RGGR

Cutting awefully close to the actual line imho. Jig saws tend to wobble bit and therefor it's sometimes better to leave some more room. Imagine body to be heavy as hell, am I right?

I have (had) one of those.....till I sat on it holding a piece while cutting with jig saw, and went right thru it with my knee. Now some peices Mahogany are in place of the MFD and the thing is solid as a rock. Only have to find way for cross-strut nuts from shaking off. Like the concept of the guitar, not liking all execution. 1. Have big problem with sand-thru on fore-arm contour. It just looks cheap. On next build you should try to heat and clamb the quilted maple. 2. Do agree on saw cuts on neck binding. It may be intended this way.....everybody with some building knowledge will see it as an error. It takes away from the look of the neck. 3. Inlays. Keep 'm tight as hell. That's name of the game. (Never done inlay in my life, and the main reason is, I want them tight......just never had the guts!! or trusted my abilities on this.) 4. Do also agree with comments on the pup route. It looks a bit botchy. Please take this as constructive critizism. We are all here for the love of building guitars. Posting means standing open for cheers and critique. Critique that mostly makes you build better instruments in the future.

Is it as simple as grinding some of the chrome off the bottom of the bridge and then solder wire to it? Is that it, or are there more clever ways?

I use Autocad 2004, but will be the same I guess. With 1:1 my printer only prints what show on the screen. (work view). So adjust the drawing that it shows the area (on the screen) that you want to print, print. And then adjust the screen again to print the otehr parts. With some overlap and some sticky tape, you can have the whole thing printed. Hope this makes sense.

I gave up dealing with Ibanez dealers/importers. All they are interested in is selling guitars, not helping with getting you parts.

MDISMUKE, how did you get those ferruls to line up so nicely. It looks darn perfect. Standing for same issue on Axxion build and thinking about ordering #0196.

yep, nothing beats options. Just some extra work to get sides of wings nice and square again after cutting. Simply route I would not have taken. Here is look at imho a perfect heel:

You could also do a half set neck, all the way across the body. Meaning the neck will show in the front, but not on the back. If going for neck-through construction, I don't see the point fo making whole body first, and not just the wings. Seems waist of wood in my opinion.

+1 +2

I think I just should go out and practise a bit. It's just (and even with surfing this site quite a bit) I haven't found any good tutorials on inlays yet. (or haven't looked properly.....) I know there are couple of good books out there. If anyone has some good suggestions of where to start. I guess a must is a Dremel tool with that attachment:

Putty/Primer. Getting body ready for painting, wanting everything as smooth as a babies bottom. And with all the curves on the side of the body it's very important to not feel any inconsistency in flow of the curve(s). Yeah, me too..... Love the wet-wood feel of ebony..... Normal 5mm dots. Although when my brother saw the shark fins on my 540Pii his eyes litt up. But as I don't have any experience with inlays, that has to wait till another build.

Did some work on body today. Trying to get guitar ready before my brothers BD. I routed the recessed TOM, drilled stud holes, routes pup cavities. The SD 59 (n) and JB (br) pups I will use are bit funny though. I had routed nice and tight cavities, knowing the 59 neck pup needed some more depth, as the little wings on the pups seems to be deeper then the JB's. (Not sure why SD created it this way.) Other thing I noticed that on the north side of the specially the JB pup, there is a bit of a blob under the tape that protects the wiring/spool. Looking at it closely reveils that that's the are where the wiring leave the spool on the pup. From company like SD I expected something better. I now had to adjust my clean routes somewhat to make sure the pup would fit nicely. Again, everyting sorted. All now to do is some more sanding, priming, sanding, etc. The heavy lifting stuff on the body is done.

Is that Limba, cause in pics it looks more like Mahogany???

It's called the Maxxas from Ibanez. One of the most awesome guitars in the world. I know, cause I have one at home. It's my most favorable instrument out of the collection. See here for some more details: http://www.ibanez87.it/english/collection/jessica.aspx http://www.ibanez87.it/english/collection/jessica-18.aspx http://www.oliver-pfaender.de/guitar/index.php?guitar=mx2 Leaving you with something similar to Napalm Neh, some motorcycle gas tanks are made this way. Acetone dissolves the styrofoam with ease, just a small drop already causes huge holes in your styrofoam. Just need to do it outside with plenty of ventilation.

I like the look of them, I like the feel of them.....and I use the trem without using the trem bar. Then again, I'm still a beginner in relationship to playing the guitar. When my style and technique progresses I think I will use the trembar more often. For now I leave it off my guitars. Remember the JS-7 is/was my first build. I'm currently working on TOM equiped guitar for my brother. But everyting said and done.....I do like the look and feel of a tremolo equiped guitar over any other type bridge. And yes I do realize that so many people, so many preferrences. And coming back to the lip left in guitar. I think I can always route it off when it bothers me. For now I just can't wait to get it back from the painter.

I will use OFR-7 on this guitar (but similar issue as with LoPro you mention). I mostly play my guitars without the trem-bar, so don't see an issue there. Thanks for the suggestion though.....haven't thought of it before. Think because I never had to tighten trem bar up. (Still could do this when changing strings, I suppose). I left lip I guess to leave as much wood in/around guitar as possible, thinking it wood improve the resonanse (and so the sound of the guitar).

Nothing says guitar building more then a freshly tapered neck. Flipside

No worries, no clone. Just got shape perfect instead of close-to like it was before.

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

Third week of January the JS-7 will be back from the painters. Can't express how excited I am. The wait has been long, but good thing is.....that it gave me time to dream up some other guitars, some of them in progress as we speak. 3 weeks and counting.

I see someone putting a Ferrari badge on a Fiat (Fix it again Tony). It doesn't matter what sort of item it is, be it vaccuum cleaners or pretzels, you don't put someone else's name on it. I can't imagine seeing this car with any other brand then the Ferrari brand. http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive/2006/...a-ferrari-p4-5/

I have been toying with same idea. Use neck though blank, styrofoam wings, fiberglass body covering it all. The use Acetone to dissolve the styrofoam, leaving hollow Maxxas type wings.

Pics would help.

No question about the quality of their trems (Edge, Lo Pro Edge, Edge Pro), but if I compare the number of awesome guitars they brought out in the 80s......and compare it with today......it's just no comparison. And I know, back in the days they were establishing a name for them selves, when Fender was the big fish to catch........innovation was the name of the game. Currently it seems too much like milking the brand. ZR trem is nice, HR Giger theme guitars are okay, puzzle guitars are nice.....but rest is bit stale. With their 7 string line-up dead in the water......I still don't get this 8 string move. It just doesn't make sense.

Bet it will be a nice guitar. Problem I have with it is it's timing. I my book this guitar comes 2-3 years too late. Where was Ibanez during the 7-string Nu-metal craze.....at that time they ownened the 7-string category and could have upped the stakes by bringing out the 8 stringer, proving they were THE innovative company (they used to be). Instead they waited and waited and waited......and currently I don't see the point. I'm huge Ibanez fan, but current line of new guitars just doesn't do it for me. Bring back the 80s-man. Just look at www.ibanez87.it and druil.