Jake E Lee's white hardtail "Charvel" is a Fender

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War_in_D

War_in_D

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Was checking out some YT vids tonight, and stumbled across this vid from '84. I had known that Jake's Charvel was a three bolt Fender body, but this video shows it pretty plainly. You can see it around the 35-ish second mark in the vid.. or screen shot below.



Jake E Lee Charvel is a Fender.JPG
 
This is well known around these parts. He had a buddy that worked at Charvel who shaved the neck down for him and added a Charvel logo to the headstock. May have even repainted it and did the slanted single coils, of course. It was always a hardtail as Jake says that it sounded the best out of the guitars he was trying the day he picked that one out.
 
Holy shit :shocked:

Not too well versed in the Ozzy / Randy / Jake / Zak history, but that clip is f'n amazing......
Much respect to Mr J.E.L :rawk:

ps.: One of my fav things about this place is that you guys post clips that I would never have seen otherwise....

Carry on :rock:
 
Makes me really happy that my partscaster has a fender body. Top mounted strat bodies have the best sound imo. :D
 
They shortened the neck? That would explain some of those crazy stretches…
 
Those stretches were just for show :confused:

of course they were. Still easier with a shorter scale. But to be honest, I can't see how that should have been done to an existing neck. The truss seems to be the original. So how would it have been done?
 
of course they were. Still easier with a shorter scale. But to be honest, I can't see how that should have been done to an existing neck. The truss seems to be the original. So how would it have been done?
Good point. Jake's Charvels are both standard fender 25.5 scales so that begs the question why would he go back to longer scale?
 
One of the other things that was really notable about it being a hardtail, and Jake's mentioned this before, is how it was a factor shaping his playing style not using a trem during an era where everyone was shifting to Floyd's ala EVH. Obviously he came up with some innovative ways to still get some "trem like" sounds, but he always inspired me because I was always lukewarm on using the Floyd back then myself. I was like "if Jake can get away with it, so can I!"

He's also said when Charvel approached him to borrow the guitar to base the signature model on, he was like "it doesn't actually play that well", and he was just used to using it back in the day but it had some issues (I think the modifications were not favorable to playability).
 
not going to affect day to day operations here.
That guitar body never looked like any Charvels at that time period to me.
And he did whole step "bar dives" by bending the neck & body.
 
They shortened the neck? That would explain some of those crazy stretches…

They didn't shorten the neck, that's not even possible without a whole new neck. The original white Fender/Charvel along with all the other Charvels from the 80s were 25.5" scale. Jake didn't switch to 24.75" 'til he moved to ESP. As for the frets they were 6100 jumbo from 1-12 and 6105 from 13-22, not "vintage" frets as that articles states.
 
They didn't shorten the neck, that's not even possible without a whole new neck. The original white Fender/Charvel along with all the other Charvels from the 80s were 25.5" scale. Jake didn't switch to 24.75" 'til he moved to ESP. As for the frets they were 6100 jumbo from 1-12 and 6105 from 13-22, not "vintage" frets as that articles states.
My Jake inspired hardtail clones are still kicking butt Mike
 
This is well known around these parts. He had a buddy that worked at Charvel who shaved the neck down for him and added a Charvel logo to the headstock. May have even repainted it and did the slanted single coils, of course. It was always a hardtail as Jake says that it sounded the best out of the guitars he was trying the day he picked that one out.
His buddy repainted it also. It was a sunburst Fender Strat that got "Charvelized" as a birthday present for Jake. I read that Jake felt odd playing a sunburst Fender Strat at the time everyone esle started playing Charvel, Jacksons and other hot rodded 80's guitars like that.
 
His buddy repainted it also. It was a sunburst Fender Strat that got "Charvelized" as a birthday present for Jake. I read that Jake felt odd playing a sunburst Fender Strat at the time everyone esle started playing Charvel, Jacksons and other hot rodded 80's guitars like that.
Tho Sunburst Fender body looks dope with a floyd and a humbucker.
 
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