My Eventful Morning

[gigawatt]

I recently purchased a Jackson RR5, a Japanese made Randy Rhoads, ivory w black pinstripes and gold hardware. Except the pickup rings, so I am going to change them. First let me say that I had some neck and nut issues with this guitar, and just found out I believe it is the first fret causing the problems. I sighted the fretboard down from the headstock and it looked like the 1st fret was higher than the rest. I don't have my tools anymore since the divorce so there's not much I can do about unless I take it somewhere, and they'll probably have to remove the nut (which is lacquered in) unless they can press or hammer the fret in without filing, and I have no idea what they charge, (Chicago Fretworks) and I'll prolly have to take a bus, with a huge Dean case that it came in. BTW, the issue was the D and high E were fretting out as if the nut slots were cut too deep.

Ok enough of that, on to the pictures . I started this last night about 10 pm, but my eyes were getting tired and before I fell asleep on a bed with more than a dozen small screws on it, I packed up everything and went to sleep.

Ok then, it's 4 in the morning, said I was out with the boys, I creep in my bedroom, I slip into bed, I know if I wake her I'll wake up..... Dead! Wammy bar divebomb! Nah, I don't have to worry about her anymore. I am changing the pickup mounting rings on this baby . (As I said b4) Right, the parts:

Well, half of the parts anyway, comparing the old to the new. The new one is about 3/32 wider than the old, hope this doesn't cause problems??? Taking off the old ones was a challenge with this multi tool's mini flathead screwdriver. So glad Duncan uses Philips screws now. The little "flathead" screwdriver slipped of a few times and hit the finish, I'll say this, that is one tough finish, no scratch or nothing .

See the flathead inside the tool? It was a nightmare getting the super long Duncan screws out of the first pickup (neck). I got smart though and held the shaft of the screwdriver with my thumb and middle finger on the next 3 long finely threaded pickup screws. I was concerned with the new ring screws being too big and hard to drive in:

One down one to go! ^Hey not a bad look.^ Ugh, I dread those long screws again, fortunately the ring screws went in without a hitch . The holes were a little off but the screws still went in easily. Thank God there's none of the maple neck thru in that area. K, on to the next:

Not bad, a little blurry...^

Strings back on and ready to be tuned, oh btw, this model 2008 I think, has a TB4 in the bridge and an SH4 in the neck. Two JB's? A little hot for the neck, not distorted though, just a matter of EQing.
Can you tell the difference between the one above and the one below? One I used HDR, can you tell?

And the finished product:

Just kidding ; Oh wait, the part I forgot in the OP, her naughty bits .

Not bad, Alpha pots and a Switchcraft toggle. What the heck it was only three screws...

Now it looks like those guitars they're charging over $2K for! Before I began I loosened the strings and when I got to the high E it broke while loosening it. So it was time to put some Exixirs on it 10-46 (it had 11-48) in Eb, will see what happens to the neck bow. Thankfully I have that multi tool with the truss rod wrench, thank you Ibanez! That other tool you see is a string winder/cutter tool by D'Addario, best guitar tool I've bought in years, smooth winding, great cutter. I kept putting it down looking for the clippers by force of habit!

Ah what the hell I'll show you her backside .

Well I hope these pictures stick, that took a long time to redo, geez. All but the two last ones, I did them in WebP format this time. Geez I wonder if they've all disappeared in my other posts?

 

[Musikron]

Just so you know, the tallest fret on the neck should be the first one. I’d put a real nut on there anyways, that’ll likely fix your issue. I also level and dress the frets on any guitar I see, the only axes without fretwork I could improve were $30k Benedettos.

 

[Rex]

Just so you know, the tallest fret on the neck should be the first one.

I respectfully disagree. With the truss rod dialed flat, all frets should be level.

 

[MSS]

Just so you know, the tallest fret on the neck should be the first one. I’d put a real nut on there anyways, that’ll likely fix your issue. I also level and dress the frets on any guitar I see, the only axes without fretwork I could improve were $30k Benedettos.

You might be thinking of a zero nut fret.

