What technology was used for drawing figures on ART1&JPM

[Ruslan]

Does anybody know, what technology was used for drawing figures on RG-ART1 and JPM90-HAM?

I think, that a thin transparent piece of fabric with a pattern was placed under the layer of lacquer.

Ruslan.

[gkelm]

I think it was just done with wood stains over flamed maple...no fabric.
Greg

[vaijem777]

Upon inspecting the ART I had, it looked like the designs were actually etched/burnt into the top, then the stains were applied accordingly (by hand of course)

[Rich]

Same thing with a 90th, but I'm betting it's still silkscreened stain, not hand stained

[vaijem777]

Of the (2) ARTs that I've had a good ammount of hands-on time with, I've seen numerous spots of bleeding in the stain, which led me to believe that it was done by hand. I've only messed with a few JPM90HAMs, but havent seen any such bleeding on them. I'm sure that with as many 90HAMs as were made, they'd do whatever they could to speed up the process, but...the ARTs still seem to have a bit more of a "human touch" (at least from my personal experience)

[Rich]

With as many Art's as they made I assume the same, silksceen. There's bleeding in the 90th's too

[vaijem777]

Ya know what they say about assuming... (except leave the "me" part out of it, since I'm NOT assuming anything LOL )

Only Ibanez knows for sure, and we all know how forthcoming THEY are with details

[darren wilson]

I would imagine the solid-colour JPMs are silkscreened, but the transparent ones are probably applied by hand, likely using templates. You need really thick inks to silkscreen, so unless the dyes are suspended in some kind of thick gel medium, they probably have to be brushed on. A watery stain just wouldn't work in silkscreening.

[Rich]

I'm not assuming anything, I've micro inspected both to determine the same answer. Silkscreen. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Nobody sat around painiting by numbers on over 500 guitars. It's a factory, they look for "factory" methods to produce. The solid color JP's are silkscreened on paper and the paper glued on.

[vaijem777]

Originally Posted by Rich

With as many Art's as they made I assume the same, silksceen. There's bleeding in the 90th's too

Ummm...by saying "...I assume", you are, in fact, assuming something

And I think it's pretty safe to say that there are nowhere NEAR over 500 RG-ARTs. It would make sense that they would try to devise some sort of simplified technique for a large-scale production such as the JPM90s. But if the ARTs were the testing ground for the JPMs, then it would make more sense that perhaps they WERE done by hand. At least to a greater degree than the production model JPM90s. Of course, again...only Ibanez knows for sure.

[Rich]

I "assumed" they looked for the same time savings as on the JP's, that's all I assumed. The proof is in the pudding, under micro inspection, there is no difference in the technique used on either. Nuff Said?

[vaijem777]

'Nuff said...as a basis for one hypothesis. Unfortunately, theories are all that we have.

Regardless, as far as the original question is concerned, it's quite obvious that there was no "thin transparent piece of fabric with a pattern" placed under the lacquer. The designs were either transferred via silkscreening or stained by hand. Either way, the stain is actually applied to the wood- it's not a pre-printed and colored design.

[Rich]

It's a little more than theory since we KNOW they never hand painted the stain onto 500 90th's

[darren wilson]

I seem to remember somebody with an ART describing the pattern looking like it was drawn very lightly on the wood with pencil underneath the stain.

There are ways to mask and fill areas with stain rather than silkscreening. Another theory might be that they cut pieces of frisket (airbrush masking film) on a plotter and used those to mask the areas while the stain was applied.

I've never heard of stain being applied with silkscreens. You need VERY viscous inks for the screen material to hold back the colour until the squeegee is dragged across the screen. Stains would flow through a silkscreen like a sieve unless they were thickened to the consistency of tar.

[vaijem777]

That takes care of the production-model JPM90HAMs. But it doesn't prove as an absolute that the same is true for the RG-ARTs.