What's the scoop on MIM Charvels these days?

Mine originally arrived with fret sprout and bunch of frets that weren’t completely seated. After sorting out those issues, I’m pretty happy with mine.

EF1C789D-82F4-46DD-B53E-453E52770E5F.jpeg
 
la szum said:
View attachment 11141


The one on the left is currently my fave.
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👌 beautiful guitars!!! I dig the one in the right. When I picked up my last guitar, it was a decision between a Charvel and an LTD. I went with the LTD for the stainless steel frets and the scalloped fretboard from the 17th thru the 22nd frets and last but not least, the LTD is made in Korea. I’m a huge fan of Korean made guitars, I’ve yet to come across one that would make me reconsider my love for them. No doubt I would have been pleased with either 🤣
Oh Yeah Reaction GIF
 
That’s my HM. It’s a bit of a Mutt. The neck is from a 91. The body is from an 88. I had the body first along with its original neck. Got em in high school (my dad grabbed it at a pawn shop for $100) but the truss rod was busted. Tried to delaminate the neck from the body but yeah… ripped that thing apart. Local shop ordered me an Allparts neck but they don’t fit. 24 frets for one and the heel width is closer to 2 5/16”. Plus the 25” scale. So it just sat. I parted a couple things out of it (gave a friend the OEM DiMarzio not knowing it was a prototype Super 3 then) but it mostly just sat under my bed.

Around 2010 I got the neck from someone parting his out. So the body has the Kahler Spyder trem but the neck has a proper Floyd Rose locking nut. By 1991 they changed to OFR. I decided to do something ridiculous for the pickups so I went with a DiMarzio Evolution in the bridge, DiMarzio YJM/HS-4 in the middle (with only one coil wired in) and a DiMarzio Air Norton S for the neck. I still have the original American Standard Fender single coils. It had all black plastics but the fender knobs from that guitar had separate pieces for the tops of the knob with the F stamped on them. And mine had fallen off on one or more. It was like that when I got it. And I missed the window to replace those knobs at semi reasonable prices (Fender doesn’t make them and wouldn’t sell the ones for the reissues separate. People online want like $100 a knob). So I decided to switch up the plastics and did green. The single coil size pickups I just replaced the covers. I tried stickers for rhe HB but it fell off easy. So I ordered a green Evolution as I’ve only heard that guitar with that bridge pickup and it sounds awesome. The electronics work well but I should do a new switch (multipole for sure) and wire up the neck and middle pickups appropriately. The bridge pickup is on that little mini toggle and that’s set to do series HB/split/parallel HB.


The Kahler is great. It’s a bit stiff due to four springs but it holds tuning well and I can double bend on it a bit. Having the Floyd lock nut helps. I’ve debated going to a proper Floyd for the bridge but I kinda like the Kahler. It’s unique. And it works well. If it sucked ass I’d yank it. I should take it in for a proper setup/fret dress/etc. But it’s a cool guitar. Has some history to it and is one I restored. So there’s that. Not my favorite neck but not bad. Definitely closer to a Wizard like profile than a typical Strat. 17” radius too.
 
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Stone said:
I can say after the Usual MiM shit QC this is an absolute killer axe
So much so that ill be getting the DK-24 Soon
But I do love my DK-22 They do come with SD pickups but ill be swapping them for Dimarzio's soon
As for the Neck no its not a Ibanez Wizard II or III neck its 12-16 Compound super comfortable to play for me

Charvel neck shapes are slimmer and narrower than traditional guitar necks with comfortable rolled fingerboard edges, optimized for high performance


View attachment 11105
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That’s exactly the one I’m looking at.
 
paisleywookiee said:
That’s exactly the one I’m looking at.
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Andy @Eagle is right though they represent the best value In guitars, price performance, hardware quality they are almost unbeatable
Once I worked out the MiM QC issue its been fantastic
things like neck was not even Fret sprouts came out off the box badly intonated and height was not to my liking
while I do Like the SD Pickups, in my Environment I really require Noiseless so ill be swapping them out the Middle and Neck and while I'm at it the Bridge as well

PS that Trem is simply amazing have to really abuse it for it to go out of Tune (y)

1695476247239.png

Still not sure for the Bridge Option Yet

:confused:
 
Last edited:
Stone said:
Andy @Eagle is right though they represent the best value In guitars, price performance, hardware quality they are almost unbeatable
Once I worked out the MiM QC issue its been fantastic
things like neck was not even Fret sprouts came out off the box badly intonated and height was not to my liking
while I do Like the SD Pickups, in my Environment I really require Noiseless so ill be swapping them out the Middle and Neck and while I'm at it the Bridge as well

PS that Trem is simply amazing have to really abuse it for it to go out of Tune (y)

View attachment 11172
Still not sure for the Bridge Option Yet

:confused:
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Spreadsheet?

Denzel Washington GIF
 
-BOOGIEMAN- said:
👌 beautiful guitars!!! I dig the one in the right. When I picked up my last guitar, it was a decision between a Charvel and an LTD. I went with the LTD for the stainless steel frets and the scalloped fretboard from the 17th thru the 22nd frets and last but not least, the LTD is made in Korea. I’m a huge fan of Korean made guitars, I’ve yet to come across one that would make me reconsider my love for them. No doubt I would have been pleased with either 🤣
Oh Yeah Reaction GIF
Click to expand...

That's super cool, GT! I swear I saw some scalloping on that new guitar of yours on the upper frets. You like it?

I agree that it'd be nice if the Charvels had SS frets. The nice thing about having so many guitars is you can
spread your time around and not really have to worry about fretwear. :rollsafe


:beer
 
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