Okay you asked
So in late May of 2001 I bought my Jem777VBK off of Ebay for $850.00 +shipping, and maybe a week if that afterward I bought my JS700. Now for some reason I decided I was going to play my JS700 so I pretty much sidelined my VBK for about a month. Plus I was busy taking the VBK apart and cleaning every inch when I had time(Not that I had alot of time to play in the first place).
Finally my VBK is in working order again, and I take it to band practice. Well as soon as I start playing I'm like "What the!!" my guitar sounds like crap, and it's buzzing bad on 2nd,3rd, and 4th fret on the Low E G B strings, plus the rest of the band is staring at me so I put the VBK aside until I have time to look at it. So I try adjusting the string height. No luck still buzzing, and throughout this time I never really pay any attention to the neck itself(don't ask me why I never noticed it sooner since it was plain as day!) So finally one day I'm working on it, and low and behold I notice my neck is twisted!!
So now I'm really really upset, but before I really lose my temper I want to doublecheck cause I know it's possible for people to think there neck is twisted when in fact it's not, but no mistake about it this baby is twisted! I remember talking to Rich, and he suggested I contact the original seller and try to get a refund, or get a rebate on the price. No luck! All of a sudden the seller decided he has a 48 hour return policy after I recieved the item. So I'm thinking "okay nice of you to let me know about this after the auction".
So now I'm stuck with basically a ruined VBK. I tried all kinds of things. Tried some of the Japanes shops around here to get them to call Ibanez, and find out if they have any VBK necks around. Well for some reason no one ever got pro active in the whole ordeal so I gave up on that option. Had a couple techs try and make some adjustments on it, but it would just go back to the way it was. Plus I was told by more than one person it was unfixable and that it would always twist back again. So I'm hopeless at this point! The guitar just sat in it's case(did I mention the case he sold it to me in was a complete piece of junk) collecting dust. Who knows for how long, but at least I took care of it unlike the previous owner. I'm still convinced the reason it twisted was because it had been left in hot wharehouse somewhere for who knows how long(the material on the inside of the case was all faded and dirty, and so was the Jem itself(not faded but very dirty!) plus there was a serial number of some kind on the side of the case.
So things do get better......Alot better!! The neck was sent to Brian for a headstock refinish and he resanded my mauled pickguard which was really cool! (did a great job on the pickguard, and I'm still waiting on the neck to come back). Then from there it went to Jeremy to work on the twist, and sand down the back of the neck. Jeremy worked hard on the neck, and a couple times there we were both convinced it was a lost cause, but then he spoke to a couple master luthiers(correct me if I'm wrong) gave him some advice, and I'm very happy to say that he was able to fix the twist!!!! Both were really great to work with, and very profeesional. So now I'm just waiting on the neck to get here, and words cannot explain how happy I am!!! I've grown very attatched to this Jem cause of all the trouble I've gone thru, and I think I'm going to have to buy some kind of atmoshere controlling device to put in the case! Plus I'm really nervous about taking it in really hot or cold weather! I'm going to Baby this one big time! Also It's got a name now......"lil' devil"
try not cry now I know it hard *LOL*
