XSSIVE
OCDologist
Charvel Production Model..IN DEPTH…
There will be NO sugar coating here folks and there will even be some nit picking!!
I got to pick up my black san dimas model 1 from the new Charvel production model series today and thought I’d give a bit of an in depth look at it vs the custom shop I own and the TMZ natural mahogany I also own. Now I say vs but I don’t really mean it since the prices of these guitars don’t make it fair at all to compare them but just to clear up some foolish things I’ve read on some forums I will compare them in some areas. To clear one thing up right away you have to be a flat out idiot to think these production models are anywhere near the caliber of guitar that the custom shop guitars are or even the TMZ natural series. I’ve read people say they can’t see a difference (or similar comments) and please stop taking advice on guitars from these people because it’s obvious they have no idea what they are talking about if they think that. that said, I’ll also give you an inside look at the guts of the pro-mod since I had it stripped on my bench today getting to the bottom of it.
Start off on a bit of a bad note, the finish…mine is black, the hardest color to keep clean as we all know which is very easy to get fine swirl marks all over from polishing it…no big deal I knew that going in. however out of the box the guitar was a bit dingy and dull looking as was the other black model 1 I got to pick from (thankfully I got to pick between two and see how they vary) both had this slightly dull finish that I figured was just from shipping and would clean right up with some spray polish when I got home….WRONG!!! once I got it into better lights I realized it was one giant swirl mark, loads of fine scratches from the buffing machine, just a real piss poor job of buffing out the paint. A very rushed buffing job for sure. So that’s when the fun started and I decided to gut the guitar and buff out the body with my buffing wheel. After buffing it out it’s now a 9 out of 10. Before buffing about a 4 out of 10…pure suck. Don’t get me wrong the paint quality itself is good, no drips or runs or anything like that, it was the buffing job that sucked you could see the marks from the wheel and it had a dull haze to it…yuk. Moving on but continuing with the body, I’m a bit sad to see that they didn’t veneer the body front and back like they do on a typical strat to hide the seams of the joined wood that make up the body…in this case 3pc body. If you hold the guitar on an angle you catch a glimpse of these seams. No major big deal to me I’m just stating the facts here and am only slightly bummed they didn’t veneer them like they do on fenders. Thankfully it’s nice and light an resonant, no complaints there seems to be 3 good slabs of tuneful wood that make it up.
Hardware…this certainly isn’t a real deal Floyd rose and it’s not a ping Floyd either from what I can tell. It must be some Chinese or Korean made knock off. It’s not bad but certainly not OFR quality. It stays in tune well but you can tell where corners are cut. Even the block is a bit jagged and sharp…not that you touch it…just stating that it is. It was also (as typical with cheap black hardware) a dingy and dull black out of the box like it was never buffed to a shine…I guess that’s so it matches the dull swirled body paint? LOL. So I took a few minutes to polish it up with some swirl remover and it was looking minty fresh (see pics)! The only other complaint I have with it so far is that the bar comes loose real easy. I like to set my bars a little stiff so they don’t swing all over and if I do that with this after using the bar once and bumping it back down out of the way it’s fully loose and swinging. I’ll look into this more later to see if I can fix that.
The pickups and wiring...real duncans, jb & 59, no complaint there they sound great the JB rarely lets me down and the 59 is a solid choice for the neck! The wiring, I had a broken ground on both pickups out of the box, just a poor soldering job that came loose. No big deal I was swapping out that ghetto toggle switch for an all black on anyway. On that note, It was a nice effort on trying to recreate the metal toggle tip as used on the 80s san dimas pointy head charvels and Jackson but man were they way off on the size and shape from a real one…check the pics of it next to the toggle from my real ’84 san dimas pointy. Yeah I’m nit picking/screw counting a bit here but I just want to point it all out. It’s certainly not the end of the world and a personal preference if you like it or not. However, a broken ground is still not something you want to find on a new guitar for average joe who can’t work on a guitar himself. For me it was no big deal since I knew that switch was a goner before the guitar even got home. The pot seems fine, nice even taper and it even has a brass shaft…we all know brass means better lol.
Continued….
