Westfield Cherry Red SG Refit

This is a mid-90s British-built (Westfield) “E2000” SG copy in cherry red. Westfield might be considered an entry-level brand, but they are well-made guitars, especially something like this, with its glued neck. The old Korean G&B humbuckers were a bit corroded (this model is about 20 years old), and one of them was a little microphonic, so they popped straight out ready to be rewound and cleaned up some other day. Meanwhile, it seemed like a good time to put my ‘Tony Iommi can’t be wrong’ theory to the test, and mounted two Wilkinson humbucker-sized P90 pickups, along with a brand new set of vintage-style locking tuners.

The P90s really crank things up, I feel like this would be a fabulous guitar for playing the blues a la The Black Keys or Gary Clark Jr, and the beauty of it is, it’s delightfully cheap. Not that many of us can afford a bespoke, handbuilt-to-order guitar, what with the Cost Of Living Crisis™ – but this perfectly good body coupled with exceptional brand new hardware brings it in at an exceedingly affordable £175.