Based on the listing pictures, I was thinking this guitar would be like a Gretsch Electromatic Jet double cutaway, but semi-hollow. That made sense because the Electromatics are heavily chambered, giving them a somewhat semi-hollow vibe without having f-holes. But no, in person this Rafferty has no Gretschy vibe at all. It is more like the love child of a 335 and an Agile Harm. The lower bout is almost 16", barely narrower than a 335, and the body depth is 1-3/4" not counting arch. It is arched top and back and has a solid center block. Overall, think 335 with pointier horns. To me, that's not bad either, just unusual.
First impressions right out of the box, it was not cleaned up very well after it was finished. There's a fair amount of shop dust on the body. There are also fit and finish issues I will detail below. Strangely, the low strings were tuned way higher than standard, more than a couple steps high. That was disturbing. The high strings were detuned down, so that made me wonder if someone tried to tune it upside-down. I'll never know, I just corrected that right away and tuned it up. The tuners work well, and the intonation was surprisingly close to good. On first play, I heard a ton of fret buzz, and thought I would probably have to level and crown it. But tweaking the truss rod to give it some relief took care of the buzzing, and the action is still very good. I did hammer the 11th fret down a touch, but no filing. It's now a guitar. I'll clean it up a bit and move on.
According to my gauges, the fretboard radius is 16" all the way up the neck, no compounding. I'm not the best guy to judge neck shapes because I like a lot of different necks. But I'd call this probably a medium C shape. I have guitars with either fatter or thinner necks I still like, and this one feels around the middle. The frets are not annoyingly tall, but I'd call them medium too. The scale length is 24-3/4". It weighs 6 lbs, 13 oz.
After addressing the fret buzz, it plays well, and I can check out the rest. The nut is cut well and the intonation is very good. I took the pick guard off it to clean the shop gunk off it, and decided it looks better without the guard. Despite their off-kilter mounting, the pickups sound alright. They're not amazing, but are clean and even, and yes, they are fairly microphonic. I don't mind that, but I don't play gigs... in front of loud amps. YMMV.
With everything dimed, it sounds decent, right for some songs. And it's grounded well, very quiet when not playing. But here's where I don't like it so much... The bridge volume pot works as it should, but the neck volume doesn't go down to zero, and affects tone as much as it affects volume. It's more of a blanket than a volume. Oops. Both tone controls provide either 0 or 10, but nothing in-between. This is pretty common on lefty guitars from cheap builders. I'd guess it was wired by someone who has no idea what the electronics do, just followed a diagram and got it wrong (and no QA means it passed because the guitar makes sound). So I'll definitely have to rewire the harness and maybe change pots. Before I do that, I'm going to take time to determine whether it should keep the same pickups or swap them out. I'm not surprised it needs rewiring at this price, but I'm not looking forward to doing that on a semi-hollow (awkward).
I said I'd address fit and finish, and this is where I hit them harder. The fret ends are a bit sharp, but not bad enough to file yet. There are a good number of finish issues. That's not surprising in this price range, but the number of them is. Both sides of the neck joint look like horrible work and maybe hurriedly patched with filler (ugh!). The binding has some black smear I can't tell whether it was binding dust after sanding or glue, but that's just in one spot. There were spots of solder melted onto a couple areas of the top, that's just sloppy work. The top has deep tool marks under one of the pots. The binding on one side of the headstock was not scraped and looks orange-peely. One of the pickup rings is mounted sloppily, leaving a gap showing into the rout. The pick guard screw holes were drilled sloppily, breaking about a 1/4" diameter of the finish around them off. All this, and yet from a few feet the guitar looks great. And remember, it's a budget guitar. So I can deal with the B-stock type cosmetic issues that don't affect its play.
Bottom line: It's a cheap, yet functional and attractive mod platform. It sustains well and the body is nicely resonant. The neck is straight and the action is very good. The electronics can be improved, but it plays well and that's more important. The cosmetic issues are not show-stoppers because playability and sound are more important to me. Would I buy another? Yes, if it's unique enough and I have the time to fix its issues. But I wouldn't suggest it as anyone's first guitar. For that, it would need to function right, straight out of the box. That requires QA and some setup. Time for pictures.
