Picked up a Schecter, took it back (long)

[PowerTube]

I have a bit of a heartbreaking story from yesterday and today. I picked up a Schecter Hellraiser yesterday morning from a pawn shop that I had previously checked out on Saturday. It was an absolutely gorgeous instrument, in Black Cherry with the abalone binding on the body and headstock, etc.... I also love the "extra jumbo" frets on these and some of the LTD's. It included a hardshell case (aftermarket) and for some reason, the trem bar in the case was chrome, while it has a black Floyd. So I also stopped by Guitar Center and a young lady was very nice in letting me swap it for a black one.

I brought it home and did my usual setup:

Polished the frets
Cleaned the fingerboard
Lemon oiled the fingerboard
A slight turn on the truss rod
Intonation was okay
Restrung with 9-42 Slinky's
Re-leveled the Floyd
Set the desired pickup height
Inserted a fresh new battery

It sounded KILLER across my Carvin X100B with the GT-100. Great tone, drive, clarity, etc..., and played like a dream on the freshly-polished frets. I was having a great time putting it through its paces.

Sounds like a success story, right?

Then "it" happened. I noticed while playing on the high E string up around the 12th-17th fret range that the pickups would suddenly lose a bit of power. No volume loss, but it was like the effect of dropping your Volume knob about 25%, where your distortion tries to clean up. So while I'm playing, it's suddenly not "hot" anymore and the "bite" and sustain are gone.

I tried another brand new battery since batteries can be bad right out of the box. Nope. Same issue.

I popped out the input jack to check it. AHA! The black ground wire from the battery compartment had come completely OFF the input jack. No biggie. I stripped and re-soldered it. Tried again and..... same problem.

Just to make sure it wasn't my imagination or the amp, I tried two other guitars. No problem. I then tried the Hellraiser on another amp. Same problem.

The crazy thing is that it only seems to affect the 1st and 2nd (E and B) strings. I could unplug the cable, plug it back in, and be back to normal for maybe up to a minute or so. Then the power drop-off again. Sometimes it would correct on its own without me doing anything, but usually not. It makes me wonder if maybe a capacitor was doing something weird or if there was a bug in the circuitry.

I noticed when I had the input jack out that it looked really grungy. The solder joints, aside from the one I had to redo, also looked pretty sloppy. The knobs also looked like the soldering wasn't the greatest.

I finally decided that it was going back because:

1. I didn't have the will to deal with some crazy, intermittent problem that might never get resolved.

2. For all it's worth, this one didn't have the "W" serial number, so it's not a WMI instrument, right? It did say "Crafted in South Korea" or however that's worded.

3. I got a little spooked by the way everything looked so grungy inside.

4. Also, the trem claw had been replaced by a TREMOL-NO claw, and there was part of a TREMOL-NO attached, but the rest was nowhere in sight.

So even though I didn't care to deal with the issues on this particular one, I've now decided that I do indeed want another Hellraiser, just one that hasn't been screwed around with. It broke my heart to take it back because it's so nice, but I do think it was the right decision.

Any thoughts on either the guitar or the pickup weirdness?

[Number Of The Priest]

Some scenarios:

1) If it was as nice as you say it was (and I believe you), if you got it for a great low price, and if I had the electronics/soldering skills, I would have tried to exhaust all possibilities before returning it, unless the final return day was coming sooner than I could eliminate the hypothesized problems. As long as the "bones" of the guitar are solid, electronics can always be remedied. In this scenario, I would have urged you to keep the guitar and work on it.

2) However, I never learned electronics/soldering and might not have wanted to invest much more time/effort/money into the guitar. In my case, it would be money, paid to a tech to investigate and solve the electronics mystery. At some point, the total money sunk into the guitar + tech work would exceed my threshold for a "good deal" or even a new equivalent Hellraiser at retail price. In this scenario, I agree you did the right thing in returning the guitar; it was wasting your time.

Interestingly, I also run a Boss processor (GT-6) into my amp (Mesa DC-2) and I occasionally get a weird "partial output/volume loss" where it affects the total output of any of my guitars, but I doubt that's related to your Hellraiser problem which seems to only be isolated to two strings.

Out of curiosity, did you take any pics, especially of the serial number? My Schecter is below, with W serial number, followed by some examples I found of other serial number formats I found on Google Images that don't follow the W format but still clearly say Crafted in South Korea. I don't have any information about why some don't start with W but I'm curious to know as well. Maybe lepard might know.

[PowerTube]

I never took any pics because I was busy trying to resolve the power loss issue. In my opinion, the input jack actually needed replacement because it was oxidized/corroded pretty well. The guitar itself was in good shape with a couple of surface dings on the front and back.

I'm half decent at soldering. No expert, but adequate. But a skill I totally don't have is troubleshooting electronics. If someone tells me what the problem is, I can fix it. But as for diagnosing it? Nothing beyond the total basics.

I thought about having someone look at it, but the only local tech I know of is the really young guy at GC, and since this was a weird, intermittent issue......

If I go back in the pawn shop, the guy who sold it to me will probably give me a smug look and tell how how the guitar is just fine because they don't understand what's happening. I took advantage of their 7-day return policy.

[DonP]

I'd try replacing the jack with a good quality one. The jack on EMG's is also a power switch. If the "power switch" is dirty, you'd lose power like you said. It should be just three wires to solder in order to replace.

[PowerTube]

I'd try replacing the jack with a good quality one. The jack on EMG's is also a power switch. If the "power switch" is dirty, you'd lose power like you said. It should be just three wires to solder in order to replace.

Well, I already took it back yesterday. Since they have a 7-day return, I considered doing exactly that with replacing the jack. But I guess the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth toward that particular guitar. I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to find that style of jack locally and have to order it.

It's a shame, though, because it played beautifully after my setup.