 

[Musikron]

20 years as a luthier with thousands of fret jobs under my belt, but what do I know?
The frets also “fall off”or “fall away” at the end of the fretboard. Level frets are not actually level. A little taller at the top, and a little shorter at the bottom. A factory guitar won’t often have that feature because they are made by factory workers and not master craftsmen, but quality bench made, or professionally upgraded instruments will.
Point being a tall first fret isn’t much of a problem, but a crappy plastic poorly cut nut is.

 

[gigawatt]

but a crappy plastic poorly cut nut is.

The nut on the above guitar is graphite.

Geez why didn't all my pics show up? I'm going to have to fix that, se ya in a couple hours. You know things suck when you have to wait 5 minutes for your own post to open because of all the pictures! and now I'm gonna add more . In the mean time ponder this:

 

[Rex]

20 years as a luthier with thousands of fret jobs under my belt, but what do I know?
The frets also “fall off”or “fall away” at the end of the fretboard. Level frets are not actually level. A little taller at the top, and a little shorter at the bottom. A factory guitar won’t often have that feature because they are made by factory workers and not master craftsmen, but quality bench made, or professionally upgraded instruments will.
Point being a tall first fret isn’t much of a problem, but a crappy plastic poorly cut nut is.

I can't claim 20 years as a luthier, but I've leveled a few over the years, I've crowned about a hundred leveling jobs by a luthier who's been at it for forty years, and I've seen new instruments come through the ship with price tags that ranged up to $12,000. The really high-end ones pretty uniformly come in level within 1.5 thousandths, sometimes with a slight fall-off progressing through the last frets. The only ones I've seen with a high first fret were zero-fret designs.

What would be the advantage of a high first fret?

 

[Musikron]

Advantages? So you can play cleanly up the neck without a note ringing out between the net and fretted note. Same reason the necks have relief, it all works together to make the instrument playable.

 

[Rex]

Advantages? So you can play cleanly up the neck without a note ringing out between the net and fretted note. Same reason the necks have relief, it all works together to make the instrument playable.

I've always found relief to be sufficient to achieve that on a level field of frets. How much taller are you making the first fret?

 

[yeky83]

Advantages? So you can play cleanly up the neck without a note ringing out between the net and fretted note. Same reason the necks have relief, it all works together to make the instrument playable.

Trying to follow along, but still not evident to me why it'd be beneficial to have a higher first fret.

Or do you mean more that there should be a gradual slight shortening of frets from the first to the last?

 

[Musikron]

Trying to follow along, but still not evident to me why it'd be beneficial to have a higher first fret.

Or do you mean more that there should be a gradual slight shortening of frets from the first to the last?

Winner winner chicken dinner! I’ve been sick so maybe I didn’t communicate too well. But that would leave the first fret as the tallest wouldn’t it. Was just trying to reassure the guy not start a deep debate.

 

[Rex]

Winner winner chicken dinner! I’ve been sick so maybe I didn’t communicate too well. But that would leave the first fret as the tallest wouldn’t it. Was just trying to reassure the guy not start a deep debate.

Wouldn't that result in...level frets?

With a different feel on one end than the other, because the frets would be taller on one end..

 

[Sonofiam]

Wouldn't that result in...level frets?

With a different feel on one end than the other, because the frets would be taller on one end..

Echoing your sentiment, it would seem the same as shimming a neck with the frets levelled to the same height. In the end I suppose it all works out to the same result though. To each their own method.

I do create a fall off from about the 14th fret on up, definitely helps achieve the action I prefer.

 

[yeky83]

I do create a fall off from about the 14th fret on up, definitely helps achieve the action I prefer.

I was also going to mention this. This makes sense to me, as ~14th fret is where the neck joins the body, and there's no relief available from the truss rod. In my mind a bit more fret shaving helps starting at ~14 frets.

 

[Rex]

I was also going to mention this. This makes sense to me, as ~14th fret is where the neck joins the body, and there's no relief available from the truss rod. In my mind a bit more fret shaving helps starting at ~14 frets.

