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Building 540pvii


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Okay. Promised first to complete guitar before starting new one.

Darn. Failed that one.

I guess the problem started when I bumped into Nuno's website www.ibanez87.it.

He had such an awesome collection of Ibanez's, that it simple left me druiling every time I had a look at them.

But with little bit of patience and little bit of cash, dreams actually can become reality.

And next to my RG2550GK, I have added a 540Pro Power Triple-Coil, a Maxxas MX3, and JS-7 and RGT-7 is in the work (yeah, yeah, I know - I need to finish those puppies).

Okay...long intro for actual story......cause guitar missing from my collection is/was an Ibanez 540PII. A guitar I didn't like at first. I thought it was butt ugly.......but like most things in life, when things irritate you......mostly there is something there that attracts you. So did the 540PII. And not for long....I wanted one.

Nuno has awesome example on his site. Trouble is there guitars are quite rare and don't come for sale very often.

Couple of months ago, a guy in Holland was selling one. Price was not to my liking and guitar needed refinish. I contacted him and asked him if he could draw me an outline. This way I had the option of building my own version of it.

So with outline in the mail. MDF template was created fast enough. And trip to local wood supply store (Just to look, honest!!!) resulted in magically having some awesome pieces of Swamp Ash appear in the back of my car. I actually was looking for some Bubinga.....but while going through pile of Ash (advertised as Swamp Ash, but judging from weight it must have been Northern Ash) I suddenly bumped into these very light Ash pieces.

BINGO. This was truely Swamp Ash. Did anyone say Telecaster??? LOL!

So there we were....Swamp Ash in the car, MDF template of 540PII, and with this

540PII-7mockup.jpg

mock-up spooking in the back of my head. And with another Edge Lo Pro 7 recently purchased (one goes into RGT-7)........I simply had all the parts for 7 string version of 540PII. Where 7 string version of tripple bucker would be cool custom touch. Probably Blaze middle with ToneZone Bridge. Reversed 7 string headstock I can cut out of neck blank left from RGT-7 build.

So there we are, the basis of 540PII-7.....or better 540PVII. :D

540PII-7mockup2.jpg

What would have cost me couple of days in the past, just cost me couple of hours today. Guess past experience has paid off. Routing was easy. Swamp Ash was like butter compared to Limba I'm used to.

Some more sanding needed.......and then with available templates, the trem, pup cavities, and control cavities should come out like breeze. Don't forsee much trouble with this build.

Now I can go off order Ebony fretboard of LMII.

Oh, and color.........it will be Tweety yellow, with matching headstock of course.

Edited by RGGR
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I think it would look better with a blank Ebony fretboard... as in no inlays.

I'm not sure yet. Guy on ebay sell pre-cut fretboard with shark tooth inlays, but I'm not sure he does 7 string fretboards.

I also like the idea of completely black Ebony fretboard without fretmarkers. But without markers I do tend to get lost on board. :D:D

We will see.

Edited by RGGR
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Niiice...Arnhemse or Amsterdamse Fijnhouthandel? The Amsterdam place has a fair bit of swamp ash, but nothing in 1-piece body blank sizes that I've seen.

My 'standard' inlay these days is my logo at 12th, and then just use side dots. More than enough to orient yourself on the 'board, IMO.

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Arnhem.

I have Alder, Basswood, Limba, Mahogany guitars already so I thought Swamp Ash would be a nice addition.

I read some nice basses are made out of the wood so 7 stringer would be okay too I figured. Like I said I was also looking for Bubinga......but the pieces were too thin for body.

They had whole pile of Swamp Ash......but figuring by weight it was Nothern Ash. (It kinda hard to tell them appart. Northern has more pinkish grain from what I understand.) Going through the pile I suddenly discovered these very light blanks. They were about a third the weight of other blanks. (Two piece body blanks.)

Then the light went off of course........in whole pile of about 50ish pieces I only found 6-7 real? Swamp Ash pieces. I picked the two lightest. As this guitar will have solid color.....the grain pattern was of no interest to me.

I don't know how much gobbledigook :D there is in the story that the best pieces of Swamp Ash are the lighest pieces as those are the pieces of the tree that have actually been in the water.....and have different structure from rest of the tree.......blablabla....

