Jackson Charvel Body Size Question

[Bryan]

First off.....

I know this has probably been beaten to death. But honestly I'm drawing a blank. And nobody locally has enough Jacksons or Charvels to do this in person.

Plus I figured it might be handy to have this all in one place.

So here goes:

How do Jackson and Charvel bodies compare size wise?

There's Dinky, Soloist, SoCal, San Dimas, Pro Mod DK, Pro Mod Style 2, PC-1 (which also says Dinky).

This does get a bit confusing. So I'm hopeful someone can list them in maybe order of body size to settle this once and for all.

Or at least until the next person can't find this thread and asks again.

[Mudlark]

The Soloist, PC1 and Dinky all have the Dinky body. Identical perimeter sizes...approximately 7/8ths Strat size.

Charvels are often the larger Strat shape, but some were Dinky bodies.

[toejam]

Dinky and Soloist are the same size body, which is like a 7/8" Strat body. The others are the bigger, more rounded Strat bodies.

[toejam]

Beat me to it!

[xenophobe]

Fwiw, the 22 fret Dinky body is a bit different than the Soloist body. The cutouts are a little different and slightly shorter.

[Mudlark]

Yes, when comparing some 22 fret Dinky bodies with a 24 fret Dinky body the 22 will have the appearance of shorter horns.

The early 22 fret DK1's are a good example of this.

[Number Of The Priest]

If we are discussing all double-cutaway superstrat-style bodies, should we also include shapes like the Misha Mansour Juggernaut, the Chris Broderick Soloist, the SLS (Super Light Soloist), the SLSMG (same silhouette as the normal Soloist, but thin-bodied), and the multiple variants of the SLAT / Archtop Soloist?

The funny thing is that Adrian Smith's guitar is called a San Dimas DK. It's a normal-sized Strat body and is not Dinky-sized as the "DK" portion of the name might suggest.

The SLATQH and SLATQM were 22-fret Soloists with the 7/8ths size body (Dinky body) as you would expect for a Soloist.

Yes, when comparing some 22 fret Dinky bodies with a 24 fret Dinky body the 22 will have the appearance of shorter horns.

The early 22 fret DK1's are a good example of this.

The Charvel 375 and 475 are also good examples of the "22 fret Dinky body".

A 375 is pictured below as an example:



The Jackson Stealth had the "22 fret Dinky body" but it had a thin profile.

[Axewielder]

The funny thing is that Adrian Smith's guitar is called a San Dimas DK. It's a normal-sized Strat body and is not Dinky-sized as the "DK" portion of the name might suggest.

Yes, very confusing. Also "San Dimas" by itself can also mean the full-size strat body nowadays.

[Mudlark]

Typical Fender carelessness.
They employ the people that build the guitars, but instead of asking them for information they just make shit up.

They've been printing in the catalogues for years that a Dinky is a streamlined, smaller version of a Soloist. Years!!

[Axewielder]

Typical Fender carelessness.

Don't disagree but they were careless in the "Pre-Fender" days too. Who can forget the one Jackson catalog (1990?) where they labelled a 24-fret Dinky a "Strat-24". Not to be confused with the 24-fret Strats that were appearing around the same time.

[Number Of The Priest]

Yes, very confusing. Also "San Dimas" by itself can also mean the full-size strat body nowadays.

And if Adrian's guitar were in the Charvel product lineup, it would likely be called a "So-Cal" (pickguard Strat body) instead of a "San Dimas" (non-pickguard Strat body).

[shreddermon]

Soloists and Dinkys are the same body style. Just neck-through vs bolt-on. And, yes, the horns are proportionately shorter on the 22 fret versions.
22 fret Soloist = 22 fret Dinky
24 fret Soloist = 24 fret Dinky

The whole "Dinkys are a 7/8ths Strat" thing is pretty much a myth. Strat bodies are only slightly bigger and, more importantly, have more rounded edging. I suspect the 7/8ths thing just started as a shorthand way to explain how the body styles were different. But it's not an actual measurement.

San Dimas is just FMIC's way of describing J/C's Strat body without calling it a "Strat". Because that's Fender's thing, and it's trademark protected. So really, San Dimas is just marketing / legal mumbo jumbo to separate the brands. It's a strat. And a SoCal is just a Strat with a pick guard.

[Number Of The Priest]

"San Dimas" as a model name was also used for those mid-1990s San Dimas models that had the "7/8ths" style body:

[Axewielder]

Jackson made more Dinkys and Soloists than Strats in San Dimas, so the Jackson "San Dimas" should be a Dinky body.

The "San Dimas" should be rebranded as the "Fullerton".

[shreddermon]

"San Dimas" as a model name was also used for those mid-1990s San Dimas models that had the "7/8ths" style body

Sort of. I've always thought of it as more of a series title than a model name. The San Dimas Reissue series, which was supposed to be a (then) modern reintroduction of the Charvel brand with a number of different models. And it included both Dinkys (SD model numbers) and Strats (the Traditional model).