New Ibanez project!

Recently, the DIY bug got the better of me again. I know I have a spare Ibanez RG570(The gold one in the picture) body lying underneath my bed. One of the surplus parts I have from building guitars. I was just missing a neck to kick start the process. I wanted a MIJ super wizard neck but those are a lot rarer compared to a few years ago. Recently, MII made Ibanez has seen better quality production and I decided to try my luck on one of these.

I found myself looking at a MII SRG420FMZ neck. The main thing that attracted me are the sidedot inlays. Hence, I bit the bullet and ordered one of these necks but when the neck came, to my disadvantage, it was a "used" neck. Mounting holes were pre-drilled and the neck has scarfs all over. The lucky part was, to my surprise the mounting holes actually fit. I decided to fit the neck to my RG520QS body anyway. I left the old electronics in there and as such, this guitar is fitted with "Entwistles Dark Star" pickups.

I have always gotten good results from Gotoh machine heads and this guitar will not be an exception. However, as with all non MIJ Ibanez, the side holes on the machine head has to be drilled. Additionally, I  have a spare allen key holder which I decided to fit it to the guitar too. This will allow me to tune the guitar anywhere as I please. 

The second guitar which I build this week was a combination of the RG570 body and the RG 270 neck previously. I didn't have much problem fitting them together, as I've pre-dowel the neck to fit MIJ bodies. 

Again, I had surplus of "Entwistle pickups" and some guitar electronics. Hence, this guitar is fitted with Gotoh pots, switchcraft 5 way switch and "Entwistle HDN" pickups. More to come on the golden guitar!

Luther-ing morning

One of my friends gave me 3 guitars (In which I am going to mention 2). All of the guitars are actually replica guitars (No, I DO NOT ENDORSE REPLICAS). However, the DIY bug in me wanted some free guitars to work on and hence, I took all 3 guitars home. So, finally, I decide to spent the whole morning and half an afternoon doing luther work on these guitars. The evident thing about China Replica guitars is, it's either a hit or miss thing. And those that he passed me, are pretty much misses. First up is the Jackson Kelly replica. First off, since it is a floating tremolo guitar, the stock floating tremolo honestly is a piece of crap. Not even worth salvaging. Hence, it's replaced with a Korean Floyd Rose licensed. One thing to note, if you ever want to buy a China Replica guitar (No, honestly, don't buy them), do not buy guitars with floating bridge. This guitar took off extra hours off even after I level the frets. It's honestly hard to setup as well, thanks to the poor craftsmanship. I nailed it in the end though.

Second up is a Gibson Flying V copy. Now, the copy is bad. Really bad. One look and you can tell it's a fake. But besides that besides the point, I did fret leveling on this guitar and added a shim to it. This isn't as hard to setup compared to the Jackson Kelly copy though. All and all, these guitars gave me an eye opener on Chinese copies. Could have swore that my Al Di Meola copy wasn't that bad.

Jack Tammarat

Jack Tammarat came down to Singapore yesterday. I missed his performance yesterday but instead, I went down to the grand opening of Sound Alchemy music school. Jack was invited to showcase and played there. The only thing I can say about Jack is, he is an amazing player. No wonder on why he won the guitar idol competition.