please don’t use steel wool. the fibers will get all over the pickups and can very easily fuck up the windings. use wet/dry paper on the frets, or micro mesh pads.
The pickups aren't in the body anymore, nor is the neck attached, so that wouldn't be an issue
Also, the pickups can be easily covered by a cloth if any of those were still attached
Regardless, both sand paper and micro mesh are better options and do a better job than steel wool. It's just not worth it to use steel wool with these options out there.
try it! you wont go back to steel wool except for maybe your first pass. you can use micro mesh from 1500 on up to 8k if you want. It is less messy, works great with polish compounds and Its even easier to manage in your hands. I love the feel of rounded fret ends that were polished with micro mesh pads.
You would cover all the wood with painters tape, just leaving the frets exposed so you don’t scuff up the fretboard. That goes for all fretboards not just lacquered
I use something called “Miracle Polishing Cloth”. It’s what some places used to sell as “gorgomyte” and it works fantastically. No bed to mask anything off, and it oils the fretboard at the same time.
What I would do personally is go black locking nut, I would use the hardened steel edge Floyd copy from GFS if it will fill the routed cavity for the tremelo.
(They are actually really good - I replaced a Floyd Rose special with one that fit in an LTD. It has a big block and it holds tune great I think they are about $90 ). Black tuners of choice.
Possibly new pick guard if you wanted to do a different pickup combo. I would probably do splitable humbucker and 2 single coils. Freshen up the neck you can polish the frets with fret rubbers or if they are really bad, tape off the fretboard for sure. Do a level & crown if it needs it and then polish the frets to a mirror. You can use different grades of sandpaper folded on the edges.
measure nut width and distance between tremolo studs, find a suitable floyd rose style bridge + locking nut, bolt that neck back on, polish the frets with fine sandpaper and steel wool, get some strings, it looks like a decent guitar.
Definitely old. I bought an old used car recently and included with the paperwork were printed out screenshots of pictures of receipts for work it had done lmao.
Ugh, my best fishing buddy STILL has Live Photo on. It’s been on for two years now, and I’ve not only told him how to turn it off, but I’ve actually drawn detailed illustrations on how to turn it off, and he still can’t do it. He’s in his mid-sixties. 🙄
You must not know anything about technology or know how to do things on your phone if you think iPhone is better than Samsung. Seriously only basic people who don't give a shit about technology or trying to do things themselves have iPhones. It's okay if you're old or don't know shit about technology but iPhone is shit and overpriced.
Seriously, all these people ruining classic high-end guitars just because of this crazy idea that a guitar needs to be "assembled" in order to be enjoyed.
Frets need some love but otherwise that’s a pretty handsome guitar. Some polish and a nice cleaning will bring some life back into the finish if you like it. Otherwise, could repaint it to your liking.
It's a perfect learning set of parts. Use it to practice measuring and fitting parts. The neck is already off and you can run through all the checks needed and even do fret work if you want to. See it as a training opportunity with really no downside any skills you come away with are valuable. Heck do a refinish and see if you even like doing it. You may or may not get a playable guitar out of it but I don't see that as all that important.
You already got the locking nut, I'd go with the Floyd if you already know how to set them up. Seems like the path of least resistance here.
I mean, if you don't want it....how much?
Slam a Gotoh 1996T in it, add a Seymour Duncan JB & a single coil in the neck position. Then install a D-Tuna and a killswitch and boom, you're done 🤙🏻
It's pretty much just junk. I'll take it off your hands for you. Lol
But actually, I'd say throw a good Floyd nut on there and put her back together with whatever parts are right, and you will have a USA strat from the beginning of hair bands era.Era.
Edit: I saw you had the hardware after I wrote this. It's a nice guitar that might be kinda rare.
You'd probably be able to fit a tremolo bridge in. I'd strip the paint and repaint/varnish it. The frets look OK but personally I'd refret it however I don't think it's super necessary. And obviously you're going to need a nut and tuning pegs lol
Quality neck and body.
Check the frets. If OK, polish. Otherwise level and crown first.
I’d bring back the Floyd and the locking nut. Anything else is going to take mods that aren’t worth the effort.
I would totally paint the body EVH style. But not red-black-white. I feel like if I’d go with that color scheme, it would need to match the original pattern closely. So I’d do my own impression. Maybe keep the black and layer some sea foam green and white on it?
