Okay, way more questions about these than I was expecting so I'll put a little summary here of each guitar.

Epiphone Les Paul Classic Birdseye

Bought on eBay in 2004 after 13 year-old me fell in love with a Les Paul and had to have one. According to the serial number it was made in Korea in 1995, and the birdseye maple veneer's a little different to most Les Pauls, even if I've been told it looks like it has measles. It cost me £200 and I can honestly say that if I could only keep one guitar, it'd be this one. I've grown up with it, learnt pretty much everything I know on it, and it's so versatile it's silly. Yes I've got the big flying V, but this honestly sounds better for metal - I don't know whether the original Alnico Classic Hot pickups are genuinely this high output, or whether someone's modified it in a previous life, I've never taken the pups out. There's pretty much nothing this guitar can't do unless you really need a single coil sound.

Fender American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster

A little treat to myself a few months back as I'm doing a music course and my Mexican felt a little lacking, so I thought I could treat myself to an upgrade. Woo student loan! I went to my local guitar shop, tried a couple out, then went home, looked on eBay and by bedtime I was the owner of this beauty and £500 better off than if I'd bought it new. It's only three years old and it hasn't got a mark on it, if it weren't for the different pickups it could be brand new. This photo's from the day it arrived and I was over the moon.

The one piece maple neck is the most comfortable neck I've ever played, you just pick it up and play and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Beautifully smooth and nicely shaped, thick at the bottom for chords and flatter near the body. The abalone inlays still amaze me, I've had the guitar for two or three months now and I still end up staring at it in wonder whenever I put it down.

The ash body sustains a little longer than the regular alder body, which is always nice. The pickups are Samarian noiseless cobalt models, which make all the noises you want a Strat's pickups to make, and none that you don't. What I really like is that the poles aren't staggered - that really annoys me on my Mexican, as it means the top two strings lose a little definition. I can't go into too much detail about the S1 switching system as I don't understand all this electrickery witchcraft particularly well, but what I can see is that with it engaged the middle three positions sound a little more neutral, less Strat "jangle", and in the bridge and neck positions it makes the pickups sound more like P90s, adding a bit of chunkiness while still sounding like single coils, which is a nice extra bit of versatility.

Other nice features are the locking tuners, floating trem (although it does make restringing a bit more of a hassle in terms of restoring the action) and my personal favourite, the rounded neck heel, which makes a world of difference when you're widdling away at the upper reaches of the neck.

Fender Standard Stratocaster (MIM)

I bought this on eBay two and a half years ago with some money I received for my 18th birthday. She cost me £300, and for that I got a Mexican standard Strat with American standard pickups (the previous owner had found the standard fare too weedy). Not much to say really, if you've ever played a Strat you'll know how it feels. A lovely smooth neck, and generally an awesome little guitar. I use it pretty much exclusively for clean playing and blues, as I don't like the sound of the pickups under distortion and it sounds so beautiful as it is. My only complaint is that the American pickups have staggered poles, and as such the top two strings lose a little definition and sustain, which is one of the reasons I upgraded to the American Deluxe. The original plan was to sell this guitar once the new Strat arrived, but it's just too pretty and I don't want to see it go. As such, my next project might be to get a set of Bare Knuckle Irish Tour pickups or something similarly bluesy to give this guitar a new lease of life.

LTD Ninja 600

The signature model of Michael Amott of Arch Enemy, before he switched his endorsement contract to Dean. I fell in love with this guitar the moment I saw it on a full page ad in Guitarist back in 2005, and so for my 18th I finally got it. Originally this model had a plain black finish and a mirror scratchplate, but for the last year or so of production they did a red quilted maple model with 24 frets and a Floyd Rose, and the model you see before you - black quilted maple on a mahogany body, 22 XJ frets, stoptail and those gorgeous ninja star inlays.

The pickups are a Seymour Duncan JB and 59, which are fantastic. Yes they do metal brilliantly, as you'd expect, but they also sound great clean, making this guitar incredibly versatile... were it not for the fact that it's bloody massive and looks ridiculous out of context.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about this guitar is the neck, which isn't like most modern metal guitars at all - it feels a lot more "traditional", and I liken it most to my Les Paul (which I think, being a Classic model, has a late '50s neck profile), though it's slightly slimmer nearer the body.

My only complaint about this guitar is that unless you bought the ESP model rather than the LTD, it never came with a fitted case, and despite two years of searching, I've never found one without having to buy another Ninja (though god is that tempting...). As a result, I ended up buying a Gator "Extreme" hard case, which comes with lots of foam pads designed to fit various extreme body shapes, but the Ninja is slightly longer than a Gibson Flying V shape, and so still didn't fit, so I ended up buying and cutting the foam myself.

I think that covers everything, sorry to post such an essay but there were way more questions than I expected so this seemed the obvious thing to do. TL;DR: here are the details on each guitar if any of them interests you, feel free to ask me any questions about them!

Edit: obligatory oh-my-god-it-made-the-front-page comment, glad you guys and girls like them so much.