I found this Jackson soloist guitar (serial number J1976) in a pawnshop priced at $150. The guitar had a few dings, notably, the one on the lower horn and a particularly nasty ding where your arm rests on the body. Both dings had been cleverly covered with stickers, a Harley Davidson and a Porn Star respectively! Other than these dings, the factory pearl white finish was in excellent condition. After trying a dozen or so different sticker combinations I grew bored with the white color and the s-s-hum, Kahler tremolo layout of the guitar and sent her to GMW to be converted into “Franky”.

I asked Lee to convert her from the original s-s-hum and Kahler trem layout to the single hum, Floyd Rose trem equipped configuration that she has now and I asked Dan to paint a glow-in-the-dark Frankenstein graphic. I had considered getting Dan to paint the word “Franky” in blood drip letters on the face of the guitar but both he and Lee thought it would take away from the extreme detailed Frankenstein portrait.

With everything agreed upon, Lee plugged the holes left after removing the two single coil pickups, tone and the mini switches, then capped the entire face of the guitar. If you simply plug the holes without re-topping the face of the guitar, often with time the paint settles and you will see the outline of the hole that was plugged. It is impossible to tell that this guitar was not a factory single hum, the work is that good!

After Lee worked his magic, Dan sprayed the glow-in-the-dark “Franky” portrait that simply kicks ass!! It has amazing detail and I love the way Dan signed his name and especially the date, for which he used two eyes to represent the date, 2000 You can not go wrong with GMW, they do amazing work. I am thrilled with how this one turned out.

The guitar is very light and is one of my best sounding, playing and looking guitars, and the only guitar I have with 24 frets. I still play this guitar regularly and I can not say enough good things about the quality of GMW’s work. Their work is easily appreciated by comparing before and after pictures of this guitar. What more can one say, an incredible guitar (check out the super nice rosewood fretboard and super cool shark fin inlays that are instantly identified with Jackson) that looks good with the lights on or off (remember the glow-in-the-dark paint). Definitely, a great bang for the buck when everything was tallied.