Jackson DK restoration!

 Here's a nice Jackson Dinky guitar model that came in. It had quite a few issues as it was sitting for like 5-6 years in its gig bag... First of all, the electronics were no longer working. The strings were all rusty and the floyd rose tremolo was just sitting on the body. There were a few marks on the body and neck plus a few dents on some frets. Improper storage for a long period of time resulted in fret damage and neck relief issues.
http://www.jacksonguitars.com/en-GR/guitars/

Here are the original specs of this 10 year old Jackson guitar:
Alder body with flamed maple top
Transparent black finish
Rock maple bolt-on neck
Bound rosewood compound-radius fingerboard
Compound-radius bound rosewood fingerboard
Piranha fretboard inlays
EMG HZ pickups with active EMG AB AfterBurner Pickup Booster

Floyd Rose-licensed double-locking tremolo Lifetime warranty

24 frets

25-1/2" scale

1-11/16" nut

Matching headstock with pinstripe

Black hardware

Here's the list of thing that had to be repaired:
-dented frets
-electronics plus a new 9V battery
-hardware maintenance
-new strings and setup


Fretwork:
Once the old strings were removed, I unbolted the metallic nut, lowered the pickups and the guitar was ready for a fret leveling job. The frets were leveled using an 8" two-side oil-stone. The high-grit oil stone is a great tool for leveling and polishing metals but it can be pretty "aggressive" with soft metals.  The frets were finally polished with a high grit Dunlop polishing kit. Be sure to use a fretboard protector metal plate when polishing the frets. Once the frets were polished, the rosewood fretboard has to be cleaned and oiled.

Electronics:
The EMG-Hz are passive pickups so the on-board pots are rated at 500kOhms. The volume control was dead and the tone pot was scratchy. The 3rd pot on the guitar is the EMG booster and it has a built-in pcb(printed circuit board). I replaced the stock Vol. and Tone pots with a new set of B500K Alpha brand ones. I rewired all the electronics based on the EMG booster .pdf schematic:
http://www.emgpickups.com/accessories/guitar-accessories/boost/ab.html

The electronics were tested for continuity, a new 9V battery was placed inside the control cavity to power up the emg booster and all worked fine.

Hardware maintenance:
The hardware had signs of use and rust and I decided to lubricate a few tremolo parts and use some deoxit spray to remove rust and filth. I then stuffed the tremolo springs with some tape to reduce spring noise and vibration. The floyd licenced tremolo was readjusted and it was time for a new set of strings!

Setup:
The guitar was finally set up with a fresh set of coated 0,09" strings in Standard E tuning. The action in now ultra low and the intonation is spot on! The guitar sounds amazing. These EMG-Hz pickups sound clearer and more defined than their active "boosted" brothers. The emg booster push pull pot provides for an extra gain kick if needed. The booster has a bit of hiss when set to max. There's just too much output available though, therefore you won't have to turn the booster all the way up.

The guitar is now usable and more playable than even before! Here are a few pictures of it:

-Thanos

guitardreamer.gr@gmail.com