# Charvel Charvette



## DSilence (Feb 27, 2009)

Hey Guys/Girls

A work mate of mine offered me this guitar and I am wondering weather to take on a project or not, keeping in mind I have wanted to put together a parts-0-caster. 

Its a Charvel Charvette.
As far as I know the company was bought out by Jackson later on and these were the Korean models? Thanks Wiki (I think)

Problems include:

1.Floyd Rose missing springs and aluminium cast bar? I have showed a guitar tec & he seems to think it will be quite hard to find parts for & suggested a Gotoh floating bridge as the existing posts will be the right width apart.

2.Crack through the middle of the top machine head in the head stock.

3.Neck is pretty damn good, one side is perfectly straight, the otherside has a ever so light bow.

Possibly a white paint job to the body.

Anyways, any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.


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## ShadyDavey (Feb 27, 2009)

If its a steal I'd take it. Just throwing some decent hardware at it and having the neck adjusted would seem to solve the major problems. As I recall the original pickups are a bit waffy so but thats going to be secondary to getting it playing properly.

No idea if it would fit but a Wilkinson bridge might be worth considering?


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## DSilence (Feb 27, 2009)

Basically its free at this stage, on the terms if I get it playable he would be able to use it on ocasion. Or we were going to split costs but that could get messy.
I was quite supprised at how thin the neck is!


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## hairychris (Feb 27, 2009)

The Charvettes were the lowest rung of Jackson/Charvel guitars until the early 90s. If you're going to partscaster it then fine but it was never particularly high quality to start with...


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## John_Strychnine (Feb 27, 2009)

I wouldnt strip it down if i were you. The body underneath wont be so good!

I have a charvette (without the floyd and reverse headstock) and yeh the body looks like some sort of cheap ply.


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## Lozek (Feb 27, 2009)

hairychris said:


> The Charvettes were the lowest rung of Jackson/Charvel guitars until the early 90s. If you're going to partscaster it then fine but it was never particularly high quality to start with...



Yup, the Jackson got pretty iconic at that point because of the popularity of people like Megadeth etc, Charvels actually ended up being such good quality that they were no longer the 'cheap' Jackson (I have a late 80's model that I still play & record with to this day), so Charvette was brought in as the 'Squier' of the range. They were never that great, but i guess like any guitars, you can always find the magical one that was built as the planets aligned.


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## DSilence (Feb 27, 2009)

The Floyd Rose cavity plate is missing so I can see what it looks like behind there lol 
From what I can see its not plywood as it doesnt have the laminated layers. Could it be basswood? The neck feels nice but its hard to tell without actually playing it. Im not particularly woried it was the cheaper run off by Charvel. Thanks for the info!


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## mustang-monk (Feb 27, 2009)

those floyds are the worst ever ive seen, 2 guitars with those and they both were broken beyond repair.


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## darren (Feb 27, 2009)

That's barely even a Floyd. It probably says "licensed under Floyd Rose Patents" on it, but just about every two-point fulcrum trem with a locking nut fell into that category in the late '80s/early '90s.


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## heffergm (Feb 27, 2009)

I'd pass. There are a lot better cheapies out there.


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## Nick1 (Feb 27, 2009)

I had a white one once. I paid $50.00 for it but it came with a nice ass gibson case that was routed for any strat or lp style. But alas It wouldnt stay in tune so I threw it across the room and busted the headstock off then used the body as a launch pad for fireworks on the 4th of July. Then I dumped gasoline on it and lit it up. So yea if you do what I did with it yeah its worth it!


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## atavism-dream (Feb 27, 2009)

I have a red 24 fret one of these with a naff LFR trem and... a Bareknuckle Nailbomb 

I threw the nailbomb in it to test it out. I used to bash out a fair amount of Morbid Angel style stuff through it a few years ago. Strangely enough the neck on it is really quite nice, it's a lovely shape and has a pretty flat fretboard. It's probably a pretty sucky wood (weight feels like basswood though) and the LFR is god awful, though I kinda like the guitar


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## DSilence (Feb 27, 2009)

Yeah I think this ones basswood & yeah it looks like one of those licensed Floyds, has Mgt Under Floyd Rose Pats. printed on it. I must admit at first glance it looked like a decent guitar.


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## Mattmc74 (Mar 2, 2009)

If it's free than take it. I would like to have it to fix up. But I do projects like this one all of the time.


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## DSilence (Mar 4, 2009)

Yeah I think I will, I seen a Charvel neck for it on ebay but I dont have an account or credit card so I couldnt puchase it but oh well.


