badger6

3 hours ago, 2.5itim said:

Ibanez's sealer is the devil!!! If you don't know if you got all the sealer off then you probably didn't. You will know when you get past the sealer and into the wood because the wood will look more like the color of the wood and the part with sealer on it will be really dark still. 

Ive refinished about 10 ibanez's and I have promised myself I would never do it again because of the sealer. 

Looks like I got all the sealer off, or at least 99% of it. I got the 1st coat of black stain on and sanded back. Looks like the headstock has some light flame, not gonna match but that's cool. Have some more sanding to do on the bottom strap button edge, inner horn edges, and bottom of the back. The end grain seems like it soaked up more and it's a bitch to sand back. But I got some pretty good streaking. Looks better in person than on the pics. Anyhow, next I'm gonna stain brown and sand back. Except I'm going to do less sand back than the black. Got to figure out how strong to make the brown. Dark, medium, or light? What you guys think?

6 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

This will help!

I just hope that I got all the factory sealer/primer off the body. I just sanded the headstock and the top white color coat must have been only 2 coats, but that dark grey underneath was as thick as half a dime. Anyhow, we'll know in a little while, about to do the first black coat. Does it matter how long I let it sit before I do a sand back with 220?

Goodbye Ibanez. Headstock sanded and holes filled. Body sanded to 220. Almost ready for the first coat of stain. Anyone know where to get Ibanez waterslide decals? Are decals safe to use under tru oil?

20 hours ago, plinky said:

I wouldn't take a heat gun to that 5 piece body for too long, if at all. It will soften the glue & the body pieces will start to separate. Ask me how I know.

If you wanted a wood grain finish on top, research here & all over the web & try putting a veneer top on it, then you could get a neat transparent stain on the top, or whatever you want. Since the round over on an Ibanez RG is very small it's a lot easier to install a veneer than say a Strat with a 1/2 in round over. It would look a lot better with a 2-piece veneer (or one) than seeing that 5-piece laminated body.

Not gonna do a veneer. I already thought about doing that but I think that I'm just going to try the body as is. My expectations aren't too high, hahaha.

What I'm planning on doing is a version of the famous and much copied burnt stained blue. However I think that with the ugly and multi colored 5 piece body that I'm going to do more of a distressed light blue and maybe use the heat gun a little. Here's kind of what I'm trying to achieve, except maybe a little darker with more weathered type streaks.

Here's what I'm thinking. Stain black and sand back, then stain brown and sand back. Then maybe a little heat gun treatment. Then start on the light blue. I'm going to do a tru oil finish. 

Since I've never done this before, I'm trying to get done for around $100 give or take, and I'm about $25-$30 into my budget. Therefore, I'm going to keep all the original black hardware on it. Got to think of a double or single humbucker pickguard and some cheap pickups also. For that I think that I'll stick with maybe a plain flat black to match the hardware and keep it simple. Any ideas or suggestions? Maybe a different color choice other than blue? Maybe purple, green, or red? Any tips?

Here's where I'm at now. I had only the front and back sanded down and I remember sanding it by hand was a bitch. Last weekend I used a heat gun for the sides. That's what the darker burn marks are from. 

Been wanting to buy a neck and body and build an early 80's Charvel clone. However, I realized that I have a 1998 dissassembled RG350 that I sanded down in 2009-2010 and kind of forgot about. I've always bought my guitars and never really done any kind of refinish work. So here is a generic pic of what I started out with 6 years ago.