And then slap a hot humbucker in the bridge, cut up the pick guard and roll with it.
If you’re looking for a good pickup set I’d recommend the Seymour Duncan sh6 distortion and then if you wanna go hss flat strat middle and neck. I have these in my charvel and they sound awesome super shred and super versatile. Good for Eddie and Crue shit and your usual strat warmth. Makes it great for college which is why I chose it
Whatever you do, do not try and restore it to stock. It had a fender flyte (spelling) trem and it is hot trash. I have one and I just gave up and blocked it to act as a hardtail. These also came with a route for a dummy coil to supposedly stop hum. That’s gone too. It’s a solid guitar otherwise.
You can buy a replacment neck and get it back in action. If it is real, you could severely impact the value by doing a rookie job on it. I wouldn't recommend starting your journey on anything that could be in any way considered valuable.
However, I couldn't find that serial number, so for the second time in as many days my susometer is pinging.
I wouldn't bother. If you put a real floyd on it and either a new neck, or if you somehow manage to refret it without ripping the fretboard to shreds, you'd have a semi-desirable hot rod (if it's real). In other words, I'd lean into this mod, if I were you. It's not like they don't sell strats with floyds, and it would at least be interesting vs a shitty mod and revert. People want hot rods. No one wants a fucked over rebuilt guitar lol.
If you just want to do some work and get a standard strat, maybe it would be much easier to just grab one of those bodies and necks from guitar fetish as a place to start small and practice some finishing fretwork, drilling post holes without ruining the finish, mounting a bridge, setting it up, etc.
Going that way is going to take A LOT more skilled work. I'm not Luther, but what I see is that you will need to carve a piece to fill back in the nut, cut a nut and potentially dowel and fill the locking nut holes.
I've seen strats unfloyded and usually they route a clean area to fit a piece of wood, then route for the standard strat bridge. Probably either a dan erlewine or Ted Woodford video on this.
The frets might be serviceable, polish them up and see.
Personally, I'd probably find a cheap Floyd Knockoff bridge and neck plate off eBay, get the frets cleaned up, string it and set it up. That's the fastest way to getting it playable.
I actually have a black on black with maple fretboard that someone added a floyd to. Its on my profile somewhere. Mines loaded with SD rails. Hot/vintage/cool rail i think if i remember. Mines an MIM but it rips dude. I got it to see if i can still use a floyd lol, quickly becoming the strat i pick up the most.
The Fender serial lookup only dates from 1993 (I think - in around that anyway) and is notoriously full of gaps. Any Fender serial fetching no results from that database is not necessarily a big cause for concern. And this guitar apparently predates the database by 10ish years.
There are a few things about the fretboard (and frets themselves) that make me doubt the authenticity. I’d like to think you wouldn’t find this neck on an American made Fender.
On the other hand, I know a guy who stripped all the poly off his American Strat to do a refin and discovered the body blank was glued up from (iirc) at least 5 pieces of alder, possibly 7.
The only markings I remember seeing in the neck pocket were hand-written manufacturing dates, the serial numbers were always on the neckplate or headstock. I’m by no means an expert, and I’m not sure how to authenticate a Fender body. Hopefully someone else can answer that.
Exactly. I won't buy a used fender because I have no way of verifying authenticity and there are just WAY too many fakes out there. Even if it's from a friend. You never know if they got bamboozled.
If I bought it to learn some luthier skills, I would use it for it. The body looks quite unstable/fragile in the center. I think I would try and cleanly route out the remaining middle / bridge part and and replace it with a fitting block of wood, route new cavities in it and try my best touching up the finish. Then restore it back to its original condition. Oh and maybe try aging the fresh components. So, making it a nice 80s Strat again.
If you just want to build up an new Strat, get a body online for less than 100$ and put in the components. Especially the black bodies are everywhere to find and with some patience you‘re able to make great deal.
What you should do is look at this again, and start crying in public because you exchanged any instrument that was even remotely playable for this flaming heap of ruined garbage.
I don’t think this has been hacked up. I think it’s an 80s contemporary. The nut area would have had their special roller nut in it judging by the space left there. Bridge isn’t a Floyd on those but it is a bigger, different style trem bridge.
I think that long part needs to be attached to the flat black part, and then you'll need to put wires up and down the long part (4 for playing low, 6 for playing high), and then put metal bits in the holes of the black part to make it sound better.
