Let's get down to the details.
This project has started off as your basic Jackson JS32 DKA Dinky body. Poplar construction, archtop, Floyd Rose-equipped, snow white finish, and made in China - very common budget model offered by Jackson in their current lineup. Don't let that fool you, however. Overall, Jackson's current JS series is pretty solid for their price point, and given their current prices ($399 MSRP, $299 in most major retailers), they can make for some great projects for just a little bit of cash. In this case, the JS32 Dinky body I have now was given to me. It's in excellent shape with no damage, blemishes or cracks. Perfect project starter!
To compliment this project, I have a cache of pickups that I have collected over the years. Nothing too fancy or extreme - mostly stock pickups out of various guitars. Amongst these pickups is a set of Washburn Dime 621/623 humbuckers. These pickups were acquired through a trade, and I have yet to try them out. This project seems like a great place to give them a go.
Next up - the bridge and hardware. I will be installing a shiny, fancy and rare Floyd Rose 1000 series tremolo in a burnt chrome finish. This finish was a limited run, and I happen to get lucky through an eBay score with this one. The locking nut, and post inserts are also colored in the same fashion. It looks pretty damn cool in person, and there will obviously be more pics of it (and the rest of the guitar) as this project progresses.
The guitar will also be fully shielded (of course), and wired up with a single 500k volume pot and a 3-way switch. No tone pot, as per my usual preference. These are also open to interpretation in the future, if I choose to change the pickups. Ultimately, the DiMarzio PAF Pro is at the top of my list, but I'll let some other options marinate for a while, as the guitar comes along.
Now, I present the biggest challenge of this project - the neck.
A simple mockup of the guitar with the bridge, pickups, knobs and neck in place.
The neck was also acquired off of eBay. It's an unfinished maple fretboard Jackson copy neck, from China. This neck was the only one that fit my specific criteria. 1) maple fretboard with black sharkfins; 2) 24-fret, 25.5 scale, like most Dinky models; and 3) slotted for a locking nut. I have come to love the aesthetic of the maple/black fin look on Jackson guitars, so I wanted to keep that train going and put together a parts guitar with this in mind. After I bought my DK2M, I fell in love with Jackson's maple board necks. Obviously, this neck isn't a real Jackson neck, but finding an actual DK2M neck (or even a DKA-M neck) is almost impossible. This was the next best option. Not to mention, it was the last one of this style available, and also discounted. Naturally, I jumped on it.
This neck will take a decent amount of work to make it satisfactory, and this blog entry will outline a few major points of installing a new, aftermarket neck onto a guitar. There will be more steps to this in future entries, but this is a good start.
Behold, the unfinished maple neck.
The new neck, compared to the seasoned neck on my DK2M. Aside from the finish, there are other big differences. Compare the headstock shapes and angles, and you can spot a Jackson clone pretty easily.
First challenge - the heel. Since this is a new, replacement aftermarket neck, the heel was cut to leave an excess amount of wood at the builder's disposal. This was intentional, because this allows you to carve, sand and shape the neck heel to whatever you are putting it on. This also gives you room to get the neck into the proper intonation range, in accordance to the guitar. The end of the fretboard is also made the same way, and can easily be shaved down in the event of interference with the neck pickup ring. Also, if you notice, the heel also has zero holes drilled. Again, this is obviously preferred, so you can match up the bolt pattern to your guitar body.
A simple mockup can show us what needs to happen in order for this to work.
Big ol' heel on there, ready for lots of shaping.
You can clearly see the amount of shaping needed.
Now here is the important part to investigate when determining how much to shape - intonation! It's definitely not just a matter of shaping the heel and slapping it on there. There is a nominal range you want the neck to sit in, that will allow proper intonation adjustment in both directions (flat or sharp). To determine this, a little bit of measuring is required.
We already know this neck is 25.5" scale, but it's always best to double check, especially on a cheaper neck like this one. Scale length is determined by the measurement from the nut to the 12th fret, which is 12.75". Then it's doubled, and you have the scale of the neck - 25.5". With that said, the measurement from the saddles to the 12th fret will also be the same - 12.75". This is necessary to know, to determine where the neck needs to fit properly.
Shot of checking proper saddle/neck relation measurements.
Here's the same shot, with markers showing you where to look.
As you can see, I intentionally moved the D string saddle until it was flush with the front edge of the bridge's baseplate (blue arrow). Essentially this is the most you can adjust a saddle before it becomes an interference problem with the body. Needless to say, that's not ideal.
The red arrow indicates the"breaking point" of the string on the saddle - where the string breaks contact with the saddle, and the actual tonal vibrations start. The locking nut is the other breaking point - these two points are where the measurements truly matter.
The yellow line indicates where the breaking point lines up against the measuring tape, which is placed on the 12th fret. As you can see, the breaking point is reaching 12.875". With the saddle already all the way forward, and the breaking point not even within reach of the magical 12.75" spot. This tells me that there is quite a bit of material to shave away at the heel.
You want the breaking point of the saddles to reach 12.75", with the saddles in a centered position on the base plate. This will give you plenty of room to adjust flat or sharp, when it comes time to string and set it up. Too much in one direction can greatly inhibit the ability to properly intonate in said direction, so this is an important step of this process.
Now, moving on to inspecting other aspects of the neck.
Sitting the locking nut on the neck revealed to us that there is plenty of material there to shave off, as well.
Locking nut mock-up.
Measuring the low E string slot, I showed about 4mm of height from the fretboard to the slot (and subsequently, around 3mm on the first fret. That's quite a bit of action! We will definitely need to shave down the slot a little bit, to get it sitting pretty with some nice, lower action.
If you look closely, you can also see the locking nut slot wasn't cut evenly. There's a slight hump in there. Regardless, it will be shaved down so it's not a big deal.
I also inspected the fretboard radius to see what we're dealing with. From the bottom to the top of the neck, I measured 12". Not the same as Jackson's 12-16" compound radius, obviously, but it's ok. This is merely a measurement taken; I don't plan on making changes to the radius.
And then there's other small things to deal with, like sharp fret edges, and a mounting gap. This neck's width is slightly smaller than the body, so there's a gap that I will have to deal with. Sharp fret edges are an easy fix, and the gap can be taken care of with a shim.
So basically - this neck serves as a blank canvas. It's unfinished, meaning I can modify anything else on it that I want, if I wanted to. Now would be a great time to reshape the back of the neck, or maybe the headstock. I don't plan on doing those things (maybe), but the neck is in the perfect state to do so.
That concludes the first writeup of the new Frankendinky project! Of course, there will be more posts as the project continues, and you will get to read all about it here. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I also hope this gives you some deeper insight into the world of guitar modding and building. If you learned anything today from this blog entry, then I have completed my mission. Thanks for reading!
- Kyle
https://www.facebook.com/caldwellguitarworks/
