Jeff R

I bought a EVH Frankie Relic from a private Reverb seller on a Saturday in January. The buyer created a shipping ticket immediately (allegedly) and plugged in the tracking number immediately so his payment would clear. All cool, probably needed payment to cover out-of-pocket shipping, no problem, I get it. After two full business days with the shipper's website reporting they still hadn't received the package, I showed seller a screen save and asked when he planned to ship. He said the next day and I caught him in a fib about the tracking number in the process, but I again let it slide because some people simply can't communicate effectively. Third business day, however, no progress. And close of fourth business day, no progress, which violates Reverb's rules. I can't recall if I initially called the toll-free or inquired via e-mail or AI, but I contacted Reverb directly and provided them a gallery of screen saves of the transaction, saves of me and the seller's messages, saves of Reverb's applicable rules and how seller violated them. I demanded Reverb issue an immediate refund or I'd get my credit card company involved too. Reverb refunded my card entirely in less than 24 hours. The seller's site also disappeared immediately, I assume because they pulled it down. My two cents is be the squeaky wheel, hit every contact in the above list, and proactively provide what they need to make an immediate ruling in your favor when you get a human. You do all that, knowing that Reverb and eBay historically side with buyers over sellers in hazier disputes, you'll be made whole.

FMIC (Charvel) uses JBs in the bridge position of their production MIA and MIM Jakes. Jake, however, prefers a custom-wound 12-pole-screw humbucker, loosely based on the original Duncan Holdsworth models he used throughout his Ozzy and Badlands days 30+ years ago. It is a much different pickup from both the current JB or the current "Metal Fatigue" Holdsworth variant. The pickguard below ships to him next week. It has Jake's preferred bridge pickup plus some experimental "robintrowery" S-style pickups to see how he likes them compared to his longtime go-to Dimarzio SDS-1s. The new singles are A5 and overwound to keep up with the bridge pickup output-wise. Neck is around 9.5k, middle around 9.2k and RWRP. Bridge + middle auto-coil-splits the bridge H. The MV is a 500K to benefit the bridge H, but there are 470K resistors between the N and M pickups so they "see" a 250K pot.

Copy and paste from my SM feeds ... ------------------------------- Eleventh hour prep for Carondelet's presence at this coming weekend's annual Amigo Nashville guitar show, one of the biggest and best in America. Throwing together demo guitars today for some of our newest models plus a few prototypes. In the case of the latter, my favorite of the new demo axes ... a twisted tribute to both Jake's original "whitey" S style AND when it was a stock three-tone burst 1974 Fender Strat prior to being "Charvelized" in the early 1980s! The demo's bridge pickup is a "Holdsworth'ed" Carondelet Secret Sauce variant exactly like Jake currently uses in his main guitar. Even cooler, the overwound yet still "robintrowery" single coils are one-offs just for Jake that he'll receive after the show. Yep, the pickups destined for the man himself, Amigo Nashville patrons will get to test drive! Amigo Nashville starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 21-22, at the AgExpo Center in Franklin, about 20 minutes south of Music City USA. Scroll the gallery to see the show flyer with all attendee details. Carondelet will have a double booth filled with our wares and many of our Nashville market artists. Come make noise with us!

Owned two Duotones, and I have a repair shop client whose two VXTs I've serviced for years. Both are great, neither are duds by any stretch. The biggest difference I've noted is because the Duotone has an actual wooden acoustic bridge plus sound holes in the spruce top, it sounds and feels more acoustic, warm and woody, both unplugged and amplified to my ears and ribcage. So if you want the more convincing "duo tone" guitar, for both stage AND studio applications, the Hamer is the better choice IMO.

Depends on the country and the nature of the goods. In December, I ordered $3500 in bulk bar magnets I use in some of my humbuckers from one of China's most popular foundries among US pickup makers. Due to country of origin and the nature of the items (keywords being "permanent magnets," "rare earth"), I owed 47.1 percent of the value in tariffs and import stuff. After FedEx jumped in with their extra fee for the clearance paperwork, I paid $1715 to clear customs. Chris, you need to ask seller to itemize that quote. Current baseline tariff from Japan is 15 percent and while I am not an expert, guitars don't appear to be subject to exception categories that would definitely inflate duties. Granted, duty is only one of a few applicable fees, but a line item assessment may reveal they are trying to eat you alive on not only shipping (typically $150-300 from Japan to USA) but item packing, packing materials, parcel handling. etc.

If you're bugged by the look of empty holes, source 5-40 fillister head screws made from a non-magnetic or very weak magnetic material. Aluminum, brass, titanium and marine Grade 316 stainless steel immediately come to mind.

Jake is doing great, recovered nicely from the shooting. He joked that it was the catalyst to him finally quitting cigarettes, between being bedridden in a smoke-free facility and "oh yeah, that hole in my lung" lol. He's still battling arthritis but a doctor he respects greatly is recommending a surgery on his right hand/arm that may give him some relief and increase range of motion where he needs it most. Despite the joint pain, however, he's still quite nimble on the fretboard. I got to listen to him revisit the intro lick to "Never" (last track of Ultimate Sin album, and one of my favorite Ozzy songs of all time) with "whitey" driving a cranked Friedman JEL head as I overhauled his Epiphone Joe Pass jazz box's guts. The JP is actually his daily go-to practice and writing tool, it hangs on a hook in his den, and it sounds incredible acoustically. But he said it has suffered since day one from anemic stock electronics. A set of our new Carondelet OTB Ultimates and a custom harness I fabbed with grade-A pots and caps and wire and stuff made a night and day difference. His words.

