NGD Revelation RFT
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2024 12:10 pm
I saw this pop up on GC Used for $204.99 and thought "that's a little under-priced". I didn't need another tele, but I didn't have a thinline, and I didn't have a tele with P90s, and I tend to like Revelation guitars. Not many Revelations make it to the US. This makes my 4th, but it's not my favorite. It's a bit of a project.
It arrived last night in a bubblewrap cocoon of about 6 layers. I freed it and started tuning it, and see 4 of the tuners are wound backwards. What? Why? My OCD made me correct that before even bringing it up to tune, but that was easy enough to address. It passed GC's 0 point inspection.
I go to plug in and the output jack is almost completely unmounted, wobbling all over the place behind the jack plate. I can't even get it to stay well enough to tighten it without removing it. But it did tighten down and went back into place, cool. These are the challenges of buying an apparent crackhead's guitar via GC.
Tuned up and plugged in, the action was, uh, not good. Worse, it was fretting out above the 12th. Oh, I see. There is way too much relief. The truss rod was not even engaged, it was just sitting in there. So about 3/4 turn gets the neck straightened out enough to start adjusting the saddles, and after some tweaks it's all good. Nothing wrong with the neck, just the previous owner. I don't know the person, it just confounds me how people get guitars into such a state.
But it's now playing well and sounds good for rock and roll, and I'm finally confident I'll keep this one. Now I'm noticing the knobs are riding all the way down on the body and rubbing on the finish. I decided I'd adjust the pot heights in the morning when there's better light.
Morning broke, and I popped the back off the control cavity to see this issue was not something the previous owner did. It's something Revelation did wrong. They picked pots with shafts that are too short to mount through the body. So it looks like they routed until they got the pots (pressed hard into the wood) to barely thread on the top. Poor work, Trev. I tightened them a bit more and closed it up. I don't want to replace pots today because these do work, they're just the wrong type. I have others, but hate the idea of rewiring a guitar because the knobs are too low.
So it's a very good guitar, just not actually great. It's worth way more than the $205 I paid. It let me noodle aimlessly and come up with a tune today, so it's fun enough. Maybe some day I'll upgrade those pots too. I think these P90s have ceramic, not Alnico V magnets. Normally I wouldn't like that, but these sound pretty good. Overall I give this guitar a B. It's my 3rd favorite Revelation so far, behind the RJT-60 and the RLR (my fave). I'm still waiting for a lefty RJT-60Q to make it across the water, but I'm not holding my breath.
I go to plug in and the output jack is almost completely unmounted, wobbling all over the place behind the jack plate. I can't even get it to stay well enough to tighten it without removing it. But it did tighten down and went back into place, cool. These are the challenges of buying an apparent crackhead's guitar via GC.
Tuned up and plugged in, the action was, uh, not good. Worse, it was fretting out above the 12th. Oh, I see. There is way too much relief. The truss rod was not even engaged, it was just sitting in there. So about 3/4 turn gets the neck straightened out enough to start adjusting the saddles, and after some tweaks it's all good. Nothing wrong with the neck, just the previous owner. I don't know the person, it just confounds me how people get guitars into such a state.
But it's now playing well and sounds good for rock and roll, and I'm finally confident I'll keep this one. Now I'm noticing the knobs are riding all the way down on the body and rubbing on the finish. I decided I'd adjust the pot heights in the morning when there's better light.
Morning broke, and I popped the back off the control cavity to see this issue was not something the previous owner did. It's something Revelation did wrong. They picked pots with shafts that are too short to mount through the body. So it looks like they routed until they got the pots (pressed hard into the wood) to barely thread on the top. Poor work, Trev. I tightened them a bit more and closed it up. I don't want to replace pots today because these do work, they're just the wrong type. I have others, but hate the idea of rewiring a guitar because the knobs are too low.
