Feline Guitars and others luthiers, attention please, need some advice. NGD.

[GuitarIv]

So now we tighten the pots as those were a bit loose, put back the pickups, reasemble the tuners (I urge anyone to be careful when doing this, just screw em in so they're snug, if you tighten em too much they might brake and that is some seriously annoying stuff, especially when you don't have any replacement at hand, gonna cost you money and nerves, happened to me once, fortunately it was a cheap guitar with cheap tuners) and what you see next in the last picture is a licensed floyd of a Schecter seven string I luckily had lying around at home doing nothing. Explanation follows.

[GuitarIv]

So I put on a fresh set of Elixirs and as I was trying to tune the guitar to pitch the E-string popped out of the cr@ppy replacement clamp saddle I mentioned earlier. The goddamn thing was made out of cheap metal so it had warped, unable to hold a string. So I decided to call it a day as I was pretty annoyed already and still had a show to attend.

Waking up hungover today (Opeth was great and the beer was cheap  ) I made some fresh coffee and decided I'd get the job done before having to race to university. Using the saddle from the Schecter I was able to fix that issue. Worked like a charm. But as soon as you fix one problem, another one waits for you around the corner to smack you in the face. After the instrument was tuned to pitch, the Floyd wasn't even close to being even with the body, reason being the tremolo springs which had lost their strength over the years to counter the tension of a regular 10-46 set tuned to E-standard. Luckily I had the Schecter around to pull it's guts. I still have to get new parts one day to reassemble the mentioned sevenstring but ugh... problems of the future...

[GuitarIv]

Here you see how little space was left to adjust the old springs in the Kramer, the springs in the cavity of the Schecter, the hideous and fat, uncomfortabe heel on it and finally the Schecters springs working their magic in the Kramer.

[GuitarIv]

And finally we have the new angle of the Floyd (still off but good enough to give the guitar a first testrun before doing final setup and adjustments), a pic of it with the fresh strings and the sad sad Schecter crying out "abuse!" in agony.

Gonna give you guys later on a quick review of the first impressions I have of the guitar, but I have to race to work now. Sorry for the mass of replies and pics, don't have a pic sharing site account atm. Cheers!

[Alex]

You could get some sort of Opeth Tree of Life to put over that Iron Cross. 
Guitar is looking a lot better. 

[GuitarIv]

So my final impression comes a bit late as I've been busy studying for exams, but finally the guitar is in a playable condition again. Adjusted the truss rod to straighten the neck, took care of the floyd so now it's parallel to the body and now I'm very happy with almost everything. Obviously the cosmetic flaws are still there, but the axe will see some action.

Acoustically it's a bit on the bright side with good attack and a snappy response, but it's not overbearing as my Strat sometimes. The intonation and the harmonics are all perfect and it's very comfy and fast, really like the neck on it. This translates well when plugged into my amp and the Miracle Man contributes a lot. Very tight and chuggy low end with the crushing low mids and good cut with the screaming yet not harsh highs. Just reminds me again why the MM is probably my favourite passive high gain pickup of all the ones I played so far and compared to the other BKP bridge pickups I own just the perfect middle ground. Nice growly, warm and full saturation like the Holydiver but less polite and better for fast riffing, yet not as evil, dry and harsh as the Painkiller can be at times. I'll be uploading a video of me putting it through it's paces (since it's a PACER hahaha) as soon as I have the time so you'll hear what I mean. 

All in all I will give this guitar lots of playing time to tighten the bond I already seem to have with it, but right now I'm sure that some investment is worth making.

The flaws I noticed so far, apart from the ones I already mentioned:

It will need a new fretboard and new frets. Has a lot of dead spots on the neck which become aparent as you do soloing and bends, adjusting the neck and the floyd made this a whole lot better but not perfect. Now while I'd probably get away with just leveling and crowning them, I really want it to look as gorgeous as it deserves to. Been thinking about a maple board and a refinishing the body to a candy/ferrari red like the Imperial Pacer in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j38w9j5eV6w

Next thing that bothers me is the neck pocket with the cracks and the floyd studs which seem to have bent under the tension over the years. You can see what I mean in the pictures.

Anyway, not a lot left to say, I'll have a better impression when I hit up my local luthier and show him the instrument. Gonna keep you updated if anything progresses, but for now I'll keep on shreding on this baby, cheers!