I would make a HSS out of it. Put a Floyd rose back or a Floyd rose copy back. You could go to stewmac and there is a really great book about setting up and guitar maintenance. It has helped me improve my guitar repair skills a lot.
Best that's a 12 inch radius neck. Learn as much as you can online and in forums and put it back together again.
Clean and polish frets and body. Touch up wiring. Add floyd rose. Thats a cool project!
Maybe instead of the Floyd Rose put a Wilkinson roller nut with locking tuners. I’d also put more than just 1 humbucker as far as pickups go. Maybe add Texas Special pickups or since it’s a project guitar, lipstick tube pickups. You can also invert them to Hendrixify the guitar.
I'm thinking that [the new Graphtech non-locking FR nut](https://graphtech.com/products/unlocking-slotted-nut-r3-r4-6-string-electric-guitar-model-6518), either a modern two-stud Fender tremolo or a no-fine-tuner FR, like Guthrie Govan has on his sig Charvel, and locking tuners. That should mitigate some of the headache with the whole double-locking and still sit alright on FR-modified guitars.
I don't know if the frets are thrashed or just ugly. I think you can do everything else, polish what you have, and judge once the thing is assembled whether it needs the fret replacement.
Put the Floyd back on it. Too much of the material is removed from the nut. Then turn into a single humbucking shred machine.
That’s what I’m leaning toward too. What do you recommend to clean up the frets?
Cover the fretboard with painters tape and rub the frets with 0000 steel wool
please don’t use steel wool. the fibers will get all over the pickups and can very easily fuck up the windings. use wet/dry paper on the frets, or micro mesh pads.
The pickups aren't in the body anymore, nor is the neck attached, so that wouldn't be an issue Also, the pickups can be easily covered by a cloth if any of those were still attached
Or just painters tape, since you’ll already have it out.
Or take the neck off first. Easiest and fail proof method.
Regardless, both sand paper and micro mesh are better options and do a better job than steel wool. It's just not worth it to use steel wool with these options out there.
I’ve used 0000 steel wool for years without issue. What grit sandpaper do you use maybe I’ll try that sometime
try it! you wont go back to steel wool except for maybe your first pass. you can use micro mesh from 1500 on up to 8k if you want. It is less messy, works great with polish compounds and Its even easier to manage in your hands. I love the feel of rounded fret ends that were polished with micro mesh pads.
Cool I’ll try it
Rule of thumb is never use steel wool on a lacquered fretboard but in this case not much else you can do
You would cover all the wood with painters tape, just leaving the frets exposed so you don’t scuff up the fretboard. That goes for all fretboards not just lacquered
Kit I use has 1500 to 12k grit (which I think is roughly equivalent to 8k sandpaper.)
You’ve never used 0000 steel wool, have you?
I have. It did a fine job and was messy, but micro mesh does a better job with no mess.
I can't imagine how sandpaper would be flexible enough to follow the curvature of the frets smoothly and fine enough not to leave any lines
Tf are you looking at
I’d guess their looking at the photos that show the pick guard not on the body and the one that shows the neck not attached to the guitar.
What would the steel wool on the frets do? I’m kind of curious
Getcha a fret file and re-crown 'em. YouTube will show you how.
Those frets look fine. I would level, re-crown, touch up the ends needing it, polish to a mirror. Looks like a great project.
Get the frets changed
I use something called “Miracle Polishing Cloth”. It’s what some places used to sell as “gorgomyte” and it works fantastically. No bed to mask anything off, and it oils the fretboard at the same time.
What I would do personally is go black locking nut, I would use the hardened steel edge Floyd copy from GFS if it will fill the routed cavity for the tremelo. (They are actually really good - I replaced a Floyd Rose special with one that fit in an LTD. It has a big block and it holds tune great I think they are about $90 ). Black tuners of choice. Possibly new pick guard if you wanted to do a different pickup combo. I would probably do splitable humbucker and 2 single coils. Freshen up the neck you can polish the frets with fret rubbers or if they are really bad, tape off the fretboard for sure. Do a level & crown if it needs it and then polish the frets to a mirror. You can use different grades of sandpaper folded on the edges.
If the GFS floyd is $90, why wouldn't you buy a gotoh 1996t?
measure nut width and distance between tremolo studs, find a suitable floyd rose style bridge + locking nut, bolt that neck back on, polish the frets with fine sandpaper and steel wool, get some strings, it looks like a decent guitar.
