Rehab Weekend

Don’t worry, this isn’t another entry in the Cough Syrup Diaries.

I recently helped a friend rehabilitate a guitar.

A Made-in-Japan (MIJ)  Jackson Stealth EX.

It used to have stickers on it.

It spent a long time in its case under a bed.

In Hong Kong.

It needed help.

First things first: disassemble it for cleaning:

Take off the tuners and locking nut (I hate when that happens). They were rusted and pitted.

The bridge was rusted and pitted too:

This is a licensed Floyd Rose-type bridge manufactured by  Takeuchi.

They are very much sought after by MIJ aficionados.I am sure that titillates you silly.

Luckily, I have plenty of medicine for what ails it.

A bath in WD-40 can work wonders.

Starting to look better…

WD-40 works on sticker residue, too.

The fretboard needed work:

Note the uneven nature of the frets, as well as the dull appearance.

These grooves come from playing very hard.

The frets needed leveling and re-crowning.  When it was done, they looked like this:

Smooth, shiny, and slick.

I ended up replacing the volume and tone controls as well as the input jack. I didn’t take any photos since I was working with a soldering iron and didn’t want to end up with a photo of me burning the F out of my finger. Besides, it is hardly a compelling visual experience.

I also blocked the bridge so that it no longer ‘floats.’ You can’t make all those 1980s tweedly noises, but the guitar is more stable, has more sustain, and won’t go (as far) out of tune if a string breaks. Again, it was really not an exciting process to look at.

Okay, so I forgot to take pictures. So f@#$ing what?

Once  it was clean, non-vibrato-fied, the frets were back in shape, and the electronics allowed it to produce sound, it was time for reassembly:

Nothing says 1980s like the Jackson headstock.

Except cocaine.

From what I’ve read.

Chipped, scratched, but shiny.

It lives to shred again!!!