"If you get the whole Junior-style single pickup thing, you might have found a new beau. We certainly have": PJD Guitars St John Apprentice review

PJD St John Apprentice : What is it?

The UK has always been home to some fabulous electric guitar makers, but in recent years we’ve seen the rise of a new breed that look to production-led, rather than more bespoke custom, designs. We recently caught up with Manson’s Junior models, for example: single pickup, lightweight and vibey, at £1,399.

York-based maker PJD has a similarly small team that produces its new dual-pickup Standard range (£1,200, or with vibrato at £1,499) in a choice of four main body shapes. Now it has announced a direct order-only Apprentice level that centres on their best-selling St John offset outline (as reviewed) with the more LP-shaped Carey to follow later in the year. So what? Well, the new Apprentice will cost you just £899 including a good gigbag. 

We’re calling it ‘new’ because, a couple of years back, PJD released its first single soapbar-equipped Apprentice models with a cracked nitro finish and aged Gotoh hardware, but with a price that nearly touched £2k. This new version retains the aged hardware but strips everything back to its bare essentials. 

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Pickup

The in-house made PJD humbucker uses a partial cover, dual screw coils and a tortoiseshell-looking insert made from Italian celluloid acetate. It’s hot-vintage in style.

Neck and fingerboard

PJD is one of the few UK makers to employ the advanced Plek set-up system to ensure perfects frets and playability. They never had a problem before the Plek was installed: now they’re even better!

Hardware

It may be bargain in price, but the top-quality Gotoh hardtail thru-strung bridge and vintage-style split-post tuners are the same as used on PJD’s more expensive Standard models upwards. Oh, the parts are lightly aged, too.

PJD St John Apprentice : Performance and verdict

The slightly down-sized, offset-shaped body (with forearm chamfer only) and Fender-scale neck, however, have barely changed: lightweight obeche for the former and slab-sawn maple for the latter bolted to the body with proper bolts, not screws. The body finish is a thin open-pore satin nitro (the neck is a lightly-tinted clear satin), and different colours will be offered as the year progresses based on vintage Porsche hues: ours is Nato Olive. 

The centre point of the design is this special version of PJD’s Alnico V Wadfather humbucker with its partial cover and that tortoiseshell-like insert. There are no tricks with the circuit either, it’s just a CTS pot that acts as a master volume (although the copper foil-lined rear cavity will fit a tone control if you fancy a bit of modding). 

But if you get the whole Junior-style single pickup thing, you might have found a new beau. We certainly have. Along with the lightweight (6.15lb), resonant feel, the guitar is beautifully set up, the neck feels very mainstream with a lovely relaxed ‘C’ profile and the pokey hot-vintage Wadfather makes a glorious classic-to-modern rock, grungy and punky racket at full tilt with impressive strident jangle with the volume pulled back. Think Foo Fighters and you get the idea. To be fair, we might have preferred a tone control, but in today’s pedalboard world, are we just being old‑fashioned? 

And we’re not saying that £899 is pocket change, either, but with quality at this level – in terms of the build, feel, playability and sound – this new Apprentice seems dangerously close to an impulse buy.

MusicRadar verdict: Best you get in the queue after us: these are limited production models that surely can’t stay at this price for long. 

PJD St John Apprentice: The web says

"An antidote for the complex modern world, it certainly reminds us why we got into this whole lark in the first place. Superb stuff"
Guitar World

PJD St John Apprentice: Hands-on demos

PJD Guitars

The new PJD St John Apprentice is a real bargain! #handmade #guitarist #luthier #madeintheuk - YouTube

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Jack Taylor Guitars

A Hand Built UK Guitar For £899?! | PJD St. John Apprentice Unboxing - YouTube

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PJD St John Apprentice : Specifications

• BODY: Obeche
• NECK: Maple, bolt-on
• FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, 10” radius
• FRETS: 22
• PICKUPS: Direct-mount PJD Wadfather humbucker w/ open cover 
• CONTROLS: Master volume
• HARDWARE: Gotoh string-thru six-block saddle bridge, Gotoh vintage-style SD91 split‑post tuners – light‑aged nickel-plated
• FINISH: Nato Olive (as reviewed), other colours available
• CASE: Gigbag
• CONTACT: PJD Guitars