It helps with bending, too. Especially on necks with a tighter radius. Because of the radius, the top strings get bent onto a portion of the neck that’s higher, while the saddle remains remains low. With a tight radius, you can fret out if there’s not a little falloff. The old-school method of addressing this is to raise the action, but that’s not ideal.

 

[gigawatt]

Always glad to see one of my posts induce conversation . Anyway, what's the old saying? "It ain't true without pictures (or video). Here's a little number I built myself, I've built several guitars but this is the only one left, the others were bought by a collector and re-sold . I plan on contacting him to see if he has any pictures, but it was years ago.

Here we go again, God I wish there was an easier way to upload pictures...

That is how it looked from 1999 to 2014, I already had several guitars in cherry sunburst so I left this one yellow.
Then, in 2014, I got ambitious and did this:

Well I just noticed that my pics above disappeared again, so off to the web I go to look for some free storage so I have a URL to POST PICTURES HERE!

 

[Sonofiam]

Well I just noticed that my pics above disappeared again, so off to the web I go to look for some free storage so I have a URL to POST PICTURES HERE!

I did notice most the photos in your original post have disappeared that were there before. I'm no computer whiz but maybe check the permissions or file sharing settings on the problem photos? Doesn't make sense though that only some are affected, unless they're from different sources?.

I haven't run into any issues that I can recall posting photos straight from my computer to this forum. I do need to use an online photo host like Imgbb.com or Google photos to link a URL on a couple of other forums but not here.

Here's a some free image hosting options if you want to check them out:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-3486329

 

[gigawatt]

K, lets try this again, with a little help from Google: Edit 4: I can't remember what I did to make this stick. EDIT 5: OH WAIT, NOW I REMEMBER! Go into the webpage "ezgif.com" click webp, click jpg to webp, click "choose file" then select a file from your computer, click "Upload!" wait 5 min for it to load , once it's loaded click "convert to webp" then click on that photo and click "save web address" then click the tab above that says "webp to jpg" paste into "Or paste image url" click "Upload!" change "JPG image quality factor" from 85% to 100%, click "Convert to JPG!" click on that photo 2 fingers on Mac, click "copy image address" click on the 'forum" tab, click the "image" tab, paste the address into the little window, click "insert" then you're done, see below. Should be a freshly sanded guitar lying vertically on a sandy colored carpet.

Ok still there after about 20 minutes, lets try another from Google Photos: no no no google photos work

Aww Jesus, it shrunk my photos. Well, we'll see if it lasts this time Edit 4: nope. I cropped it though in Google Photo so now it'll probably stick, but untouched photos, lets find out below:

Lets hope there's not an Edit 5.

Edit: Great, it's gone again, but it shows up here in edit. What gives?
Edit 2: Ok tried converting jpeg to webp; nada, Google Photos; disappeared after 5 minutes, this time; I went with jpg to webp, then webp to jpeg, copied address, opened "Image" and pasted address URL, clicked insert, and here we are. Let's see how long this one lasts.
Edit 3: Trying again, explanation above.
Edit 4! Dammit! son of a... @#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@!
Edit 5: Success, well with a compromise, a LOT of trouble! See above.

 

[gigawatt]

I did notice most the photos in your original post have disappeared that were there before. I'm no computer whiz but maybe check the permissions or file sharing settings on the problem photos? Doesn't make sense though that only some are affected, unless they're from different sources?.

I haven't run into any issues that I can recall posting photos straight from my computer to this forum. I do need to use an online photo host like Imgbb.com or Google photos to link a URL on a couple of other forums but not here.

Here's a some free image hosting options if you want to check them out:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-3486329

Hey thanks, is there a way I can upload pictures directly from my hard drive? or do I have to use an internet service like Imgbb or Google photos like I just did in my last picture of the yellow V? It'd be so much easier to upload from my hard drive.

@Rex could use your help^ trying to upload pictures several different ways but only a couple have stuck, all the others disappeared. Any thoughts? Thanks buddy

 

[gigawatt]

Doesn't make sense though that only some are affected, unless they're from different sources?.

They are all from the same "Rhoads RR5" album in iPhoto.