Project NGD (Dinky content)

[railfanespee]

Yesterday I was browsing craigslist and I saw a Jackson Dinky Reverse listed for $150. I looked it up, and found out it was a Professional series, which is at the top end of the Jackson import range. It needed work, as the wiring was undone and the tone pot was missing. But I jumped on it, since I have almost all my tonal bases covered besides a shredder with a floyd, and it reminded me of my old Charvel Model 1, which was stolen last fall. I talked them down to $125, and they threw in the OHSC for an extra $25. The neck was straight and the frets were in decent shape, so we did the deal and it came home with me.
When I got it, it had the following issues-
*No strings and a neck that needed truss rod adjustment
*One large sticker, signs that there had been more until the previous owner SANDED them off
*Several large chips/dings in the finish
*Missing parts, including control and trem cavity covers, tone pot, knobs, trem arm
*wiring completely torn apart

Here it is when I got it


Definitely been played. Never seen a poly fretobard relic like this before


Since there was no school the next day, I stayed up to work on my project. First I cleaned the fine tuners, since 4 of them were stuck and would not move at all. Then I peeled off the sticker and removed the residue. After this, I taught myself to set up a floyd (well, kinda) and got a few strings on to see how the neck was. Finally, I twisted leads from the pickups to a spare output jack to test the pickups. they both worked.

Here she is, cleaned up.


For now, I'm planning to order the parts, wire it up with just the volume, get it set up by a music store (since I don't know how to REALLY set up a floyd or adjust a truss rod). In the future, I'll wire up a tone pot and maybe even due a refin since the finish is in such rough shape.

I know I didn't get a great deal, due to the shape it's in. But I know it'll be a great player. And I was playing it yesterday, and even with a terrible setup and 3 strings it reminded me of my old Charvel. And that's good enough for me.

PS- anyone know where I can find the correct parts for this guitar?

[Trussrod]

Pretty cool. Is that a Jackson blade humbucker in the bridge pos?

[railfanespee]

Pretty cool. Is that a Jackson blade humbucker in the bridge pos?

Yes it is. I'll try and take some more pics of everything today.

[Axewielder]

Nice score. You can rewire that whole thing for very little cost. The worst issue is the finish. Maybe the refin guys will have some tips for a low cost technique to buff it out. Refins are not cheap. I'm on refin project #5 right now...

[warlok]

Not a bad deal at all IMO. If the finish isn't real rough sanded, you may get away with some wet sanding and buffing compound. Save yourself some money and set it up yourself. There's videos, tutorials, etc all over the net. And then there's us to answer any Q's. It's really not that hard.

[jacksonaxes]

Cool, I have the same guitar with a rosewood board.

[Learn Guitars]

For the price of a refin, you may be able to simply use the black base as a foundation for graphic, then do some art and reclear it. I do it all the time for guys with slightly blemished black guitars. They are the easiest to rework. Unfortunately, you would be paying more than you paid for the guitar to begin with depending on the design.

You can get a foam polish pad that mounts to a variable speed drill and get it to clean up a bit better. www.stewmac.com sells the poorman's buffing system.

It looks like the frets need a bit of work, not much. Just a bit of leveling and crowning. Then repolish.

[m2pmd70]

I like it, I would've bought it as a fixer at that price. You could clean up and ebay the neck and get most of your money back if you wanted.

[railfanespee]

UPDATE-
A few days after I got it, I determined that rewiring and setting it up was more of a challenge than I thought, so I took it to my tech. He did the rewiring, set it up very well, and only charged me $26, and that was just for parts. When I got it back, it played and sounded great. All that was left was to get knobs, a trem arm, and a cover for the control cavity. I picked the knobs and arm up at my local GC the next weekend, and for the missing control cavity I traced the outline and cut out a piece of plastic to fit. It looks decent from a distance and will keep the wiring safe until I can get a real replacement. A few days later, some buzzing showed up, probably due to the neck settling since it went years without any strings. So it's going back to the tech for a minor tweak soon. But overall I'm very happy. I'm not completely sold on the pickups, and might swap them out someday. This guitar probably won't become my #1, but it does fill my need for at least one guitar with a locking trem quite well, and for the $200 I have into it total, I think I did pretty well.