More Vikings 19th January 2007

If you care to glance down to the thumbnails below, you'll notice the red viking has arrived. I've had an hour or so to bash away at it and by and large I'm very happy with it. In comparison to the black viking it feels somewhat sturdier, although since the weight is identical this is probably the signs of use and wear fooling me into thinking it'd stand-up better live. The electrics all work perfectly, which is great as I'd hate to have to poke around with the wiring loom in one of these. Tone controls work backwards, as is the norm with Viking Is. Finish looks good- a few surface checks, nothing major, no binding missing. Nice colour! Not as bright as I'd feared.

Bad things:
No pickguard- although pickguards on these guitars are neither a help nor a hinderence, the strings being raised so high above the body there's little chance of hitting it, I think they look better ON. See the black one- better, yes?
Stress cracks in the top near the heel of the neck- as seen on ALL Viking 12-strings, this is a result of too-heavy strings being used at some point. Seems stable now, but I'll take it to bits just to check. The neck pickup seems just a little askew as a result of this.
Crazy bridge- some sort of roller device. Works just fine but is on backwards! I'd guess this guitar had the metal-base hagstrom bridge originally, which I'm not particularly fond of. If I can find a rosewood base one like that on the black viking I'll swap it.
Crazy knobs- look fairly similar to the originals, but two say 'PROGRAM' and two say 'STUDENT'. What on earth can that be about?