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Ibanez RG, my 2nd build


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The center laminate is flat, routed along a template. Now it feels quite comfortable, actually pushes your thumb to be on either of the three facets, which should force you to keep correct hand position. Only the edges closer the fretboard are sharp for the palm. I will definitely give this trapezoid a chance with frets and stings. I can round it over anytime afterwards, if it does not feel right.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For the body carve, I only use one radius jig and then refine it with a spokeshave at the waist, horns etc.

For the messed up jack access hole I made a 27mm tube of sapeli to be inlaid. But the hole was a bit too oval, the tube would not fit, so I just plugged the bottom with a little wooden disc. Such stupid mistake took half of a day to not even fix well.

Now the frets are in, nice job with new flush cutting pliers. The fretboard was sanded to 14" radius on a 100 grit sandpaper doublesidetaped to a glass trough. After the 100 grit it looked almost as fine as afterwards after 240, 500, 800 and 2000 grit. Now it is very fine, but still not as glossy as most woods would be.

I made a little space for the hex wrench to turn at least 90°.

In the meantime I worked on de-modding a friends Petrucci RG (Ibanez JPM-100P2). Very nice guitar, resonant basswood, much more responsive than the red one to the left, but not as rich on bass as the one in the middle.

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I am making only a little bevel on the fret ends, so that it does not make the effective fret width much narrower. But it is not as comfortable as a generous fret bevel. Then i round the sharp edges with a concave crowning file and polish them with a 800 grit sandpaper.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Neck glued to body, sanded to 500, first coats of amber shellac. The alder turned orange in an instant. I expected it to be more a pinkish skin hue. But it took the colour from the shellac very uneavenly, maybe soaked less on the more polished spots, maybe the grain was still pressed by the spokeshave. I did wet the wood between grits. It looked really desperately, so I sanded the top to bare wood to only 240 grit and started anew. Messed up again, so most of the top side got washed away with alcohol. On that mahogany neck the shellac looks awsome though.

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Yes, with this particular box switch the tip just touches the wood in the neck position and is a hair above in the bridge position. With a Fender open switch the tip is slipped a little deeper on the lever, so it would hit the surface. The wall is 5mm thick, bushings are 3mm deep, so you have to drill 4mm including the drillbit tip, no room for error. Now I think I could have kept the wall thicker and make a ridge or dint for the outer lever positions, like the dint for the truss rod wrench. Like recessed knobs.

Today the remaining parts will arive, hopefully it will be playable in the weekend.

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1 hour ago, kmensik said:

Consider it finished. I have not wired the push-push pots yet, but it is working, set up. Sounds fairly good. Do you feel it too, the stress when you first string a new one up, trying to guess the character from the first string not yet tuned, and it slowly starts to show as you tune and set up? This one was good sounding right from the first strum, What a relief.

There's nothing like the anticipation of hearing it for the first time!

SR

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That guitar looks stunning! My first proper guitar (if you ignore the basic end of range Squire Strat that I did a trade with my bro-in-law for) was an Ibanez S470 with a stained mahogany body. Still got the guitar today and your one reminds me of it so much so that I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, only difference is the stain on mine is matte and not shiny.

How did you find carving the body as it's both front and back carves?

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I like that oiled mahogany a lot. My first S body was inspired by that, but with shellac finish. After some years it looks more matte as if it was only oiled. http://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/47314-sabre-body-for-ibanez-s-470-neck/#comment-525141

If you are asking if I enjoy carving a Sabre body, then I say yes, a lot. It is my favourite. So elegant, comfortable, cool. Technicaly it is harder to shape than a strat or guitars with only one carved face. The body is harder to fasten to a workbench, once the first face is curved. Usually an S body has a flat plane in the middle, but the one of mine has no such flat spot, it is slightly curved even between the pickups.

 

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  • 4 months later...

Starting a new one. Laminated mahogany neck with 27" baritone scale, pear wood fretboard, asymetrical neck profile. The body might be pine, P90 pickups, fixed bridge.

This time drilling the tuner holes went just fine. I drilled 10mm holes from the back so that the pin of the brad point drillbit just touched the other suface, then guided by the pinhole drilled 8mm from the front. But I messed up one fret slot, cut it 1mm outside. Noticed it after recutting the slots to full depth, but the fix was fast.

I am again unsure of the headstock shape. This one looks too minimalistic.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi. I started a body of what looks like spruce, though I was told it is pine sapwood. The darker half is darkened by light, should be uniform after sanding. The wood chips like mad, but the neck pocket sides resulted in ridiculously thin sharp edges. The neck is fat, 22mm @1st ftret, and very asymetrical, fatter at the thin strings, thinner where the thumb rests.

2mm aluminum side dots, 12th and 24th are 3mm Al tube with glow in the dark epoxy.

Waiting for a wraparound bridge.

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