ElysianGuitars

thats a 7

saw you're guitars are now posted on the RV site they all came out great!

not exactly an update, but a change of plans. now instead of the graphtech ghost setup, i have sourced an Ibanez ZR7 tremelo from an S7320, this thing is gonna rule. in case you aren't familiar with the ZR style tremelos, you can read about them here

plug is made, its a tight fit, there is one area that has a gap, i'll fill it in with some super hard 24 hour epoxy after i sand it flush.

more progress, now i need to pick up some dowel rod, and make a block of maple to fit the spot i just routed.

gonna sell it... i measured it with my digital calipers, and its .715" at the first fret! thats so frigging thin! its .792" at the 12th, not too bad, but man, its a THIN neck. i think the neck and fretwork alone are good for the prestige logo, its got better fret work than any RG i've ever played on, its pretty great to be honest. and for 800, not a bad price for a "prestige" line.

its got a 1/2" maple cap already, its a carved top RGA, and i'd rather not spend all the time to plane the cap off and give it a new one when i'm turning this around to sell for profit... Ah, didn't realise it had a maple cap and I did't see it was carved....why have Ibanez popped on a non-figured 1/2" maple cap when you can't see the maple through the original finish? That beggars belief. I can't see Ibanez doing it for the purposes of tone.... :-\ I'd love to pick up an Ibanez S body and do exactly what you're doing here, except i'd probably end up making it an eight because i'm silly like that. actually, the finish is semi transparent, with enough light you can see through it easily, especially the mahogany on the back. there is also another version of the RGA121 with a fully trans finish, so you can see the maple and mahogany in all its glory, i figure the darker one i got is just made the same as the trans one because its easier to make all the guitars exactly the same besides finish.

with how cheap RG7's are nowadays, its more interesting to do it to models that aren't available as 7's, imo. especially this RGA, mahogany body and 1/2" maple cap, some real quality woods in it.

heres a new progress pic, i carved the lower horn a bit. i also sanded off all the rest of the finish, it is now a nude guitar next step is to make a template and route the bridge route out to a much easier to fill rectangle. i've decided this is going to use my RG7421 bridge, with a graphtech acoustiphonic 7 string setup.

its got a 1/2" maple cap already, its a carved top RGA, and i'd rather not spend all the time to plane the cap off and give it a new one when i'm turning this around to sell for profit... just got the pups in the mail!

thats what i figured. its also not a glossy finish, it was a satin finish, which i think makes it even cheaper for them to finish, no buffing or anything. any tips on where to get thin veneers?

http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-13.jpg pickups routed, most of the finish is off. the black left on the maple top is just stain, not finish, itd take me a while with 220 grit to get through it(220 grit took all this off, and only took maybe 30 minutes to do, thats how thin this finish is!)

could anyone point me to a supplier of very thin veneers i could vacuum bag over the top of this thing? i'd like to give it a burst finish, but the previous owner messed up the top when he put in the petrucci switch and "filled" the oem 5 way switch.

just routed the bridge pickup... wanted to leave the island that the stock pickup routes had, so i just routed the outer edge of my template. you can see 2 things in this pic besides that, 1 being that this finish is SUPER thin! i'm not sure why so thin, but its the thinnest Ibanez finish i've come across... just a few swipes with 220 grit can take it right off. the other is that i'm gluing my template right to the finish, gotta love titebond.

now to fit a square peg in a round hole http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-10.jpg routed out to fit, though i'm gonna wind up shimming the top side of the route a little bit. used my straight edge to properly align it to centerline. http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-11.jpg sorry for the blurry fit, my camera's auto focus sucks. the donor neck has countersunk inserts in it, instead of screws, so it uses hex bolts, though i need to get 1 more(i lost one a LONG time ago), and i need to get some black washers to fit. today i'll route out the pickups, and in a week i'll make my decision on bridges. it'll either be an edge pro 7, lo pro edge 7, or tonepros tune-o-matic 7 bridge, just depends on what i can find first. i'll likely go the tonepros route though, as lo pro edge 7's aren't super easy to come by, and i don't want to pay 300 from ibanezrules. the pickups will be a d-sonic 7 for the bridge, and a new7 from an RG7620 for the neck.

got this in from UPS yesterday, paid 350 for it, shipped. http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-5.jpg http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-6.jpg D-Sonic and Air Norton pickups http://www.elysian-online.com/RGA121/RGA121-7.jpg Heres the donor neck, from an RG7421, i put an ebony board on it a long time ago.

we could all move to dallas and call it "Elysian Guitars"

first of all, it needs a paint job... second of all, no overspray has ever hit my car, i always get it far enough away. i don't think a tiny drop of paint is gonna travel that 20ft expanse, do you?

+1 to this, craigslist has been my savior. got my drill press, bandsaw, a lot of air tools, a porter cable router and a bosch router, and various other things via craigslist, all for great prices. probably gonna buy a planer and a jointer from craigslist soon too.

i was mainly referring to the type of fan i used, as if i'm not mistaken, products like ktm-9 aren't explosive like solvent based lacquer...

thats interesting, the paint booth we had when i was in auto body in high school for 2 years had intake fans. also, is this as much of a concern if i plan to be spraying water based lacquer?

Yeah, you should not be using an open chassis fan - it should have a sealed motor and be explosion proof. even as an intake? i could understand that if it were an exhaust fan.

http://www.elysian-online.com/PaintBoothDone2.jpg http://www.elysian-online.com/PaintBoothDone3.jpg for the most part, its done. some hole patching still to do, and i'm contemplating adding a fan/filter setup to the other side as well.

i went to home depot, and i bought a 36"x66" 3/4" thick block of plywood, and some castors. next step is a fan/filter setup to draw clean air in, and some velcro for the shower curtain, and an air filter and manifold, as well as some hooks. theres a 2x4 beam in the middle of the roof that i put there specifically for hooks.

after a few hours of hard work and 0 measurements, this is what i came out with, we had extra plywood in the garage, so i built up the enclosure. still have some holes to fill in, but otherwise, thats the bulk of it... until today.