Hi,
After some lengthy lurking, I had to sign up to invoke some peer support regarding my RG's quality issues.
I purchased RG1527Z Prestige a month or so ago, and all these little discrepancies have been piling up ever since.
Firstly, the tremolo bridge. It is clearly installed off to the bass side, the gaps at the sides being 1.8 mm at the treble and 0.3 mm at the bass. Discrepancy of 1.5 mm does seem quite substancial to me, and I find it hard to imagine that it would fit inside any manufacturers tolerances, let alone Team J-Craft's. This obviously also results in strings being out of alignment - clearly visible while looking at the 4th string against the 21 fret inlay. Taking a look the tremolo string unit, the discrepancy is even more obvious: 1.0 mm bass side, 3.0 mm treble side, measured from the tremolo block to ZPS-string respectively each side. 2.0 mm discrepancy here.
For the strings 3,5 and 7, the intonation adjustment bolt comes poorly against the very highest edge of the bridge unit wall. End of the bolt being round and the edge being not only round but also of rather slippery chrome, this spells disaster. Upon loosening the saddle lock screw, the tension of the string pulls the adjustment bolt quite forcibly against the threads of the fine tuner. Damage. Threads knackered, fine tuner thus next to useless.
Playing some dreamy passages with lots of vibrato, continuously holding the trem arm, results in such a screeching, cracking and snapping racket from the trem arm retainer spring that you wouldn't believe. Makes my teeth chip. Grease does help for some half an hour of playing. I even polished the tremolo arm groove and tip with chrome polish - with added grease that helped for a day. I cannot honestly keep adding grease all the time - the bloody thing will get tricky to hold on to, in the end, with excess grease oozing out of every crevice. Some slapsticky hilarity should ensue, though. Only add a boater hat and some clanky saloon piano soundtrack.
Also, operating the tremolo produces some rather worrying snaps from the neck joint. Maybe due to the 0.35 mm gap between the neck and the pocket on the treble side? Isn't that gap a bit too sizeable as well? This should be Prestige, after all.
Then there is this minor splinter in the wood between the neck pup cavity and the neck pocket as well... Frets were far from mirror finish... No trussrod or bridge height adjustment gets rid of excess string buzz without playability suffering considreably... Weird resonances from saddle on some strings, especially while bending...
In essence:
1) Faulty tremolo install
2) Faulty saddles
3) Noisy tremolo arm
4) Dodgy neck joint
5) Damage to body
6) Fret issues
Unfortunately all this results in a guitar that I'm quite reluctant to pick up and play.
The reason I'm looking for opinions is that I need to be absolutely confident should I initiate the warranty process on this. The thing is, the (authorised Ibanez) dealer is a tad dodgy, and in all likelyhood he will try to wriggle his way out of this. He already tried to breach our agreement on price upon purchase. So I need to know what I'm saying and to be confident.
So, what you reckon? I'd find it worrying should such discrepancies appear to be within standard Ibanez Prestige manufacturing tolerances. Or maybe - I freely admit the possibility - I'm just too fuzzy?
Wasn't that one tedious moaning fit. If you reached this far, hats off to you, sir!
Anyhow, cheers!
After some lengthy lurking, I had to sign up to invoke some peer support regarding my RG's quality issues.
I purchased RG1527Z Prestige a month or so ago, and all these little discrepancies have been piling up ever since.
Firstly, the tremolo bridge. It is clearly installed off to the bass side, the gaps at the sides being 1.8 mm at the treble and 0.3 mm at the bass. Discrepancy of 1.5 mm does seem quite substancial to me, and I find it hard to imagine that it would fit inside any manufacturers tolerances, let alone Team J-Craft's. This obviously also results in strings being out of alignment - clearly visible while looking at the 4th string against the 21 fret inlay. Taking a look the tremolo string unit, the discrepancy is even more obvious: 1.0 mm bass side, 3.0 mm treble side, measured from the tremolo block to ZPS-string respectively each side. 2.0 mm discrepancy here.
For the strings 3,5 and 7, the intonation adjustment bolt comes poorly against the very highest edge of the bridge unit wall. End of the bolt being round and the edge being not only round but also of rather slippery chrome, this spells disaster. Upon loosening the saddle lock screw, the tension of the string pulls the adjustment bolt quite forcibly against the threads of the fine tuner. Damage. Threads knackered, fine tuner thus next to useless.
Playing some dreamy passages with lots of vibrato, continuously holding the trem arm, results in such a screeching, cracking and snapping racket from the trem arm retainer spring that you wouldn't believe. Makes my teeth chip. Grease does help for some half an hour of playing. I even polished the tremolo arm groove and tip with chrome polish - with added grease that helped for a day. I cannot honestly keep adding grease all the time - the bloody thing will get tricky to hold on to, in the end, with excess grease oozing out of every crevice. Some slapsticky hilarity should ensue, though. Only add a boater hat and some clanky saloon piano soundtrack.
Also, operating the tremolo produces some rather worrying snaps from the neck joint. Maybe due to the 0.35 mm gap between the neck and the pocket on the treble side? Isn't that gap a bit too sizeable as well? This should be Prestige, after all.
Then there is this minor splinter in the wood between the neck pup cavity and the neck pocket as well... Frets were far from mirror finish... No trussrod or bridge height adjustment gets rid of excess string buzz without playability suffering considreably... Weird resonances from saddle on some strings, especially while bending...
In essence:
1) Faulty tremolo install
2) Faulty saddles
3) Noisy tremolo arm
4) Dodgy neck joint
5) Damage to body
6) Fret issues
Unfortunately all this results in a guitar that I'm quite reluctant to pick up and play.
The reason I'm looking for opinions is that I need to be absolutely confident should I initiate the warranty process on this. The thing is, the (authorised Ibanez) dealer is a tad dodgy, and in all likelyhood he will try to wriggle his way out of this. He already tried to breach our agreement on price upon purchase. So I need to know what I'm saying and to be confident.
So, what you reckon? I'd find it worrying should such discrepancies appear to be within standard Ibanez Prestige manufacturing tolerances. Or maybe - I freely admit the possibility - I'm just too fuzzy?
Wasn't that one tedious moaning fit. If you reached this far, hats off to you, sir!
Anyhow, cheers!
