So I've got a JS1600 coming and I'm gonna strip it back to bare wood and oil it.... watch this space....

I got a JS1600 Chrome plated. I love it. It's actually silver plated.

Wow! Thats awesome!

I recently picked up a 1600. Great guitar. My concern would be the visual quality of the wood underneath. It would really suck to strip it down and have an ugly azz piece of mahogany underneath.

I know Rich was planning on doing it with the 1600s he had left over, but they all sold.... If he was game enough to try it, so am I

I wonder if Rich would be willing to share some pictures of the end results with us. I would love to see the finished product.

I don't think he ended up with any left to convert... but heres the link of his idea....
http://ibanezrules.com/new/js6.htm

Guitar Guru was going to strip a couple for me but they sold too fast as 1600's [they were blowouts] and I never sent him any.

I kind of wish I also had a 1600 in its original state. I think it's a good looking guitar. At first I was thrown by the headstock but I got used to it.

I did this to a JS700 a long time ago and was surprised at how much thinner it became after removing all of the paint (+ clearcoat + sealer). You have to dig pretty deep to remove all the sealer which is necessary if you want a nice looking oil finish. Otherwise it's liable to look a bit splotchy. When I was all done, I could tell how much was gone by how high off the body the cavity cover set. Not a huge problem, but I had to reroute the recess for the cavity cover.

Hopefully its not too thick on the 1600... and hopefully... the grain underneath is nice....

I think it'll look great. I've seen several stripped JS guitars over the years and it's clear that they didn't compromise on the quality of the wood even when it was to be painted. It'll be a fair amount of work, but in the end I expect you'll be pleased with the result.