My 1985 Jackson Rhoads - Kirk's Specs w/ RR Strap
My 1985 Jackson Rhoads - Kirk's Specs w/ RR Strap
Hey guys,
I wanted to share with you my 1985 Jackson Rhoads, which has taken me years and years to find, but I can finally say I have one in my possession. Same year as Kirk's. I know it's not an ESP but too cool not to show. Enjoy.
Thanks, yea I know it's in great condition for it's age. It didn't have any dings on it which made me happy, though there are still some light surface marks after my tech buffed it out, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. Even the hardware is still original, the only thing I had to swap out was one of the pots, and the strap locks. The pickups show the most wear, and the input jack has lost all it's luster and is pretty dulled out, along with the string-thru hardware on the back, but still looks cool lol.
Yea I ordered the strap through Kirk's strap website. It's a custom order so it wasn't cheap lol. Era was the name of the person who made it, and she lives in Italy. Not 100% sure if she made Kirk's or not, but I assume so.
If I ever sell, you'll be on the list haha.
BlackJack21 wrote:Thanks, yea I know it's in great condition for it's age. It didn't have any dings on it which made me happy, though there are still some light surface marks after my tech buffed it out, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. Even the hardware is still original, the only thing I had to swap out was one of the pots, and the strap locks. The pickups show the most wear, and the input jack has lost all it's luster and is pretty dulled out, along with the string-thru hardware on the back, but still looks cool lol.
Yea I ordered the strap through Kirk's strap website. It's a custom order so it wasn't cheap lol. Era was the name of the person who made it, and she lives in Italy. Not 100% sure if she made Kirk's or not, but I assume so.
If I ever sell, you'll be on the list haha.
Thanks for the reply mate, that is bloody awesome!! Congrats again and enjoy.
Thanks man, yea I was surprised it still had the original case as well, and glad they didn't get rid of it over the years. It's not in the greatest shape either but it's still holding it's own lol. But that's when I knew it was a legit '85 since it was the blue case with the black leather compartment tab. I know '84s have the blue with the tan tab. I'm not sure about the other years. No I didn't get it padded, though it seems pretty comfortable as is.
Haha I just looked, no it doesn't have it on the 1st fret. Weird I didn't notice that lol. I didn't replace the pickups, but it seems like they were added in the 80s shortly after. Jackson those days came with SDs and Kirk custom ordered his with EMGs, so most likely someone added this after since the chances are slim that someone custom ordered this the same year with EMGs. But they are '80s EMG 81s, so I don't know the exact year, but the reason why I think they were added later was because the pickup cavities were sanded slightly more on the sides to fit the EMGs it seems. I didn't see another color underneath just a weakly painted black and wood where it was sanded a bit. I had them add the shielding paint in the cavities since it was pretty loud when I was playing it the first time. So it's much better now.
But also if you watch some of Kirk's gear runs, Justin shows off the Jackson a few times and you can see at certain points more that it's the painted white logo which also matches up with the timeline.
Also I don't think you'll find these early Rhoads models with factory installed EMGs unless it was a custom order. These were catered to Randy's specs since it was his model and at that time more people wanted it like his, so my gut tells me Seymour Duncans were in all these things (I'm talking about '85 and before) at one point, unless like I said it was a custom order.
Did you ever see James playing one of Kirk's Rhoads before? This looks like Kirk's reproduction of Randy's original model since it has the gold logo, gold bridge, and smaller shark fins, but not 100% sure.
Still pretty funny seeing James use it nonetheless.
Yeah, that's the show where James' guitar tech fell and dislocated his shoulder right before Sad. I'm not sure if as a result of the fall James' D tuned Snakebyte broke, or if they were just trying to get him a guitar quick while the paramedics were working with Chad (the tech.) It was odd to watch him with the Rhoads.
Sorry just saw you had the video link already. Kirk actually has 2 black and gold ones. He has one with gold knobs and one with black knobs. I am not sure if the black knob one is a PCS model or one of the very first ones they cranked out to look like Randy's. I think his also had the black knobs and smaller inlays (so did the PCS models from the early 90s that had a serial number starting with PCS). Here are Randy's...
Premier guitar had a gallery of them: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/GALLERY_Randy_Rhoads_Original_Jackson_Concorde_Vs
Killer!