Hi HatchA, great story about your 3 day experience with a genuine Gibson Explorer. Sad story as it was this does not surprise me as names on headstocks do not guarantee anything.

My eldest son went shopping for a new axe about 8 years ago when he was still at Uni and therefore not a lot of money to spend. He tried out most things in the shop and I must have been a bad influence as he gravitated to the Explorers. His budget screamed Epiphone but his eyes were drawn to about 4 shiny Gibson's at the other end of the shop. He tried them all from Black to Cherry and eventually bought a White one as it felt and played the best, and also sounded the best too. What convinced him to buy it? The ebony fretboard as it is only on white whilst the rest are rosewood and this is a major contributing factor as to how it feels and plays.

As we were in the grip of the GFC at the time and the store was wanting to clear stock he got a $2700 Axe for about $1600 and it is clearly the best one I have seen and/or played. Mind you he was at home last weekend and saw my EX-1 for the first time and reckon it has a better action than his, and that was a huge compliment.

The moral to this story is you can create just about anything with just the right amount of passion, skill and enthusiasm. Maybe the EX will become a future build project for you and wish you all the best with doing the ES-5V.

Cheers, Waz.