My never-ending Jem project

bammbamm · #1 07-24-2002, 04:01 PM

Welp, after posting my Ibanez guitar collection, I had a few emails and PM's telling me about the body on my project jem looking "off" which I had noticed, but was resigned to the fact that I would not get satisfaction from Harper's and just decided to live with it. That is, until Eddie Kolesar asked me if I'd be interested in having him fix the upper horn and cavity routes.
WOULD I ?!?! DUH YES !

So I packed her up and shipped her out to EKG Guitars and am anxiously awaiting to see what he can do with it.
She started life out as a 555 project that needed a body repair and has turned into one of the most lengthy projects I have undertaken at this point. Jeremy (LGM) re-inlayed my neck with a couple mods and a refret which is on his site and looks amazing !
Once I git the body remade, 1st off I noticed the trem route was too narrow, (I got the new body made by Harpers which I'm sure everyone has heard how much of a nightmare that was) and then the electronics cavity was not routed correctly, as well as the pickup cavities were too shallow and narrow to accomodate any pickups made today. At any rate, I'm actually feeling like there may be light at the end of this tunnel for once. I'll be VERY happy once this project finally comes to fruition and is a playable instrument. Eddie has me all excited, and once I get the 1st pics of his progress, I'll post my b4 pics of the cavities etc...

Bamm

Lonely Raven · #2 07-24-2002, 05:37 PM

Hehe, I thought I was the only dude who said "Welp".

Anywho, good luck on the project! everything I've seen and read about
EKG just looks like Eddie rocks all!

Gabe Nickelson · #3 07-24-2002, 06:12 PM

Hey Bamm,

Same situation here. I'm sending my guitar body off to Eddie to 'finish' the work I paid Harper to do and he didn't. Pickup cavity all wrong, no pickups will fit - I even sent him the pickup with my guitar and he still couldn't get it right! Sometimes I feel like burning the guitar body and sending the ashes to Jon after I pissed on them. For extra flavor, maybe I'll sh!t, blend up the sh!t in my blender, add my dogs sh!t which has been baking the hot Texas sun for 2 days, make my dog eat so much dog food that he pukes it up, taking that puke and add it to the blender too, gut 2 fish and add the guts to the blender (including head w/eyeballs), blend for 30 minutes, then pour the liquid contents on the ashes for good luck! After sitting in a 140 degree UPS truck for 3 days, that will be nice and ripe when he opens it!

But enough about bashing Jon... good luck with the project! I hope to have mine complete by end of August! 3 years in the making! One of those years WASTED waiting for a guitar body that was FAR from what I ordered!

Gabe

littlegreenman · #4 07-24-2002, 08:18 PM

LOL, bitter Gabe? I would be LOL

yeah, Eddie Rocks!!!!!

BrianH · #5 07-24-2002, 09:01 PM

Remind me to never get on Gabe's bad side

foureyezonme · #6 07-25-2002, 06:00 AM

That's the biggest load of sh!t I've ever heard of, Gabe.

bammbamm · #7 07-25-2002, 09:48 AM

Not to mention, I think Gabe keeps a .50 Cal Desert Eagle around the house which really dwarfs my .40 cal Glock... but I DO get more shots than he does...

I dunno if I'd put that much effort into J.H. ever again... F*&^ Him !
I'm gonna post pics once I get some bearing on how things are progressing.

I'm really jazzed about Eddie doin this !
Bamm

PerKr · #8 07-30-2002, 02:13 PM

this project of yours sound pretty interesting... do you have a full story and/or pics somewhere for us to read/see?

bammbamm · #9 07-31-2002, 11:38 AM

I bought a 555 that was damaged on ebay for around 175 bux.
I knew it was damaged and I figured that I could repair it one way or another and I figured it would be an easy way to get into a Jem cheaply.
So after getting it, I realized how bad the damage was. The trem cavity where the posts insert was completely cracked and unable to be repaired, so I opted to have a new body built by Harper's guitars. Bad Idea I know after the fact. Anyway, after much hassle and time, I got my body and white pearloid pickgaurd from him. at this point, I had enough time to come up with another idea for the guitar, and that would be to make it a more attractive neck by having the vine completed and remove the inlay at the 24th fret that said Steve Vai and replace it with one that read "Olympia" which is my Wife's name. At the time, I had NOONE that could or would do the inlay for me at any price. Finally, I found someone that would take on the project for me.
Jeremy of LGM Guitars said he would do the job for me since he was just getting his new business going doing guitar mods and repair. So, off the neck went to Canada for a couple weeks. I got the neck back and was anxious to install it on the new body, but of course nothing on the body was right... figures... So here we are today. waiting... again...

During the interim, however, I decided to try out the neck and at least get it mostly set up for when I got the body back. so I bought GKekm's RG520QS body which he had for sale in the ad section and got her rolling. I don't mean for this ti turn into an endorsement plug, but Jeremy did a killer job on the neck and it plays so nicely ! I have pics that I will post of the body before I sent it out to Eddie, I just haven't resized them to be viewable here yet. http://www.geocities.com/itsbam2/dscn0374.jpg that is the neck on the 520 at this point. you'll hafta cut and paste the link most likely.

Anyway, thats it up to now... more to come later.
Bamm

**jemsite** · #10 07-31-2002, 11:42 AM

good to hear you turned a lemon into lemonade

i see "page not available" on the JPGs though

... glen

WildWayz · #11 07-31-2002, 11:53 AM

Glen - copy and paste the url of the picture into a new browser - it's GeoCities link protection.

James

**jemsite** · #12 07-31-2002, 11:56 AM

gotcha....

VERY NICE

**jono** · #13 07-31-2002, 12:32 PM

That's very cool

A real testament to LGM's work. It took me a while to figure out why it didn't look right for a 7VWH neck, then it dawned that this was the said 555 neck

.

I think the white vine goes great with the blue 520 body

Reaper · #14 07-31-2002, 01:00 PM

wow, ok, so who exactly is this "Harper" person?

**jemsite** · #15 07-31-2002, 01:02 PM

LOL. you're better off not knowing at this point. there is a pinned topic in teh BUYER/RESELLER forum area... glen