All I know......when I tapped them.....they sang to me. B):D

Edited by RGGR
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Made some progress on the neckblank this weekend.

540_Mock-up1.jpg

540_Mock-up2.jpg

Had scrap neckblank left from RGT-7 build. Do have to go the scarfjoint-route though. Normally prefer 'normal' neck, but didn't want to build complete new neck laminate. Never done a scarfjoint neck before, so this is nice first. Call it making proper use of scraps. :D

Used router option for squaring neckjoint. Used method 1 to glue the joints together. All went pretty smoothly.

Did c*ck-up though. Was too trigger happy planing headstock down, that I took couple of mm too much of the headstock. :D With router I planed it down to 12mm instead of needed 15-16mm.

In JS-7 build I discovered that it's tough to get laminated headstock surface squared. Meaning the laminates in the neck tend to work....and push up the primer causing to show the laminates. So for this build, I had already decided to put small layer on fineer on top of headstock so primed headstock would stay nice and flat. But like I said, I took couple of mm's too much of headstock.

:D But wouldn't building be building if there wasn't a way out. Also still have some Wenge left.....so decided to take laminate part some further and instead of fineer, now glue 3mm of Wenge and 3mm of Maple on headstock, creating my homemade fineer so to say. The maple I still have to source.....but don't foresee any problems there.

In the end it will look nice and intended this way......... B)

Here pic of scarf joint including Wenge laminate.

More later.

Edited by RGGR
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Reading one of Drak's posts (incl pictures), I noticed him using an anglegrinder with a 40 grit flapdisk for some of his sanding work.

At local Homedepot I noticed these cheap chinese $15 angle grinders, and these $4 flapdisks (40 grit), so I couldn't resist, and took the plunch.

Making start on body and forearm contour, I have to say.......this puppy eats through wood like crazy. It takes some getting used to, and some serious care not to f*ck up, but I have to say this is a wonderful tool that will safe me some hours sanding. I'm very pleased with speed and results of the process.

Now it was a *BANG* 5 min rough contouring with the angle grinder, and then some 15 minute detail/clean-up work with my files and sanding paper.

:D

Pics will follow.

Edited by RGGR
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  • 1 month later...

X-mass came early this year. Scored myself a 540Pii today.

Oh, yeah!

I call 'm twins from different fathers. ;-)

Twins.jpg

Also with real 540Pii in the house, I noticed my body shape need some more fine tuning.

Timing for this purchase was perfect.

Edited by RGGR
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  • 4 months later...

Work, travel, life in general, has kept me from progress in last few months. With things getting more normal again, I finally had some time to work on my guitars.

Yehaaaa!

With proper 540Pii body in the house, I adjusted my 540Pvii body to proper specs. Had to adjust template a bit and re-routed the body (thank god, the original body I cut was oversize!). Next up was creating the half moon neck transition on body.

540pII-neck-1988as.jpg

The ebony fretboard is attached to the neck and I will taper the fretboard to proper size tomorrow.

Things are looking great.

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The Swamp Ash the Amsterdam one has is quite different in looks to the hard ash; it's lighter, the grain is coarser (wider spacing), and yeah, I sifted through it to find the lightest pieces. Still, nice bodies to be had.

uhuh last time I was at AFH Fijnhout there was some pretty nice Ash laying about. must take a look on tuesday when i planning on swinging by there.

RGGR looking good man! althought you're altering the design I quite like what you had before, but I suppose if aiming for a clone then go for it!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Dave from fretsonthenet is currently completing the custom triple 7 bucker pup ring, and the neck plate. :D

Bumped into this interesting Jackson on the net -Jackson Demon Orphan. It looks a lot like the 540Pii.

JacksonDemon.jpg

Edited by RGGR
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  • 2 weeks later...

Yep, that's a NAMM guitar from last year, and is available as a Jackson custom shop model, though they were making them back in the 80's before Ibanez built the 540PII. That guitar actually sold on ebay, though I forget how much it went for.

RGGR, you wouldn't happen the ability to create a 540PII template, would you? :D

Edited by GodBlessTexas
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