[God Hand Apostle]

Anyone played one of these? If so, any thoughts?

The research I've done so far has unearthed a pretty negative reputation. There are a few bad stories about customer service. The most common comment about the instruments themselves has been a "lifeless sound". Although this is coming from people who play high end 22 fretters like Thorn and Huber, and also prefer a rounder Gibson like neck profile whereas the Warrior is the Ibanez thin and wide variety.

Anyone have any info? First hand would be best, but since their hard to navigate website BLOWS, and only seems to have information concerning Christian mysticism, I will also accept any hearsay.

[dpm]

I've worked on one Warrior. It was actually well made with the exception of the fretwork, which was rough and well below the standard I expect from a high end instrument. That was a couple of years ago, I don't know if they have improved since then.

Originally Posted by God Hand Apostle

... and only seems to have information concerning Christian mysticism, I will also accept any hearsay.

Their current website is tame compared to it's earlier incarnations. Those guys are full on with the born again thing.

[AngelVivaldi]

I was going to endorse Warrior sometime ago. the guy was pretty cool to work with. just too anxious i guess. However they have incredible guitars and the purpleheart wood is to die for.

...oh yea and theyre headstocks are gorgeous.

[God Hand Apostle]

Thanks for the reply Dan, I always appreciate your input as my Oni kicks copious amounts of ass! ...and it still smells good like organic oatmeal soap. haha

That sucks to hear about the fretwork. Warrior uses stainless frets if I recall making any fretwork issues more of a pain in the ass. The thing of it is, is that because of their somewhat shady rep, the reasale value is pretty low on these. Bad for the seller, good for me.

The Born Again thing doesnt really bother me so much. But I dont like that there isnt any explained information, like you have to take their instruments "on faith" as well. They dont give any specs...everything is "anointed" this or "divine" that. Why cant we just say "stainless frets" and not "Jeweled frets" you know?

Yeah Angel, I like the headstocks too. Straight string pull is good. I'm looking at painted ones so I wouldnt be able to see that purpleheart "tone bar" as they call it.

[HighGain510]

Ron has done a TON of inlay for the Warrior custom shop and told me that although some of their pieces look really nice they are hit and miss in terms of tone and QC it seems. I checked a few out at NAMM this year and last year and they look really nice and I dig the carve of the top but I know a few guys on TGP who owned them flipped them almost instantly.

[jacksmith]

My brother in-law has used to be a huge Warrior fan until he purchased his second guitar from them. The whole process of his second purchase was a terrible experience, from start to finish and resulted in a lawsuit against Warrior siting the poor craftsmanship of the guitar. Warrior refuses to recognize that the guitar that was sold to him is of anything but exceptional quality, but I can tell you that the $3000 that he paid for the guitar would have been better spent on a guitar that was produced on an assembly line. I don't know the extent of the details but I do know that he was lied to quite a few times when asking about the status of the assembly of the guitar, when the guitar arrive there was a gap between the back of the neck and the body that you could have put at least 5 playing cards in to, and the guitar has an extreme case of fret buzz.

That being said, I would not recommend that anybody spend any money on any Warrior guitar. The customer service has been a nightmare for him and he's even been directly insulted by the Warrior staff when trying to get them to fix this guitar.

[Matt Crooks]

The third bassist for Division had a Warrior 6 string bass that was amazing. It was a little too mellow sounding for a metal band though, so his spector got most of the love.

If the gutiars are anything like this bass, the workmanship is top notch as are the components.

[jacksmith]

Sure, I'm not gonna knock all of the guitars they build. For the most part they do some great work, but in my brother in-law's case they did horrible work and refuse to admit it.

Here's a picture of the guitar while it was being worked on
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/1289/dranyn6.jpg
Notice the comment that says "take it apart... again"... The truss rod broke several times before it was finally sent out to my brother in-law. Apparently the young guy in the picture, Dran (19), was allowed to work on this guitar and did not have much experience, thus the lack of quality.