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Charvette 170 questions

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  • Charvette 170 questions

    hi all, i'm new here and i own a 88-89 charvel model 3dr that i've customized over there years and it's still my favorite guitar.

    well, my 15 year old son wants to learn to play guitar so i just picked up an old charvette 170 from my local music-go-round for $120 for him. turns out this thing needs some major work, but i figured it has all the necessities to make a decent beginner guitar. the neck looks to be in good shape and it has the JT-6 tremolo so that's the good news. the bad news is that it looks like someone lit the body of the guitar on fire

    so i figured it would be a good father/son project that i can teach him about guitars along the way. we start taking it apart and see that the body is in fact plywood...not solid wood as i was hoping for...and the original finish was yellow crackle which someone sanded down and painted flat black. i figure we'll sand it down to the wood and refinish it to his liking.

    the question i have is about the pickups...it has 1 single coil and 1 humbucker. the single coil only has 2 wires and says 'charvel' on the top of it (emg-style cover) with no markings on the rest of it..i'm assuming this is a J100? the humbucker has 4 wires and says 'jackson' on the top of it (no cover on this one) and has a sticker on the bottom that says 'J-50B (10.8)' but there is also the number 6 after the B but someone wrote over it with a black marker and the number (10.6) next to the (10.8) that is markered out also. is the J-50B a good pickup? would it have been the original pickup for this guitar? all the pictures i can find of the charvettes show the charvel logo on all of the pickups.

    i also noticed that the J-50B appears to be f-spaced and doesn't line up with the string spacing very well...is it just me or is the JT-6 tremolo in between standard and f-spacing? i know on my charvel 3dr with a JT-6 i replaced the original bridge humbucker with a standard spaced dimarzio and the pole pieces are slightly closer together than the string spacing but it seems to work fine.

    mateo

  • #2
    Let's break this up a bit.
    The neck pickup is a single coil sized humbucker. It is not a J100 as far as I know.
    Henrik
    AUDIOZONE.DK - a guitar site for the Jackson and Charvel fan

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    • #3
      I'll answer your last question: floyd string spacing is 2 1/8" E to E, and it's 2" on a JT-6.

      One more: The J-50B is not a bad pickup, but quality did drop off on them as the years went by. The best ones were the first ones. They were made in USA, had black pole pieces, and had a silver sticker on the bottom. Even with those I always end up putting in Duncans, but some people do love 'em.

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      • #4
        By any chance was that the MGR in Littleton CO?? Sounds very similar to one I inspected the day it arrived at that store - almost bought it on the spot for the JT-6 LOL! Good to see it turn into a fun project. If this is not the guitar - please ignore this message LOL!

        Mark
        "Hail to the Wasted".......Zinny J. Zan

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        • #5
          Mark, YES it was the one from the MGR in Littleton...small world huh?? I almost didn't buy it...what a hunk of junk it looked like...but I figured even if I parted it out I could prolly get more than what I payed for it. I just finished sanding the body down to the bare wood (plywood, that is) and getting ready to repaint it with my son.

          What part of town are you in? WOW...I just noticed how many guitars you have!!

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          • #6
            I'm in Lakewood - Wadsworth and Yale - about 5 miles from MGR. I'm there a couple times a week: bought my Model 5, King V, and Dinky XL there - all 95+ condition guitars at fair prices - but ya gotta be quick LOL! I occcasionally help them ID the older Jackson / Charvels so I can get a first look - catch my drift LOL! I'll PM ya in a day or so - maybe we can hook up for a few brewski's and talk guitars.

            Mark
            "Hail to the Wasted".......Zinny J. Zan

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            • #7
              Yeah...PM me or shoot me an e-mail or whatever!

              so you are the 'jackson/charvel' collector/expert that i heard them talking about! they actually had the pickup config listed wrong for the charvette...they had it listed as H-S-S...so i thought it might be a 270..and was hoping it was solid wood and not plywood.

              i'm located near 104th & tower road...kinda near dia...so it's a little drive for me to MGR.

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              • #8
                Sounds like someone has the same habit as me. Whenever I have a pickup out of a guitar, I measure the impedance, and write it on the back of the pickup with black marker. I think I sold a J50B a while back come to think of it.
                Sleep!!, That's where I'm a viking!!

                http://www.myspace.com/grindhouseadtheband

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by zeegler View Post
                  Sounds like someone has the same habit as me. Whenever I have a pickup out of a guitar, I measure the impedance, and write it on the back of the pickup with black marker. I think I sold a J50B a while back come to think of it.
                  actually, it is a printed label on the back of the pickup...looks like the original factory label...i would attach a pic but i'm still a noob here but it reads like this:

                  J-50B6
                  (10.6)(10.8)

                  that is all printed on the label...then someone took a black marker and scribbled out the 6 on the first line and the (10.6) on the 2nd line. i'm not sure i'm gonna put it back in the guitar because it doesn't line up well with the JT-6 string spacing. is this pickup worth anything?

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                  • #10
                    That pup could be a J50B"C" - if so its also used in Model 4's and 6's with active mid boost circuits - probably some other JE1200 guitars as well, as the literature advertises this pup as "designed for use with active circuitry".

                    Mark
                    "Hail to the Wasted".......Zinny J. Zan

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