Upgraded JS32-t Rhoads
4 months ago, I posted my upgrade plan for this guitar. Well, here it is now, fully loaded with a pair of 81/85, a TUSQ XL nut and locking tuners.
The pickup installation was pretty straightforward, other than a couple wire extensions and fighting the cavity space to make everything fit with the battery haha. I went with a volume pot for each pickup and no tone pot route.
I used Harley Benton's locking tuners, which sucked to be honest, the quality and feel are inconsistent and the packaging is laughable, they literally came in a plastic bag. I'm especially disappointed because I own a Harley Benton Amarok and I'm super satisfied with it, and I've also used some similarly priced Guyker locking tuners before for a different project, which were MUCH better in terms of quality and packaging.
The TUSQ XL nut installation was by far the most problematic, it turned out way too short, so I had to DIY a shim from an old credit card, and the high strings slots were not very deep, causing the strings to easily snap out of them when not tuned to proper tension because of the Jackson headstock angle. I tried to file the slots deeper but I didn't have proper tools, so I just sanded the whole nut from the bottom instead.
Finally, I had to level a couple bad frets around the 20s, and since I didn't have a proper spot leveling tool, I just used a short sanding beam to level the fretboard's fallaway, which solved the initial issue but kind of created another :D so for now I'm compensating with some neck relief and a bit of a low to medium action, still shreddable though. I will eventually have to level the entire fretboard properly.
That's about everything, overall, I'm very happy with how it turned out. By the time I decide to throw more cash on it, I will upgrade the bridge and make it a black V tailpiece out of a pickguard blank.