“We went back to the dressing room. He said, ‘Yeah, it stays in tune great! But if you could make it a little slinkier’”: Gibson’s master luthier Jim DeCola reveals the Leo Fender-inspired mods he made to Randy Rhoads’ guitar just hours before showtime

On the left, Jim DeCola of Gibson fixes up a tremolo on a Kramer Pacer. On the right, Randy Rhoads tunes up his polka-dotted Sandoval V.

Jim DeCola is unlikely to ever forgot the 24 January 1982. Gibson’s long-serving master luthier was then just a teenager, soaking wet and in a foul mood after battling through the Illinois winter with everyone's lunch orders, when a fateful call came in.

Speaking to Tone Shop Guitars YouTube channel, DeCola explains how it all went down, and how this call led to a job fixing up the tremolo systems on Randy Rhoads’ custom-built Sandoval electric guitar, deploying a knife-edge pivot design that was inspired by Leo Fender, and is still used to this day.