’re more powerful, so it’s important to set an amp’s controls accordingly. I first revved it up through a small Roland Microcube amp. It was quite at home here. There were plenty of modeling amp settings that I could find to make it sound good. Then it was on to a Line 6 POD in my studio, going direct into the recording console. With a few little tweaks I had some very bluesy sounding tones happening through the studio monitors. Nice!

Next it was on to a Rivera 45 watt 1-12 Clubster combo amp. There was no problem dialing up a nice, slightly overdriven Mike Bloomfield “Super Session” kind of sound. I liked it mostly clean, but with just a hint of amp distortion. And finally, I ran it through a 15 watt Fender Blues Junior amp and it sang out like it owned the joint!

Will Ray with his H44 DLX

Here’s my take on guitars like the H44 ‘ they’re specialty instruments meant to create unique guitar tones that normal Strat, Tele and Les Paul guitars can’t do. I use guitars like this a lot in the studio when I’m looking for something different to add character to a track, or on a live gig to give a different mojo to a song. I find that when a guitar sounds a little different, it will make you play a little different. I already know what I sound like with my usual guitars. But what can I paint with a different paintbrush?

Conclusion? I like my H44. It’s built like an old guitar, but without old guitar hassles. It’s very cool looking and stable. Plus my wife digs the color. What can I say? She’s a keeper.

Post by: Will Ray

Guitar Review: Eastwood Airline H44 DLX Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com