Change of plans, I can't make it to Florida this coming weekend, too much business busyness (we had a very productive NAMM) and even the Gulf Coast highways forecast is icy and bleak this coming weekend. We had to delay our return from California as lower Texas thawed out, and then race across Texas via I-10 in one day to beat the next ice forecast. Not fun. We also had a great artist relations stop in Las Vegas ... that's a Carondelet "Secret Sauce" variant in his main "whitey," recently installed by the Charvel custom shop.

Charlie Starr has a '60 Concert I got to spend some up-close time with at one of his soundchecks. It sounds like what I envision Heaven looks like.

Yes, it's entirely possible there's another "MJ" in the Duncan Custom Shop. Then again, here's a pickup repair I received last month, in which the sender told me the pickup originated from his inquiry to "the" MJ. As in a direct personal inquiry his longtime artist relationship allows. Those labels were both penned in 2024, within two months of each other. I'm no handwriting expert, but I don't think one is needed. I have no doubt your pickup or anything else from DCS, regardless of who or what is winding, is a nice pickup. The ingenuity of the Tanac is it can duplicate not only every hard data spec and data parameter via programming, it can learn and then mimic the human interaction ... including the inconsistency and imperfection components that makes hand-wound custom pickups what they are. That's exactly why SD and the prestigious folks I cited above use them and why I want one too!

I've hesitated to "say" anything because I didn't want to be seen as a prick. Plus I have been good friends with both MJ and Seymour for many, many years. So I'll just share what immediately stood out to me in MJ's office ... and a relevant link. https://www.tanac.co.uk/english_ax3.html Okay, I'll opine ... for fairness, transparency and perspective, Tanac is an industry standard in musical instrument manufacturing's coil winding world. It is Japan tech and workmanship at its absolute finest. Off the top of my head, Grover Jackson, Dave Friedman, and John Suhr also employ the AX3 in their pickup operations. Tanac also makes much bigger commercial winders for much bigger musical instrument companies that wind their own pickups. I'll stop there. Duncan's massive number of OEM accounts alone - where bulk quantity product consistency, production speed, bulletproof reliability/QC, and prerequisite CPU discounts are critical - absolutely justifies this type of tech-driven automated approach. Demand for MJ-specific Duncan product is HUGE too, and there is only so much hand-wound high quality output one human can deliver. Having said that, I TOO have been shopping AX-3(s) for my shop, to ensure I can deliver every asset and promise I offer a few OEMs I'm pursuing in 2026. Takeaway: That sample DCS box RobB posted says "custom shop" pickups from a "master craftsman." Now you know why it doesn't say anything about who - or more accurately, what - actually wound the pickup.

Our most recent incarnate ... "PK"-90s ... dual A5s and strategically overwound for Carondelet artist Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity, Down). We put a dogear version in his '59RI Murphy Lab double cut Junior too. Here's Pepper and said Murphy Lab ... followed by PJK's MVP, the "Breadwinner," a mid 90s and VERY custom ESP double thick SG clone, with the neck PK-90 and a bridge H prototype he and I are working on together.

You just need to decide upon fret type and fret size. If you lose the nibs, you can then refret with whatever fret size you prefer. But if you keep the nibs, you are forced to select the fret crown size to match the nibs, meaning you are stuck with OEM spec wire dimensions. Or even worse, you have to match new frets to what's left of the nibs ... because nibs erode with play time just like those old frets did, and some nibs WILL be more eroded than others. So the nibbed refret may entail rebuilding worn nibs by applying a putty paste made by mixing binding scrap with acetone, and then reshape the new puttypasted nibs to match the new frets. And of course that's a lot of extra $$$ on top of the normal bound board refret. More to consider if you want to keep (and/or rebuild) nibs as part of a refret: * If the tech cut the frets too short, gap(s) between the new fret and the nibs will catch and pinch high E strings. I had a nibbed, bound and crowned Hamer Standard whose factory fret job would occasionally catch and pinch high Es. Not fun when it happens, even less fun to play around the issue. It can be fixed by filling the gaps with clear epoxy, but pro-filled yet visible gap may drive some of y'all's OCD crazy - it would mine haha. * If the tech cuts the frets a smidge too long, to ensure no gaps, the fret can (and will, in dry humidity) push the nibs outward ... and ultimately crack the binding at the contact point and/or separate the binding from the binding channel. I've seen what was initially a "perfect" old-nibs-preserved refret develop binding cracks the first time the refretted guitar was exposed to home heater-induced low humidity. Think "fret sprout," except the fret's only option is to grind into the nibs instead of over the fretboard edge. If you haven't deduced, I strongly advise saving the nibs.

Since it's relevant to the topic and won't be deemed solely as blatant and shameless self-promotion ... I spent much of 2025 developing these with close friend and Carondelet artist Owen Barry. Google him and YouTube him if you haven't heard of him. Carondelet OTB Ultimates should be available beginning in February via our website; globally prestigious vintage dealers in Nashville, Hollywood and the UK who I will list when they have OTBs available to ship; and as OEM for a short list of very high quality, limited quantity builders who I cannot wait to reveal in due time :). Be sure to check out this video on a desktop, DAW monitors, or a nice television, something with higher fidelity speakers than an iPhone or an Android. Pricing TBA but I can assure you they will not a grand a set. More like among, if not "the," most affordable in their target market.

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