Refinishing my Ibanez Axstar

MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

Well-known member
Probably over a decade ago by now I picked up an Ibanez Axstar body to rebuild as a parts guitar; which I did. It came out pretty good. This is what it looked like when I first fixed it up all those years ago.

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Of course it got some nicks & scratches over time and some of the paint chipped off from use. All of that was fine as it gave it some character. In 2016 when my house flooded it went underwater and the finish got severely fucked. Luckily the body, neck and other pieces were still structurally intact. All the damage was superficial.

Between all my other projects I'm finally getting around to fixing it back up. Last weekend I took everything apart and stripped the old paint off the body. This morning I stained the body. This go around I wanted to try something a little different. I decided to use some of my fountain pen ink to stain it. I've used India Ink before with good results so I figured why not try some fountain pen ink.

I used De Atrementis Document Ink Turquoise. Unlike other fountain pen inks that are water based and will fade out over time, this one is pigmented and permanent. I tested it on some scrap maple and it came out close to the same color as on paper; pretty close to this...

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Once I put it on the body it came out a lot darker with a slight purplish-blue hue. Since the body is basswood (I think) the ink probably reacted differently with the tannins to make it darker than what it was on maple. Not what I was expecting, but I still like it. So I'm going to go with it. I'm waiting for the ink to fully dry then I'll start the clearcoat. I'll be using Varathane brand Poly gloss. Here's the body as it sits now.

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Took a bit to finally have enough time to finish everything and get it all back together. In the last steps fine sanding and buffing I went through the finish in a couple of places. I could have touched it up, but was ready to be done so I just went with it. It's a guitar from the 80's so some wear in a few places is expected anyway.

I'll still have to do a setup after the neck and all adjust to having tension on it. And dammit all if I didn't have a full set of strings on hand. I didn't have a high E string anywhere. So for the moment it's missing a string until I get to the store.

I can't remember which pickups I had in it before, I think it was Ibanez Quantums in the neck and middle position and AN IBZ/USA in the bridge. I do know initially the wiring was a bit screwy. I tried to do volume knobs for each pickup. It sorta worked, but wasn't the best. Plus it needed a bunch of wires for that scheme so it looked like a rats nest in the cavity.

This go around I did an IBZ V1 & V2 in the neck & middle respectively and an IBZ/USA F2 in the bridge. I copied the DT555 wiring scheme, which I think is the same as the HSH Axstar wiring. It's a 3 way toggle for neck & bridge pickup, middle pickup volume, master volume, and master tone. So you get the typical neck and bridge pickup selections and use the middle pickup volume to roll in as much as you want from none to full. The only thing you don't get is middle pickup by itself.

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