The edge was swapped for a lo pro on Rich’s end as this lo pro will be used for an another project that is en route which I’ll post about eventually

It almost hurt once I saw how pretty it looked but up close the paint job was actually not great so I ended up going through with it. I replaced the guard with a genuine Ibanez pickguard pre 2003, as the premium guard shape is very off.

Here’s a quick mock-up w a spare edge j had lying around

Relic’ing begins

 

First the chips off the sides, then the scratches. The scratches probably took the most time

 

Now the back, same procedure.

Group shot of the future wall art haha!

 

Wow. You are a Steve Vai super fan!!! 🤣

 

So my intuition that the paint on the Indonesian premiums being different than the Japanese 7v counterparts was correct. In my adolescence I had left an old white Indonesian rg350 in the sun on a summers day and it yellowed the guard and surprisingly the body a bit

I left it out yesterday and today and it turns out, thanks to the strong pre summer sun, it is slowly but surely yellowing.

Attached underneath is a mock-up on photoshop of the end result after the paint yellows and final assembly with the correct hardware.

Updates to come in chunks as they happen, there isn’t much left to do but wait!

i put the mockups on Facebook and it got a like from Mr. Sugi himself, which was pretty cool

 

Ouch! That would be so hard to do that to a guitar of that level! For me anyway... Amazing job though! So many "relic'd" guitars are just so blatantly phony looking, so obvious even to the casual observer. Like blue jeans in the store that have holes in the knees already, lol... You should do a video of a Vai cover with it when finished. 👍

 

It was a second stock due to a finish blem on the front anyway, the paint job wasn’t great so overall I didn’t feel bad.

I think I’ll do one eventually. The other ones on my ‘secret’ YouTube cover channel have all been really well received.

The real reason I did this is cos a friend of mine is building each of us a true to life FLO replica out of square heel bodies, so I needed an evo to complete the collection.

 

Nice work
I'm not generally a fan of relicing but that definitely looks good and qualifies as a work of art!

 

Looks awesome, great job!

 

Let’s see the headstock

 

That's some dedicated work, man. Will you swap the gold hex screws for black ones in the humbuckers?

 

It surprisingly didn’t take that long!

I just checked and I think they’ve been gold since the originals were swapped out. Someone I know had taken some revealing shots of it during a product promo and it looks like they’re gold

 

all in all it should be stupid

Yep, you said it

I cannot get behind this in any way shape or form... But personal opinion on that aside, objectively, you've done a great job in replicating the relic that sells for 10 times the initial value of this one.

and it's still probably better than either the torched JEM777DY or the mutilated "Hulk" UV7BK from years ago.

 

ouch

How did you feel about the Jem evos?

I’ve never seen either of the guitars you mentioned but they sound.. interesting

I don’t even think of it as a relic job really, more of just an ‘as exact as possible’ clone of the original to satisfy my eyes when I walk by it . With the color right, to me eye, it’ll be the only one I’ve seen as close to the original-
I’d never relic a guitar for the sake of having it just appear beat up. The guitar I just stared at most while learning guitar happens to be beat to sh*t! Haha

 

I think this was posted on the ibanez group and you were put down for it

Those premium jems are too expensive that one is $1800 on every music website and not even MIJ

A shame they killed the japanese Jems. Those PIAs are too feminine-looking. Maybe they'll come out with new jem next year for the anniversary

 

I think this was posted on the ibanez group and you were put down for it

Those premium jems are too expensive that one is $1800 on every music website and not even MIJ

A shame they killed the japanese Jems. Those PIAs are too feminine-looking. Maybe they'll come out with new jem next year for the anniversary

I don’t recall being ‘put down’, in fact almost all comments were extremely positive.

And I didn’t pay $1800 for it

 

You shouldn't care what anybody else thinks. The only thing that matters is what you think, and no doubt it fits what you wanted it to be. I think on the back you should have signed it 1 of 1, and your name

 

I certainly don't, ha! I wanted it, I did it, I’m happy with how it turned out. I’m not sure how Far the finish will yellow before it stops, but either way it’s a pretty cool piece of wall art & will no doubt make it into some covers in the not too distant future.

 

Alas, after a couple months under a sun lamp, a custom neck & some decal application the replica is finished. It’ll get some tweaks here and there; I still need a silver dimarzio ClipLock if anyone wants to sell theirs! Otherwise it’s set to do a few covers and otherwise sit as tribute on the wall next to another special ‘sister’ project a friend of mine is working on details on that soon.

 

Alas, after a couple months under a sun lamp, a custom neck & some decal application the replica is finished. It’ll get some tweaks here and there; I still need a silver dimarzio ClipLock if anyone wants to sell theirs! Otherwise it’s set to do a few covers and otherwise sit as tribute on the wall next to another special ‘sister’ project a friend of mine is working on details on that soon.
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That is the first relic job I’ve seen that doesn’t look fake and ridiculous. Congratulations! It actually looks like honest wear.

 

I'd like to have one like that for the same reason I'd want the Frankenstein strat, beautiful wall art, nostalgic appreciation for one of the greats. That's a legit replica man, well done! 🤘👍

 

I feel the same way... Most "relic'd" guitars look silly to me and normally I am not a fan at all. You did a fantastic job on it though! The attention to detail makes it look like the real deal... a real tribute to a very special guitar.