NGD! Jackson SLSMG (ridiculous score)

[Emperoff]

So I spent the whole afternoon restoring the guitar to its former glory, which included:

- Hardware cleaning to get rid of the corrossion
- Neck conditioning
- Fret polishing
- Polish

The guitar doesn't look the same. It has a different truss rod than my other Jackson so I didn't have the proper tool. It still plays quite well after setting it up, with just a tiny bit of backbow. So after putting it to test, here's some more pictures!

Frets were very grimey due to string oxidation. Not anymore! You can tell the difference here





Pickups are EMG H3s. Funny they're releasing these again without the "HZ" suffix, but they are the same. And not very good... Manufacturers should support their quick-connect cable method though, because it's awesome.





Close-up shot after cleaning the rust in the bridge. Can't fix the damage of the plating but it doesn't look that bad now. Turns out these bridges are dirt cheap should I want to change it anyway.





Now we're talking:











Some findings:

PROS:
- Neck is amazing. Thinner than a regular soloist profile it seems.
- Weight is really great. It's lighter than my other guitars (which is quite easy), but not that much to feel like a toy. The contours are pretty sexy too. Very comfortable overall.
- After polishing, fretjob is pretty darn good. Not USA good, but definetely better than my MIJ SLAT3-7.

CONS:
- Pickups. They're not vintage sounding at all, but they're low output and not very clear as they have a weird thing going on in the midrange. They definetely work for standard tunings, but will probably suck for lower tunings. Nothing alike their active counterparts at all.
- Finish is a fingerprint/scratch magnet!
- Knobs are huge and the volume knob gets in the way a lot.
- Tuners are garbage and I should probably replace the nut as well.

I still don't know if I'll keep it for long since I've been playing only 7-strings for years and it feels alien to me, specially with the TOM bridge (which I try to avoid like the plague). For the money I got it, it deserves to be pimped up a bit though. If I keep it, Gotoh locking tuners, low profile Q-Parts knobs and a nut swap are mandatory. And obvioulsy new pickups, too. I'll take it to my rehearsal place this afternoon for a test drive!

[RGhoarder]

I regret not jumping on one of these years ago. The white one with duncans is one of my white whales.

[Henry Terry]

Congratulations on your purchase. I have a Jackson SLSMG (Satin Black) that I bought new in 2005. It remains my main guitar. The factory installed pickups were EMG HzH3s. After several years, I replaced them with EMG 81s. I love the thinness of the guitar and the very light weight. At various times, I have had three other SLSMGs, and the thing that I noticed was that all four of the guitars that I have owned had different body carves. Therefore, my advice to someone considering buying one is to try out the guitar before buying it, even if you have played one.

I would also like to praise Fender for its customer service. One of the SLSMGs that I owned developed a twisted neck after two years. When I contacted Fender about the problem, Fender had me take the guitar to one of their local techs. After he verified that the neck was twisted, Fender sent me a new SLSMG.