1980s Rockster SK-525 (Korean-made) SuperStrat-style Electric Guitar

Should I hate this? Should I love it? Who knows what to feel about this heap of '80s cheesefest? It's nostalgic and yet not at all nostalgic all at the same time.

Fortunately, the neck is good and its complement of of noise-canceling, lower-output pickups gives it a sound that's different from what you'd expect. It's actually fun and, thankfully, quite stable.

The body is made from some sort of composite instead of real wood and the whammy block's bar-receptacle is broken so I've cranked the springs down and effectively made it a "hardtail" guitar. The graphic is actually on the body under the finish which is why it's held-up so well. The neck is actually decent but looks totally odd with the coat of paint and ebonization of the fretboard. The neck itself is mahogany with a rosewood board and has a modern, slim-C profile.

I had to spruce it up a bunch, but now that it's done it plays like a champ.

Repairs included: fret level/dress, side dots install, new wiring harness, replacement sealed tuners for the headstock, cleaning, good setup.


Body wood: composite/MDF-like

Bridge: Strat-style, hardtail setup

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Pickups: 2x noise-canceling "single coils" and 1x humbucker


Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall
String gauges: 42w-9 extra light, unwound G

Neck shape: slim C/D

Board radius: ~10"

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium


Scale length: 25 1/2"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

Body width: 12 1/4"

Body depth: 1 1/2"

Weight: 7 lbs 15 oz


Condition notes: it has nicks, dings, scratches, and minor finish cracks here and there throughout. Someone put black sharpie on the bottom edge of the top at some point and I tried to remove it as well as I could. It cleaned-up a bunch. The replacement tuners and wiring helped a ton and the sound improved as well but all the rest of the hardware was fine. It's got 9s on it at the moment but 10s would be good, too. The truss has plenty of adjustment room.













Comments

Db said…
I had one of these as my first guitar in 1993 - my brother said his friend was selling it and I bought it for £20. It lasted about a year as I wasn't careful with it, and ended up customising it which was it's death sentence. I remember the action was about 8mm off the fretboard.