Vintage 1992 Charvel CDT-080 custom semi-hollow in transparent purple with flamed top.
This guitar was originally made in Japan and was only sold to the Japanese domestic market.
It is a super unique semi-hollowbody with a design reminiscent of the Charvel Surfcaster.
I always loved the body of the CDT-080, but I hated the original headstock. It just isn’t aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion. I believe the odd headstock is the primary reason why these guitars aren’t more popular. So, I endeavored to fix it.
The neck has been swapped for an All Parts maple neck with maple fretboard and, most importantly, a more traditional Fender-style headstock. Charvel Custom Shop decals have been applied to the headstock.
I also installed a reproduction Charvel neck plate to match the gold hardware (Image 21). The original guitar did not have a neck plate. Note that the serial number on the neck plate is completely random, and the “Made in USA” part obviously does not apply.
Pickups have been swapped for DiMarzio “Evolution” humbuckers with custom installed gold covers.
I also installed a brand new wiring harness with large 500k pots.
The guitar came out really well. It looks awesome, plays great, and sounds fantastic. The combination of the semi-hollow body and the DiMarzio Evolutions makes the guitar sound so nice. The frets have minimal wear (Image 21). I did a setup and intonation after completing the build without issue. I did have to raise the saddles a little to accommodate the slightly smaller radius, but that was expected.
Cosmetically there is one paint chip on the front of the body which I touched up. It is shown under a light in Image 25. Both corners of the neck pocket have those all-too-common hairline finish cracks (Image 24). I verified these were only finish-deep when swapping the neck. I sometimes will glue these when I restore guitars, but they’re so thin on this one that they’re really only visible under a bright light. As such, I left them alone. Otherwise there are surely small scratches and evidence of having been played, but nothing egregious or large enough to specifically point out. Please just be sure to view all images carefully so that you understand the overall condition. The images should be considered part of the description.
Scale: 25.5″.
Nut Width: 1.64″.
Weight: 8.21 lbs.
Tremolo bar is included.
Guitar will ship in its original Charvel gig bag, shown in Image 2.
Free shipping to USA.
If you are outside of the USA and are seriously interested, message me and we can try to work something out.