A few questions about customizing an RG...

[turtlelephant]

Hey all,

I had a couple questions on modifying an ibanez guitar. Although these are probably pretty noob questions, I'm not very experienced in doing work on my guitars and figured this would be the best place to ask. So....

I have an RG I want to do some work on. I'm just not sure if it can actually be done. I want to paint it out a different color, but more importantly I want to replace the fret inlays. Can I take out the inlays and replace them with something else? I would have no qualms going to a professional for help(which I figure I'd need anyway), but is that a process that can be done, or would it call for an entire neck replacement? I'm looking at only aesthetic customization, but to the degree I could mod out a guitar I'm not sure. Thanks alot!

sidenote: the ibanez custom is closed to anyone except for their endorsed players these days, right?

[littlephil]

You could replace the inlays, but it would be more work than its worth. If you only want it for looks, you could get some of those sticker 'inlays' and just cover the old ones, or just get a new neck, because replacing inlays would probably end up costing as much as a new neck.

[turtlelephant]

oh cool, thankyou. i'm trying to take an RG 565 and trick it out to look just like one of those rg565dy prototypes(been trying to get my hands on one for a couple years), so i guess that it could be done? what about exchanging out fretboard wood, or i guess putting a headstock on a new neck? the entire process seems rather tricky/elaborate/expensive and i know nothing of it so i appreciate the feedback.

[Magical Muffin]

If you want to change the inlays and fretboard wood, you might as well get a new neck, which at that point you might as well change out the pickups and stuff like that too, and at that point you basically have a different guitar, especially since most of a guitar's 'feel' is in the neck.

[turtlelephant]

Yeah, that's a really good point and certainly true.

But say I did want to just change out the inlays/fretboard and keep the original neck. I mean, could I do that? Because I want to keep as much of the original 565 as I can with just some aesthetic customization and maybe a pickup change, and I'm not too concerned about the cost. I just sold off my two sort of expensive guitars and I have a good sum of money from these past couple years, so it's more a matter of if I can then if I should. Although I totally see where you are coming from, and that I must sound like an idiot. I'm not really a guitar collector, but I've been trying to get a guitar to these exact specs for awhile and I think this is probably the only way I'll be able to do it. I've always really enjoyed tweaking my instruments or making them somewhat personal, I've just never taken on an endeavor like essentially ripping out the fretboard.

[littlephil]

You could change the whole fretboard, but its a lot of work and pretty hard to get done right.