89 540S Project - Page 2

eruji · #16 06-03-2008, 01:06 PM

Look what i picked up yesterday...

The first one i made the grain looked crooked on the headstock. So the next one I layed the neck down on the piece of veneer so that the neck was straight up and down with the grain, then rocked up the neck until the headstock was flat against the surface. Traced it out and cut leaving about 1mm of material around the trace.

Next I layed a piece of white paper butt up against the fretboard and did a relief sketch of the truss rod pocket and the screw holes.

Then I thinned out some wood glue and brushed it on to the head and applied the veneer.

I tried clamping it in between two pieces of wood at first and after about 20 minutes checked it and realized the the edges were not adhering because they are kinda rounded off. So i setup this high-tech device, basically a soft rag with some weight on top to help bend the veneer around the edges.

Let it dry overnight and did a quick sanding to remove the excess material on the sides.

I think this is going to make the headstock look much better with the new finish on the body. Thanks for the tip FrankFalbo!

Tubarão Guitars · #17 06-05-2008, 09:20 AM

gonna rock!

eruji · #18 06-05-2008, 02:25 PM

Okay here is the headstock after a couple coats of tung oil..

i used my dremel and a drill bit to rout the holes for the tuner pegs and the truss rod nut.

Here is the body after about 10 minutes of using the dremel to sand the horns round and 30 minutes of fixing what the dremel gouged out with sand paper

ready to finish...

First coat of tung oil...

eruji · #19 06-05-2008, 02:38 PM

Okay, im hit my first major snag. I was checking the neck for straightness by laying a ruler on it with zero tension on the truss rod (the nut was just loose) and it had some forward bow on it. I thought well, let me just tighten the nut a bit to see if i can bend back, closer to straight. When i gave it a couple of 1/4 turns i heard a pop. At first i thought it was the hairline crack on the fretboard, but then looked around the back and it was the neck joint that i had glued. Looks like half of it had slightly re-cracked. Its not as bad as it was, but i didnt expect this to happen. I used an aliphatic resin glue which should be strong enough for this kind of repair.

So im going to have to re-open this crack and glue it again..

marianozz · #20 06-05-2008, 03:05 PM

Damn that sucks... what about a new neck? maybe you can snag one on the bay cheap if you keep looking, or here in the forum... thats awesome work you did on the body to be always worried about the neck recracking...

sleepyone · #21 06-05-2008, 09:17 PM

THAT LOOKS SOOOOOOOOOO GREAT MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats!!!!!!!
Hope you get the crack thing solved!!!
And keep those pics coming please!!!!! hehehehe

jazzedout · #22 06-06-2008, 02:28 AM

How many pieces is the body? Is it 2 pieces or 3? Thinking of doing the same to my S but I am worried what I'll find underneath...

eruji · #23 06-06-2008, 12:39 PM

Quote:

How many pieces is the body? Is it 2 pieces or 3? Thinking of doing the same to my S but I am worried what I'll find underneath...

two pieces: body and neck

i did another coat of oil last night and painted the cavities with the shielding paint. ill post pics later...

jazzedout · #24 06-07-2008, 05:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eruji

two pieces: body and neck

i did another coat of oil last night and painted the cavities with the shielding paint. ill post pics later...

Maybe I didn't ask correctly, but how many pieces of wood is the body only. No Ibanez body that I know of is one piece. This body has very straight mahogany lines, so it is difficoult to see from the pics, but it should be made of 2 or 3 pieces of wood glued toghether. As I see it there is one joint right above the pickup routes (parallel to the woodgrain), but is there another one?
For instance my RG7620 is 3 piece body as can be seen here:

Mahogany is much harder to see...

eruji · #25 06-07-2008, 07:48 AM

jazzedout:
i thought that was a strange question... i guess i should have read it more carefully :-) As far as i can tell its one piece, but the grain has a lot of stripes so i could be wrong. It might be just really hard to tell.

eruji · #26 06-08-2008, 11:15 AM

Okay,

jazzedout i DO think its a three piece body. After taking a closer look it seems the middle section of the body had a different grain from the side pieces.

Here is the body after shielding paint...

backside

ready for electronics!

but first some closeups of the finish...

D.Vial · #27 06-08-2008, 04:06 PM

Looks really nice, but I think that the headstock needs an Ibanez logo

kspeed · #28 06-08-2008, 04:40 PM

Looks brilliant! Excellent work! How'd you get around the recracking of the neck? And I agree with D.Vial, the headstock looks a little naked with the logo

eruji · #29 06-08-2008, 10:23 PM

Quote:

I think that the headstock needs an Ibanez logo

I agree, i just dont know what to get or where to get it. Waterslide or Vinyl? what do you guys think? considering the oiled finish...

Quote:

How'd you get around the recracking of the neck?

Messing with the truss rod was probably a bad idea. When i think about it now it seems a bit foolish to try to make the neck bend when it had no tension on it. Once i let off on the nut the crack aligned back to smooth again. So i figured i would just put the guitar together and see how bad the neck crack is under tension. So i did and my neck had quite a bit forward bow without tension, but it was still very playable after i put the strings on. So im slowly adjusting the truss rod, its close to where i want it, but im experimenting with how low i can bring the action down.

So the neck and crack is smooth right now. I want to see how much i can adjust before it starts to show again. Eventually i will reglue it but I just wanted to get this project finished for the time being.