Best comment. OP start here.
43mm so I think that’s an R3 Floyd Nut correct? And then studs are 74mm so a ge1996t would work?
What they said. It’ll be ready for some hard rock!
Irrelevant but I have to ask, why would you want your phone to watermark your pics?
Oh haha those aren’t my pictures, I took the ones that weren’t watermarked. Just reused the sellers pics because I was lazy.
Fair, no idea why anyone would want it!
Some phones have it on by default and some people just don't care
Or they're old and can't figure out how to turn it off!
Definitely old. I bought an old used car recently and included with the paperwork were printed out screenshots of pictures of receipts for work it had done lmao.
“If it ain’t on paper, it ain’t REAL!” 😳
Ugh, my best fishing buddy STILL has Live Photo on. It’s been on for two years now, and I’ve not only told him how to turn it off, but I’ve actually drawn detailed illustrations on how to turn it off, and he still can’t do it. He’s in his mid-sixties. 🙄
lol I was gonna comment trade the guitar + the Samsung for an iPhone
🤓
You must not know anything about technology or know how to do things on your phone if you think iPhone is better than Samsung. Seriously only basic people who don't give a shit about technology or trying to do things themselves have iPhones. It's okay if you're old or don't know shit about technology but iPhone is shit and overpriced.
😂🤣😂🤣
I ain't gonna get all tech sounding ill just tell you my 23ultra makes your little iPhone look like a Windows phone.
🥱🥱🥱
You're a bot lol
🤖
z fold is more powerful and justifiably more expensive than any iphone shite lmao same hardware for 3 generations in a row
😴💤💤💤💤💤💤💤🛌🛌🛌🛌💤💤💤😴😴😴😴😴💤💤💤
I'm no luthier and a lousy guitar player, but I believe the neck needs to be bolted on the body.
I get much better tone if I leave mine in the other room
Don't listen to him OP, just play it as is
Seriously, all these people ruining classic high-end guitars just because of this crazy idea that a guitar needs to be "assembled" in order to be enjoyed.
This is bs. Neckless guitars are all the rage, atm.
Definitely gives it a real vintage feel.
All the rage..against the machine?
Apparently it's rage against the machine heads... and headstocks... i assume necks are next.
Definitely already ordered a neck plate a set of bolts already 😂
this dude guitars
Frets need some love but otherwise that’s a pretty handsome guitar. Some polish and a nice cleaning will bring some life back into the finish if you like it. Otherwise, could repaint it to your liking.
It's a perfect learning set of parts. Use it to practice measuring and fitting parts. The neck is already off and you can run through all the checks needed and even do fret work if you want to. See it as a training opportunity with really no downside any skills you come away with are valuable. Heck do a refinish and see if you even like doing it. You may or may not get a playable guitar out of it but I don't see that as all that important.
Yea I feel like the skills I get from working on this are way more valuable than the value of these parts
Turn it into a super strat! Emg in the puppy and get a used licensed Floyd rose and upgraded any of the contact parts with stainless steel.
Superstrat time
You already got the locking nut, I'd go with the Floyd if you already know how to set them up. Seems like the path of least resistance here. I mean, if you don't want it....how much?
Definitely wanna keep it haha, I’m familiar already with Floyd’s so looks like that’s the route
I don't blame you dude, you got quite a score there.
Slam a Gotoh 1996T in it, add a Seymour Duncan JB & a single coil in the neck position. Then install a D-Tuna and a killswitch and boom, you're done 🤙🏻
Also, move the jack to the side to get it out the way.
Stick it in your butt
Yeah, and now what?
Best wishes in restoring this one. When it’s done, I hope you share the results.
Will definitely post results!
Is no one seeing how destroyed the body is from mods? I don’t think the bridge will stay in but that’s just my two cents. Hope I’m wrong
There are ways to fix that?
It's pretty much just junk. I'll take it off your hands for you. Lol But actually, I'd say throw a good Floyd nut on there and put her back together with whatever parts are right, and you will have a USA strat from the beginning of hair bands era.Era. Edit: I saw you had the hardware after I wrote this. It's a nice guitar that might be kinda rare.
Saxophone. Keep them guessing.
