NGD! Cheap and Cheerful Content..

[JakSchitt]

Hey fellas,

Last week I ordered an Black Knight 7 String off the Gear4Music website.
Here is the link..

Black Knight RS-50-Z7 7-String Guitar Oil Black at Gear4Music.com

Anyways, it arrived whilst I was at work and I couldnt wait to get home to fully appreciate it. Took a load of pics for your perusal and i will go through the many pros........ And 1 or 2 cons..

Front Shots!!






Arse Shots!



The Pros....

First off, the neck. The frets seem to be of medium thickness, well seated in the neck and the ends are tidy and not sharp. The heel joint is akin to an AANJ but seems slightly shallower. Upper fret access is easy and effortless. The back of the neck is a satin finish and not sticky in any way. Neck profile is a shallow C. A tad chunkier than say an Rg7321 profile but comfy nonetheless. Moving toward the headstock, the nut slots are well cut. Tuners are no name ones and I wouldnt trust them but then again this thing was CHEEEEP like the budgie! The body is well finished and on the whole neat and tidy. I did notice some tiny wood chippings where the string ferrules had been placed but these were easily shifted. The pickups, again a no name brand..... This is where it gets interesting. I plugged into my trusty Line 6 Spider1 and it sounded great! No noticable muddiness when using high gain. Crystal clear when played clean. I am very pleasantly suprised and will investigate these further.

The Cons

The action on this thing is sky high. Like a himalayan summit poking through the stratosphere high!



So I look towards the bridge and find this....



The posts which lower the bridge assembly are down to the body. I could move the bass side maybe 1mm but thats it, and obviously wouldnt make any difference to the action. Cant lower the treble side at all. Also, it aint black........its green.. But it looks nice lol.

Conclusion..

Yes its cheap. Yes its not perfect, but on the whole its good. Pickups sound great, it looks good. (Though im not so keen on the headstock. Looks out of proportion with the body) But im torn because of the bridge. Do i send it back to the supplier and either get a refund or swap it for another one? Or do I send it to a tech and see what can be done. As far as adjusting th truss rod, its something I have always been too nervous to attempt. Your thoughts would be muchly appreciated...

[Elysian]

Shim the neck so you can adjust the action lower.

[JakSchitt]

Consider me a complete noob when it comes to this kind of thing lol . When you say shim do you mean place a sliver of wood between the neck and body?

[Randy]

That looks like the place they shoot the DrumCityGuitarLand pictures.

EDIT: Also, shimming is usually done in really small units, so you could get away with the cover of a matchbook.

[vineroon]

Originally Posted by JakSchitt

Consider me a complete noob when it comes to this kind of thing lol . When you say shim do you mean place a sliver of wood between the neck and body?

Yep, basically placing a thin flat piece of anything in the neck pocket helps. I find old credit cards usually work pretty well.

[JakSchitt]

Took em in my shitty tiny back garden lol. So I would place the shimming material more towards the body end of the neck so the neck is tilting backwards?

[MF_Kitten]

Originally Posted by JakSchitt

Took em in my shitty tiny back garden lol. So I would place the shimming material more towards the body end of the neck so the neck is tilting backwards?

that´s what people usually do, i think. go for it!

shimming isn´t a hard thing to do, and is done for various reasons (though mostly on cheap instruments).

for bridge height adjustment issues like these, a shim is an easy fix, and a good one. go for it right now!

[SYLrules88]

you could try tightening the truss rod 1/4 of a turn. tune it back to where you had it and let it sit for a while.

[guitarplayerone]

Originally Posted by SYLrules88

you could try tightening the truss rod 1/4 of a turn. tune it back to where you had it and let it sit for a while.

try to shim the neck first. if the neck is straight already, don't touch the truss rod

[mekon]

Well this isn't the best first post as my foray into the world of seven strings is going to last a day with this guitar!! It's going straight back!!

I took a chance on it and thank god there's a 14 refund option. The action is stupidly high and I don't really see why you should have to start modding something because of oversight as simple as this. Yeah I could shim it but why should I out of the box?

The neck feels like something out of a flat-pack Ikea kit. It's 'dry' and feels slow. Ok the profile is suitable but combine this with the action and it's just unuseable.

You get what you pay for sometimes. I have a vintage V8, also classed as 'budget' I suppose but it blows this out of the water. I knew I should have bought the Ibanez 7321 that was £225.

I will return.......with a proper 7 string!

[Solstafir]

easy fix would be to shim the neck.

tough fix (but will feel more pro) is to take the guitar to a tech and recess the TOM into the body ala this:

[jymellis]

Originally Posted by mekon

Well this isn't the best first post as my foray into the world of seven strings is going to last a day with this guitar!! It's going straight back!!

I took a chance on it and thank god there's a 14 refund option. The action is stupidly high and I don't really see why you should have to start modding something because of oversight as simple as this. Yeah I could shim it but why should I out of the box?

The neck feels like something out of a flat-pack Ikea kit. It's 'dry' and feels slow. Ok the profile is suitable but combine this with the action and it's just unuseable.

