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For years now I've wanted a rising sun Jackson or Charvel. And it's never quite happened, for various reasons: the specs of the guitar were wrong, the pattern or the Japanese characters weren't right for me, the cost was prohibitive, blah blah.
Anyway, at some point last year, I finally decided enough was enough and I decided to order exactly what I wanted. And what I wanted was old-school, within certain price constraints that I impose on myself! So I put my specs together to 'recreate' an old single hum soloist, or at least as far as I was bothered to go. So it has the old style tuners, the old logo and the old neck heel. But it doesn't have binding over the fret ends, because I don't see the point. Apologies to the Jackson mafia for that :P And then I wanted to get the graphic 'right' for me, which involved some back and forth with Dan Lawrence via the factory and some help with the Japanese translation from Toru - so big thanks to both of them
Dan supplied me a selection of characters which he already had screens for, which I played around with for a couple of weeks trying to work out a way of making them make sense. In the end, I took the 'London' characters from a Warren D Bomber (the characters on the Crossed Swords were too thick), combined with the characters for '#1'. Not that I think London is #1, but at least it doesn't say "fish vacum dildo" or something dumb. Unless Toru lied to me... 
I asked for some progress pics of the guitar and so I have a pic of the guitar sitting on Dan's work bench - it's very cool to see the mockup pic I submitted sitting next to the guitar!
This order has been by far and a way the quickest I've had from Jackson - the work order was signed off in August 08, and so it took a little under 9 months. Even getting it back from Dan, clearing it and getting it through distribution only took 5 weeks or so. Sure, it's a pretty basic guitar but hopefully this is sign of process improvements over there.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for UPS - I paid for 24 hour delivery and the guitar took 7 days to get to me. Which is ridiculous and I heartily recomend using ANYONE else for international shipping. Put the damn thing in a catapault if needs be...
Anyway, on to the pics. In retrospect, a solid black pickup might have been a better choice, so I might be looking at sorting that shortly:
And yes, I know the signature and 'Custom Shop' logo aren't 80's spec, but I don't care
Anyway, at some point last year, I finally decided enough was enough and I decided to order exactly what I wanted. And what I wanted was old-school, within certain price constraints that I impose on myself! So I put my specs together to 'recreate' an old single hum soloist, or at least as far as I was bothered to go. So it has the old style tuners, the old logo and the old neck heel. But it doesn't have binding over the fret ends, because I don't see the point. Apologies to the Jackson mafia for that :P And then I wanted to get the graphic 'right' for me, which involved some back and forth with Dan Lawrence via the factory and some help with the Japanese translation from Toru - so big thanks to both of them
Dan supplied me a selection of characters which he already had screens for, which I played around with for a couple of weeks trying to work out a way of making them make sense. In the end, I took the 'London' characters from a Warren D Bomber (the characters on the Crossed Swords were too thick), combined with the characters for '#1'. Not that I think London is #1, but at least it doesn't say "fish vacum dildo" or something dumb. Unless Toru lied to me... I asked for some progress pics of the guitar and so I have a pic of the guitar sitting on Dan's work bench - it's very cool to see the mockup pic I submitted sitting next to the guitar!
This order has been by far and a way the quickest I've had from Jackson - the work order was signed off in August 08, and so it took a little under 9 months. Even getting it back from Dan, clearing it and getting it through distribution only took 5 weeks or so. Sure, it's a pretty basic guitar but hopefully this is sign of process improvements over there.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for UPS - I paid for 24 hour delivery and the guitar took 7 days to get to me. Which is ridiculous and I heartily recomend using ANYONE else for international shipping. Put the damn thing in a catapault if needs be...
Anyway, on to the pics. In retrospect, a solid black pickup might have been a better choice, so I might be looking at sorting that shortly:
And yes, I know the signature and 'Custom Shop' logo aren't 80's spec, but I don't care
:ROTF:
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