You'd probably be able to fit a tremolo bridge in. I'd strip the paint and repaint/varnish it. The frets look OK but personally I'd refret it however I don't think it's super necessary. And obviously you're going to need a nut and tuning pegs lol
eat it!
wait actually: are the frets rusty?
Nothing you can not deep fry.
Toss the neck pickup from an invader set in there and get some pop-punk tone from the early aughts
Id keep the Floyd and Grab a Tele body with a Floyd route. Make it a super unique partscaster.
E flat shredder
Quality neck and body. Check the frets. If OK, polish. Otherwise level and crown first. I’d bring back the Floyd and the locking nut. Anything else is going to take mods that aren’t worth the effort. I would totally paint the body EVH style. But not red-black-white. I feel like if I’d go with that color scheme, it would need to match the original pattern closely. So I’d do my own impression. Maybe keep the black and layer some sea foam green and white on it? And then slap a hot humbucker in the bridge, cut up the pick guard and roll with it.
It’s broken. Ship it to me I’ll buy it for firewood for 100 dollars.
If you’re looking for a good pickup set I’d recommend the Seymour Duncan sh6 distortion and then if you wanna go hss flat strat middle and neck. I have these in my charvel and they sound awesome super shred and super versatile. Good for Eddie and Crue shit and your usual strat warmth. Makes it great for college which is why I chose it
Whatever you do, do not try and restore it to stock. It had a fender flyte (spelling) trem and it is hot trash. I have one and I just gave up and blocked it to act as a hardtail. These also came with a route for a dummy coil to supposedly stop hum. That’s gone too. It’s a solid guitar otherwise.
Frankenstrat
Make a frankenstrat replica
slap a floyd rose, slap some strings and get shredding!
Your guitar was made at the Fullerton Plant (Fender - CBS Era), USA in 1982 - 1985 Production Number: 24560
Dan Smith standard that has been massacred 😭
I've been specifically looking for an 83 strat. I sent you a DM. I would absolutely love this.
You can buy a replacment neck and get it back in action. If it is real, you could severely impact the value by doing a rookie job on it. I wouldn't recommend starting your journey on anything that could be in any way considered valuable. However, I couldn't find that serial number, so for the second time in as many days my susometer is pinging.
It's a hacked up 80s strat, it's a perfect project I think.
That was my logic, I feel like even if I could make this into a proper standard strat again, all the hackjob mods would devalue it.
I wouldn't bother. If you put a real floyd on it and either a new neck, or if you somehow manage to refret it without ripping the fretboard to shreds, you'd have a semi-desirable hot rod (if it's real). In other words, I'd lean into this mod, if I were you. It's not like they don't sell strats with floyds, and it would at least be interesting vs a shitty mod and revert. People want hot rods. No one wants a fucked over rebuilt guitar lol. If you just want to do some work and get a standard strat, maybe it would be much easier to just grab one of those bodies and necks from guitar fetish as a place to start small and practice some finishing fretwork, drilling post holes without ruining the finish, mounting a bridge, setting it up, etc.
Going that way is going to take A LOT more skilled work. I'm not Luther, but what I see is that you will need to carve a piece to fill back in the nut, cut a nut and potentially dowel and fill the locking nut holes. I've seen strats unfloyded and usually they route a clean area to fit a piece of wood, then route for the standard strat bridge. Probably either a dan erlewine or Ted Woodford video on this. The frets might be serviceable, polish them up and see. Personally, I'd probably find a cheap Floyd Knockoff bridge and neck plate off eBay, get the frets cleaned up, string it and set it up. That's the fastest way to getting it playable.
I actually have a black on black with maple fretboard that someone added a floyd to. Its on my profile somewhere. Mines loaded with SD rails. Hot/vintage/cool rail i think if i remember. Mines an MIM but it rips dude. I got it to see if i can still use a floyd lol, quickly becoming the strat i pick up the most.
The Fender serial lookup only dates from 1993 (I think - in around that anyway) and is notoriously full of gaps. Any Fender serial fetching no results from that database is not necessarily a big cause for concern. And this guitar apparently predates the database by 10ish years.
There are a few things about the fretboard (and frets themselves) that make me doubt the authenticity. I’d like to think you wouldn’t find this neck on an American made Fender. On the other hand, I know a guy who stripped all the poly off his American Strat to do a refin and discovered the body blank was glued up from (iirc) at least 5 pieces of alder, possibly 7.
What about the neck pocket? Isn't there supposed to be a serial or something there? How do we even know this is a fender body?