You get what you pay for sometimes. I have a vintage V8, also classed as 'budget' I suppose but it blows this out of the water. I knew I should have bought the Ibanez 7321 that was £225.

I will return.......with a proper 7 string!

take it back and get the iby

[mekon]

This guitar won't beat me! I've bought up some pickups from an ibanez s7420 for £20!!!on ebay, going to give the neck a sanding, change the strings and shim the neck.

I decided to keep it after I gave it good playing for an hour and saw potential in it. I still emailed to tell them what I thought of it as it stood though....

I'll post again when I get it sorted.

[leandroab]

Seeing those "recessed TOM" pics, I suspect my action is really high!

[BornOfOsiris]

I would still return it and get the Ibanez. Much safer bet.

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Hi, just my thoughts...

1. Shimming and action adjustment.
- As some of the others have pointed out, placing material under the neck (thin card, plastic under the whole neck pocket or a portion of it to create a back angle) is specifically for the purpose of giving you more adjustment at the bridge. This is because the neck is now higher so your bridge (at it's present setting) has a lower relationship with the neck.

If you need to adjust the trussrod, you will know by holding the guitar at the 14th fret and the 1st fret simultaneously and looking at the fret 5-7 area. Generally it should be 2mm (paper thin gap) between the frets and the strings. Necks should have a gentle bend forward (convex) to help avoid fret buzz, as opposed to perfectly straight or much worse, back bend.

You may need to raise your pickups after this, but lower pickups are better in my experience.

2. Ibanez 7321.
- These guitars are good for the price and are available cheaply 2nd hand through eBay. I've owned a few and modded them and they make excellent, disposable stage guitars once upgraded. However, the frets are never good and they always need a serious setup, much like your current guitar. All guitars are a constant work in progress, needing maintenance and improvement...

Best thing is, for you, that the Ibanez' black finish is a "£$ to keep clean. With the oiled finish on your guitar, that will not be a problem.

I hope you enjoy your new guitar!!!

[ZeroS1gnol]

Here's my 2 cents on this guitar.

I cant see clearly, but to me it looks like your bolt-on neck isn't angled at all by factory default. It could be the photo, but the fretboard seems to be parallel to the body on the upper frets.

To put it simply, a tune-o-matic bridge needs an angled neck (look at gibsons). If this guitar doesnt have this, the manufacturer basicly had his head up his bum while designing it. Design fail.

But again, just judging the pics.

Shimming is a big yes then!

[mekon]

My S7420 pickups arrived and after having a to buy yet another soldering iron (they die on me!) I got them fitted. I decided to shim the neck with a plastic off an xbox 360 game case I had spare as it look exactly what I needed and discovered they'd already factory shimmed with 3 pieces of sandpaper.

I made a custom sized shim that filled the entire pocket, matched the pocket shape and lifted the neck about 1.5mm......plays great now!

The pickups are an improvement, no doubt, stuff like pinch harmonics are way better as they were 'dulled' on the originals but not the massive leap I was expecting so maybe the originals weren't that bad after all.

Swapped onto 9-54 gauge strings as well as I thought I wanted a bit less tension but I'm not so sure now and I'll probably go up a gauge when I change again.

I've got a friend with a proper workshop so I may get the bridge recessed properly at some point but as it stands for about £180 inc new pickups and strings it's a good buy. Just a pity the action is obviously way too high to start with.

[Andii]

Originally Posted by Elysian

Shim the neck so you can adjust the action lower.

No.

Originally Posted by SYLrules88

you could try tightening the truss rod 1/4 of a turn. tune it back to where you had it and let it sit for a while.

YES! :h bang:

Originally Posted by guitarplayerone

try to shim the neck first. if the neck is straight already, don't touch the truss rod

NO.

[Hollowway]

Originally Posted by Andii

No.

YES! :h bang:



NO.

What??? This is clearly a neck shim issue, NOT a truss rod issue. And truss rods should never be used to lower or raise a guitar's overall action. Only to straighten the neck (which has minimal effect on action at certain areas of the FB).
To the OP, when you shim put the shim material (a slice of business card or matchbook) in the neck pocket nearest the neck pup. The number of thicknesses of the shim is a trial and error thing, but you'll be surprised how much a business card thickness does.

[TwitTheShred]

I got the same guitar yesterday. the neck and action on it are fine. but when i recieved it it had a huge stratch on the back and a screw instantly fell out of the pickup selector. this guitars construction is nice as far as the woodwork is concerned but the electrics are atroshious. i contacted gear 4 music about these problems and they gave me a £25 refund so its not all bad.

One other problem it has is that it has a huge buzz!!! i preshume its becuase it hasnt been earthed? is there any chance any of you guys could help me through earthing it please?

[Disco Volante]

That action is higher than Cheech & Chong man! Hope you get it fixed.

[cvinos]

To fix such... dude... an action, I would go for the TOM trick, which is similar to how it would be done on a classical guitar, because for an effective and sensible truss rod adjustment the action looks too high, and a shim thing is dogy.