There will be NO sugar coating here folks and there will even be some nit picking!!
I got to pick up my black san dimas model 1 from the new Charvel production model series today and thought I’d give a bit of an in depth look at it vs the custom shop I own and the TMZ natural mahogany I also own. Now I say vs but I don’t really mean it since the prices of these guitars don’t make it fair at all to compare them but just to clear up some foolish things I’ve read on some forums I will compare them in some areas. To clear one thing up right away you have to be a flat out idiot to think these production models are anywhere near the caliber of guitar that the custom shop guitars are or even the TMZ natural series. I’ve read people say they can’t see a difference (or similar comments) and please stop taking advice on guitars from these people because it’s obvious they have no idea what they are talking about if they think that. that said, I’ll also give you an inside look at the guts of the pro-mod since I had it stripped on my bench today getting to the bottom of it.
Start off on a bit of a bad note, the finish…mine is black, the hardest color to keep clean as we all know which is very easy to get fine swirl marks all over from polishing it…no big deal I knew that going in. however out of the box the guitar was a bit dingy and dull looking as was the other black model 1 I got to pick from (thankfully I got to pick between two and see how they vary) both had this slightly dull finish that I figured was just from shipping and would clean right up with some spray polish when I got home….WRONG!!! once I got it into better lights I realized it was one giant swirl mark, loads of fine scratches from the buffing machine, just a real piss poor job of buffing out the paint. A very rushed buffing job for sure. So that’s when the fun started and I decided to gut the guitar and buff out the body with my buffing wheel. After buffing it out it’s now a 9 out of 10. Before buffing about a 4 out of 10…pure suck. Don’t get me wrong the paint quality itself is good, no drips or runs or anything like that, it was the buffing job that sucked you could see the marks from the wheel and it had a dull haze to it…yuk. Moving on but continuing with the body, I’m a bit sad to see that they didn’t veneer the body front and back like they do on a typical strat to hide the seams of the joined wood that make up the body…in this case 3pc body. If you hold the guitar on an angle you catch a glimpse of these seams. No major big deal to me I’m just stating the facts here and am only slightly bummed they didn’t veneer them like they do on fenders. Thankfully it’s nice and light an resonant, no complaints there seems to be 3 good slabs of tuneful wood that make it up.
Hardware…this certainly isn’t a real deal Floyd rose and it’s not a ping Floyd either from what I can tell. It must be some Chinese or Korean made knock off. It’s not bad but certainly not OFR quality. It stays in tune well but you can tell where corners are cut. Even the block is a bit jagged and sharp…not that you touch it…just stating that it is. It was also (as typical with cheap black hardware) a dingy and dull black out of the box like it was never buffed to a shine…I guess that’s so it matches the dull swirled body paint? LOL. So I took a few minutes to polish it up with some swirl remover and it was looking minty fresh (see pics)! The only other complaint I have with it so far is that the bar comes loose real easy. I like to set my bars a little stiff so they don’t swing all over and if I do that with this after using the bar once and bumping it back down out of the way it’s fully loose and swinging. I’ll look into this more later to see if I can fix that.
The pickups and wiring...real duncans, jb & 59, no complaint there they sound great the JB rarely lets me down and the 59 is a solid choice for the neck! The wiring, I had a broken ground on both pickups out of the box, just a poor soldering job that came loose. No big deal I was swapping out that ghetto toggle switch for an all black on anyway. On that note, It was a nice effort on trying to recreate the metal toggle tip as used on the 80s san dimas pointy head charvels and Jackson but man were they way off on the size and shape from a real one…check the pics of it next to the toggle from my real ’84 san dimas pointy. Yeah I’m nit picking/screw counting a bit here but I just want to point it all out. It’s certainly not the end of the world and a personal preference if you like it or not. However, a broken ground is still not something you want to find on a new guitar for average joe who can’t work on a guitar himself. For me it was no big deal since I knew that switch was a goner before the guitar even got home. The pot seems fine, nice even taper and it even has a brass shaft…we all know brass means better lol.
Continued….
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also, that’s just a sticker from fender, it comes right off don’t worry…
