Project GT-R custom guitar - almost finished (56K BEWARE!)

LonePhantom · #1 11-17-2005, 06:15 AM

I posted back in April or May of this year that I was about to commence building a custom Ibanez style guitar. I was calling it Project GT-R due to the fact that I was planning to paint the guitar in the Bayside Blue colour found on the R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. I was doing the planning and collecting of paarts, etc and my father was constructing the body and fitting the electronics. We had it professionally painted last week and here it is.

Well it's finally built and almost everything is done. I was planning on a carbon fibre pickguard but instead went with a mirror pickguard. I've done a monkey grip similar to the JEM ones but the back section is rounded out rather than cut in. It looks a lot smoother this way and i'm really happy. The lower horn is also a bit thicker so that the pickguard is spaced evenly around the lower half of the guitar, looking neater.

Te volume/tone knobs will be replaced with JEM style ones soon. The black hardware will also be replaced with chrome to match the bridge. Most probably an EMG 89 will fill the neck pickup pocket when I can afford to get one.

The neck is a Wizard one off an RG 470, in really good condition. A beautful piece of maple and a really red piece of rosewood for the fret board. The Ibanez logo is also a chrome one (not really noticable in the pics though). I'll be making up a P.J.S. Custom logo to put on like the J Custom ones (my Dad's initials are P.J.S.) and a GT-R series logo where the RG one would normally be. They are designed, just need to get them made up.

The body is American Alder and it sounds beautiful acoustic. The pickup isn't quite working yet as something is wired up back to front on the input jack. It will hopefully be fixed tomorrow. I can't wait to hear it with some sweet distortion. I'm running an EMG 81 in the bridge position.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I'm proud of what my Father and I have done. This is the first time we have embarked on a project like this. I hope for more. Hopefully next time we'll make the neck from scratch too.

These pictures really don't do the colour justice but you sort of get the idea.

LonePhantom · #2 11-17-2005, 06:16 AM

And here's some more

And here's some pics of my 95 RG470 which has faithfully served me over many years as my only electric. I've been customising it over the course of the year. Hopefully a colour change soon!

Frantic · #3 11-17-2005, 06:44 AM

That's awsome, I really like the color!

Great work.

fettouhi · #4 11-17-2005, 07:24 AM

Looks good, what kind of Floyd do you have in there (in both guitars)?

Regards

André

zEr0 · #5 11-17-2005, 04:34 PM

That color looks great!

Congrats

LonePhantom · #6 11-17-2005, 08:30 PM

Mmmmmmm, post disappeared!

Anyways thanks for the comments, those photos really don't show the colour that well.

Fettouhi, the custom has a Gotoh Floyd in it (so sweet!) and my 470 just has a cheap single locking Eagle floyd. The TRS finally wore out at the knife edges so needed something. It's going to be my backup guitar now so the cheap trem will do for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get another Gotoh for it one day.

Flobanez · #7 11-17-2005, 10:33 PM

That's sharp, man. Nice job.

vette6600 · #8 11-17-2005, 10:45 PM

if your going along with the r34 theme, i think a carbon fiber pickguard would be awesome. looks cool anyhow

LonePhantom · #9 11-18-2005, 06:32 AM

Yeah carbon fibre was going to be a little expensive to do a real deal one, so I bought the mirror one cheap to be a template and was going to make a brush aluminium one like the dash surround on the R34 GT-R. I do like the mirror one now so I might leave it.

LonePhantom · #10 11-19-2005, 09:17 PM

Here's some pics of the guitar outside. My camera isn't good enough unfortunately to really capture the metallic in it.

I've got some photos of the build process too so I might put up a web page with the photos some time this week.

tTz · #11 11-20-2005, 06:01 PM

Why do people always photo their guitars outside?

Great looking guitar though!

ScottB · #12 11-20-2005, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tTz

Why do people always photo their guitars outside?

Most inexpensive "point and shoot" digital cameras don't have the option for selecting manual flash or slowing the shutter speed to allow for no flash indoors. The Sun on the other hand is a natural photo flood.

LonePhantom · #13 11-20-2005, 08:28 PM

My camera does have the ability to turn the flash on and off, etc and I think it does have the ability to adjust the shutter speed somewhat. I had forgotten about that. I'll double check the camera and see if it has the option and take some to see if I can get the colour correctly. It just looks so much better in the paint so to speak.

Thanks again for the comments!

LonePhantom · #14 11-22-2005, 06:51 AM

Well I've made a gallery of the build process photos that my Dad took while building the guitar. I'll provide a main information page soon explaining everything behind the guitar. Some of the photos in this gallery where the guitar has been painted show the metallic flake fairly well, so you can get a good idea of what the paint looks like from it.

Enjoy!

http://people.aapt.net.au/lonephanto...Build_Gallery/