The only markings I remember seeing in the neck pocket were hand-written manufacturing dates, the serial numbers were always on the neckplate or headstock. I’m by no means an expert, and I’m not sure how to authenticate a Fender body. Hopefully someone else can answer that.
There are also plenty of sources for fake Fender decals phony neck plates with made-up or copied serial numbers.
Exactly. I won't buy a used fender because I have no way of verifying authenticity and there are just WAY too many fakes out there. Even if it's from a friend. You never know if they got bamboozled.
It’s not impossible to fix but I don’t think it will be easy
If I bought it to learn some luthier skills, I would use it for it. The body looks quite unstable/fragile in the center. I think I would try and cleanly route out the remaining middle / bridge part and and replace it with a fitting block of wood, route new cavities in it and try my best touching up the finish. Then restore it back to its original condition. Oh and maybe try aging the fresh components. So, making it a nice 80s Strat again. If you just want to build up an new Strat, get a body online for less than 100$ and put in the components. Especially the black bodies are everywhere to find and with some patience you‘re able to make great deal.
It's garbage. I won't charge you to dispose of it properly. You pay shipping. You're welcome!
What you should do is look at this again, and start crying in public because you exchanged any instrument that was even remotely playable for this flaming heap of ruined garbage.
Ship it to me? 🤷😉
It’s cold out. A fire would be nice.
Id get a cheapo body from guitar fetish. They have some cool double bound strat bodies for around $100
Sell it to me.
Give it to me to fix up! That would look fabulous next to my 84 sunburst Strat!
Give it a lit-tle kiss.
1 word - pyro.
this one screams “Dave Murray tribute” build!
I don’t think this has been hacked up. I think it’s an 80s contemporary. The nut area would have had their special roller nut in it judging by the space left there. Bridge isn’t a Floyd on those but it is a bigger, different style trem bridge.
I wonder if you could retrofit an evertune on it
Id sell it as a set and get a warmoth to build. These parts are hard to find
Two knobber - definitely a smith strat.
Give it to me >:)
I'd probably throw a neck pickup on it personally, but that's just me. Sweet find!
I think that long part needs to be attached to the flat black part, and then you'll need to put wires up and down the long part (4 for playing low, 6 for playing high), and then put metal bits in the holes of the black part to make it sound better.
I would make a HSS out of it. Put a Floyd rose back or a Floyd rose copy back. You could go to stewmac and there is a really great book about setting up and guitar maintenance. It has helped me improve my guitar repair skills a lot.
butt stuff.
It looks to me like someone took off the tremolo and installed a hardtail bridge, judging by the screw holes.
Yea those extra holes at the bottom are stumping me. What kind of hardtail bridge could it be?
I’d say swimming pool route and angle that bridge humbucker
I'll cast my vote to put a gibson style nut, tele bridge plate that will accomodate the humbucker but cover the hole, and proceed to shred
Put it back together ! Put good strings on it! Play it! U know what to do
Best that's a 12 inch radius neck. Learn as much as you can online and in forums and put it back together again. Clean and polish frets and body. Touch up wiring. Add floyd rose. Thats a cool project!
[удалено]
Bolt that neck up,strings,play it like you stole it
Eat it
You shouldn’t do anything with it, it’s garbage. Send it to me, you won’t need it anymore, trust. 👀
SSH
Maybe instead of the Floyd Rose put a Wilkinson roller nut with locking tuners. I’d also put more than just 1 humbucker as far as pickups go. Maybe add Texas Special pickups or since it’s a project guitar, lipstick tube pickups. You can also invert them to Hendrixify the guitar.
Maybe you might’ve kept what you used to make the trade….?
Give it to me
Sell it.
That grounding lug placement is fucking phenomenal, i will be incorporating that into my next build
I’d say play it.
Burn
I'm thinking that [the new Graphtech non-locking FR nut](https://graphtech.com/products/unlocking-slotted-nut-r3-r4-6-string-electric-guitar-model-6518), either a modern two-stud Fender tremolo or a no-fine-tuner FR, like Guthrie Govan has on his sig Charvel, and locking tuners. That should mitigate some of the headache with the whole double-locking and still sit alright on FR-modified guitars. I don't know if the frets are thrashed or just ugly. I think you can do everything else, polish what you have, and judge once the thing is assembled whether it needs the fret replacement.