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## haffner1 (Mar 7, 2009)

Wow, I just noticed this thread! I posted on mine here:

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/standard-guitars/71614-first-guitar-pics-if-possible-3.html

towards the bottom of the page. 
Someone talked about wood quality- I looked around on some different forums when I was bringing mine back into working condition. The wood quality on these is all across the board basically, so you would have to check it out. Mine is actually a bit heavy and I think it is probably poplar, or maybe alder. Not plywood, definately not basswood. But some _are_ plywood and some basswood, so you would just have to open it up and find out. Too bad about the trem on it though. I rather like the neck profile on mine actually, not all the time mind you, but it is good for something different. Maybe its just nostalgia because it was my first guitar though, so who knows. 
The single coils in mine don't sound bad, just fairly low output. The humbucker was worthless though. I replaced it with a old 80's Jackson pickup that works pretty well with it.


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## DSilence (Mar 8, 2009)

Yeah this ones definately heavy, definately not plywood, I suspected basswood.


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## Roccoguy (Jan 5, 2010)

I have that very guitar, although it is now modified. I bought it brand new in 1990, costing me £250.

The model is a Charvette 250. The single locking trem is useless and will NEVER stay in tune. The tech at my local guitar store blocked out the bridge on it using maple and did a complete set up. Stays in perfect tune now.

Years ago I fitted an EMG Select humbucker in place of the weedy stock humbucker. It is now one of my fave guitars. The neck is the easiest to play on ANY guitar I have tried. Sustain is exceptional, maybe due to the maple bridge blocking. As somebody said, you can be lucky and drop on a 'magic' chepo guitar sometimes.






The guitar was originally black. I got it signed by Gary Moore in 1990, but it rubbed off. In a mad moment I painted it bright green, hated that then painted it white. The tiger pattern is just a stick on Fablon decal. The toothpaste Charvel logo is cut out of an old issue of guitar world and stuck on covering up the Charvette logo. The whammy bar is no longer fitted because the bridge is now blocked. 

I also have a Gibson SG and an Ibanez RG390GX. Believe it or not this cheap and cheerful guitar really does stand up to them both in tone and playability.


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## Nick1 (Jan 7, 2010)

I had a white one just like that about 7-8 years ago. It never stayed in tune. EVER. So one day I just had it with its tuning instability. So I thru it across the room while it was still plugged in and it broke off a piece of its headstock. Then I took it (actually dragged it) upstairs and outside to the backyard and used it as a launch pad for some fire works I had left over from the 4th of July. Then to finish it off I drenched it in gasoline and lit it up. It was cool!


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## Vletrmx (Jan 8, 2010)

Nick1 said:


> I had a white one once. I paid $50.00 for it but it came with a nice ass gibson case that was routed for any strat or lp style. But alas It wouldnt stay in tune so I threw it across the room and busted the headstock off then used the body as a launch pad for fireworks on the 4th of July. Then I dumped gasoline on it and lit it up. So yea if you do what I did with it yeah its worth it!





Nick1 said:


> I had a white one just like that about 7-8 years ago. It never stayed in tune. EVER. So one day I just had it with its tuning instability. So I thru it across the room while it was still plugged in and it broke off a piece of its headstock. Then I took it (actually dragged it) upstairs and outside to the backyard and used it as a launch pad for some fire works I had left over from the 4th of July. Then to finish it off I drenched it in gasoline and lit it up. It was cool!


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## TomParenteau (Jan 8, 2010)

If I remember correctly, those have a short scale length.


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## Nick1 (Jan 13, 2010)

vineroon said:


>



oops!


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## Soubi7string (Jul 19, 2010)

atavism-dream said:


> I have a red 24 fret one of these with a naff LFR trem and... a Bareknuckle Nailbomb
> 
> I threw the nailbomb in it to test it out. I used to bash out a fair amount of Morbid Angel style stuff through it a few years ago. Strangely enough the neck on it is really quite nice, it's a lovely shape and has a pretty flat fretboard. It's probably a pretty sucky wood (weight feels like basswood though) and the LFR is god awful, though I kinda like the guitar


I have the exact same one except in blue.nicelittleguitar and they're made of basswood.snapped the damned trem on it though and it's a nice project guitar. Only problem I have is the damn locking nuts at the top.you lose one of the metal slabs you're fucked,royally.I'm going in today though to begin it's fix up by seeing I'd a takiuchi ts-101 lfr will fit it and see if I can do something about the locking system at the top.I'm thinking of putting a Seymour duncan alternative 8 in it. Overall great project guitar and the single coil pu in the neck position is great IMO for stock


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