Help me ID this '84 Charvel. New to the club too!

[monkeywithchees]

Hey folks, new to the forums and new Charvel owner!

I bought this one today. The original owner (who runs the local music store) said it was a 1984 Charvel Standard LTD imported guitar. Ebony board, Jackson pickup, Jackson tuners, Kahler 2500 Traditional double-locking trem. SN 247172. Headstock says Charvel, and below "Charvel/Jackson). Color was white, now more cream. Looks like it might have some metallic in it. Perfect shape. Any additional information sure whould be helpful. Is this the correct model? Imported? He's got the original sales receipt that I'm going to try and get...



Thanks,
Pat

[txcharvel]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club too!

1986 Model 2. Made in Japan. Fretboard is rosewood not ebony.

Very nice, the Model Series guitar are awesome [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[1trussell]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

Very nice indeed. Great score and welcome aboard.

[monkeywithchees]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

Thanks guys. It does play great. It could use some cleaning, but I'll get to that soon. Hmm, the dude said the receipt was from 1984. I'll definately need to get that from him.

The bridge on this thing is kind of interesting. It's like a cross between a Fender, a Floyd, and a regular Kahler. I think it's something Kahler came up with to replace regular Fender trems as it's got the same pivot spacing. A couple of the fine tuners were broken, so I've ordered the parts to fix them (thank goodness Kahler is doing business again). The nut is isn't locked down now, so I can use the regular tuners in the mean time. Once fixed and locked, I'm interested to see how much abuse this will take. Probably not as much as a Floyd or regular Kahler, but easy string replacement should be the flip side.

Since I could find almost nothing about this bridge on the net, here's a photo of the bridge and "behind the nut" locker. Oh yeah, www.kahlerusa.com for the parts breakdown/online ordering and installation/users guide. We'll see how fast their order processing is.





Thanks again,
Pat

[mudkicker]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

Yep 1986 Model 2. One of the best Model series guitars made.

The Kahler Fulcrum is single locking, but a very good trem. I have abused the one on my 86 Model 3A forever and it has never let me down once. The down side was the lack of parts if they did break down.

[sgray]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

[ QUOTE ]
Yep 1986 Model 2. One of the best Model series guitars made.

The Kahler Fulcrum is single locking, but a very good trem. I have abused the one on my 86 Model 3A forever and it has never let me down once. The down side was the lack of parts if they did break down.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off..nice axe! love the model series! Question:Can you easily replace those trems with a OFR? Thanks

[Carbuff]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

[ QUOTE ]
First off..nice axe! love the model series! Question:Can you easily replace those trems with a OFR? Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the post spacing is way off for that.

[Newc]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

What about a Wilky or Strat Ultra 2-pointer?

[monkeywithchees]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

About the bridge, here is a statement from the manual that leads me to believe it will retro a Fender trem (or vice versa)...

"Check spacing of the two outside bridge mounting holes and confirm that they are the standard width apart (Approx 2 3/16")."

If I can get this bridge going I think it's going to be way cool.

Again, I appreciate all the information!
Pat

[Carbuff]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

Thanks for the link to the kahler website. I downloade the pdf manual for mine and maybe one day I will actually be able to figure out how to work this thing. One thing to note about replacing this trem is that these studs are different than most as they have the knife edges on them and the slot is on the bridge unlike most other trems that do it the other way around. So you will need to find studs that will fit into the mounts that are there. Im not sure if the threads are similat to others.

[Tekky]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

[ QUOTE ]
What about a Wilky or Strat Ultra 2-pointer?

[/ QUOTE ]

Same issue with the Wilky. Holes will need to be f'n r-d (filled and re-drilled).

[Zerberus]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

Are you sure, Tekky??? IIRC the Kahler Fulcrum was designed to be a drop in retrofit for an AM STD trem, same as the Wilk...I´ve never tried it, but from that I would assume it will fit....

But either way, I´d keep the Kahler if you can get the parts you need, that thing together with a locking nut is about as stable as it gets on a single locking trem. IMO it even outperforms the Flatmounts [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Tekky]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club

I don't know about the AM STD, that's why I pointed out the Wilkinson. As far as I know the wilkinson has a different pole width than the Kahler. Then again, there are two different wilkinsons with different pole spacing widths.

[JacksonConcept]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club too!

Ah yes...I owned one of those very model 2's...here's a pic of Me, Ted Nugent, and the Charvel in about 1989. I apologize for the mullet [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] ...those were the days.

[AimingHigh]

Re: Help me ID this \'84 Charvel. New to the club too!

Fellows, I used to have a Model 3 with one of those 1986 fulcrum Kahlers, and I was unsuccessful in replacing it with any other tremolo. I believe Kahler used their own trem spacing here. I, for one, was not a big fan of this trem at all. The rocking saddles (moving part the fine tuning screws go into) tend to break, and I searched far and low for a replacement. Bret Dennis had actually saved me there and sent me a few rocking saddles, gratis.
Overall, a nice guitar, but I'd be careful with that trem--especially the fragile fine tuning screw portion.. And I hope the buyer paid much less than he would for a 1984 San Dimas.

-George