Ibanez RG470 restoration project (Pic heavy)

  • Thread starter Thread starter satannica
  • Start date Start date
S

satannica

New member
So, as I was cleaning out my cupboard, I came across my old Ibanez RG470.


As a back-story, this had been an earlier restoration about 10 years ago! During a rather hectic gig with my thrash band, at the end of the show, I took my guitar off rather enthusiastically. Sadly, the neck caught a lighting rig above me (it was a small venue) and developed a crack centrally down the middle. I sourced another neck locally off another RG470 from Rokas in Denmark Street - I remember the serial numbers being so incredibly close and everything matched my old neck exactly, down to the stamping. I bolted everything up and it felt damn good as new! I rocked this guitar again for another few months.

Given the incident, and the fact that my drummer at the time was a car painter/crash repairer and offered to respray the body for me, I went for an (abortive) restoration. As you can tell - if his respray skills are anything to go by, woe betide his customers :S I believe this is Vauxhall Nova white with Nissan Sunny black! Given how goddamned horrid his paint job looked, it went in the cupboard, forgotten about in the presence of a nice shiny new Jackson RR1 I just bought.

Now, I've found it all again, time to restore this old girl!





I do believe, however, that these are the original neck mounting screws:


Now a few shots of the neck...


Can anyone tell me the year? I'm sure it'd be about 2002 or so.


An RG550 stamped neck which I'm sure is... er... better than... other necks? I don't know hahaha. But that's AANJ if I'm not much mistaken.

But thank heavens:

The younger version of me decided it would be prudent to keep hold of the original tuners with all the bits needed to reattach to the neck. Phew!!!!

On with the show... The first port of call is to check out the neck.


This neck has been sat in a cupboard for 10 years or so and been through a house move. So the fretboard is covered in gunk. The frets seem in good condition, though could use a clean up.

I decided to start using the Dunlop kit - I swear by this thing these days.




First pass of the fretboard cleaner (the number 01 stuff) and you can see how much gunk came off the fretboard. I was wondering if I wasn't removing some sort of dye Ibanez had used, but eventually I cleaned it up.

Now the concerning bit...



The fretboard is proper dry! To the point where the splits are quite apparent. Nothing seems raised or deepened, but I think this needs a bit of conditioning.

My intention is to go get myself so Fret Doctor as recommended on the MyLesPaul forums and see what that does with it.

Ah well - step 0 done, onto step 1: Neck.
 
Just to note: this restoration will take a while. My intention is to build everything first so it all fits and works and solve any deep rooted problems; then I'll respray the body in the Summer when the weather permits.

As for finish, I'm not a fan of swirls, but thinking of a real 80s finish, like a bright red or yellow. Bridge I think will be an OFR; it seems like it will fit judging by the diagrams on the Warmoth site and the original bridge is long gone anyway.

Current shopping list - in order:
Fret Doctor to sort out that gunky fretboard
Some bushings for the neck screws; I'm sure they're long gone by now
A black OFR kit and some shims
Jack plate
Some humbucker rings
EMG 81 - will eventually be a trio of EMGs, but this is just to test things out.
Electronics cavity plate
A set of straplocks
 
This should be a fun project. Im currently doing the same thing with an rg570 i have.
 
So that Dunlop stuff cleared out the waxy crap that builds up in the pores of rosewood?

I've been curious on how to get rid of that on a couple of my guitars. Also have a nice Warmoth superstrat being built that has an incredibly sexy rosewood board and it will drive me crazy if it starts to get that built up crap one that piece.
 
The Dunlop stuff did a good job of cleaning off the gunk. It had been mine and whoever owned it before me whose sweat had become entrenched... yes, it was as grim as it sounded. But one shot of the Dunlop stuff took care of all of it, no bother.

GuideanceOfSin: With rosewood and indeed any unfinished wood, the trick is to really not let it get there in the first place. My ebony boards need very little maintenance. My Jackson RR1 has had no maintenance on the board, other than the standard cleaning regime. My number 1 catch all for all guitar cleaning is Dr. Duck's Axe Wax. You can use it on everything and it's just magic! I only use the Dunlop kit for anything that needs a bit of attention. With rosewood, keep a bottle of lemon oil and hit it every 18 months or so. Manufacturers reckon every year, but I just don't see the need. BTW, lemon oil is a no-no for ebony! I have no idea why, but I assume it's because ebony is naturally quite waxy anyway.

As for me, the main concern I had was the dryness of the board. I'm lucky in that it doesn't appear to have shrunk or expanded and there's no sharp fret ends, but it was getting there. Sadly, the much heralded Fret Doctor doesn't appear to have made it to the UK; the cheapest I found on ebay was about £9.

Instead of fret doctor, I passed by my local woodwind and picked up some bore oil instead which was another recommendation. A snip at only £1.


A rather unassuming paperclip-high bottle of stuff I'm sure you'll agree! I had a chat with the tech there who reckons almost all woodwind players have these problems at some point and I had very little to worry about. It was nice to have some validation from someone who looked face-deep in wood shavings and all manner of woodworkyness.


This is the first application. The guy reckoned I may need to go 3-4 times with my board. The first made a huge difference. I applied this yesterday around 12ish and left it sit overnight. The board initially felt like a pair of jeans but now it felt more like a piece of paper. Much improved, but not quite there.


I've thrown another load on it now that yesterday's application has set in (it's about 9am) and will leave this sit for the rest of the day. This bore oil looks like it's working wonders; I reckon I could get away with maybe 2 applications. Don't worry, I applied it a little better after the photo was taken. One tip for any future restorers: When working in the bore oil, go with the grain, not against it. In my case, I rubbed in vertically (i.e. fret-to-fret, not side-to-side) as that was the way my grain was going.

Now that the neck is coming along, time to break out the ol' credit card and get some hardware ordered.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top