Guitar Repair

Dammo

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what could be done with this old Ibanez (not sure of model).

Obviously the guy who owned it has mangled it trying to fit all sorts of knobs. Not sure why.

Could 'cavities' be filled with pieces of wood? Or would some sort of filler be needed? Would that affect sound?

Any input welcome. Thanks.

Ravelleman

At the risk of sounding negative I'm going to say that it's probably not worth it.

Dammo

Lol, I figured as much really. Replace body altogether then you reckon? Any ideas what model this might be?

steveone

eh....does it play?
whats the battery for? preanp /sustainer? I'd say the humbuckers tapped to run in series and parallel... with either or both the singles... there's probably a whole load of vai /satriani/may stuff goin on there ha...

wiring could do with a clean up....p/u cavities could be shielded...what cavities are you looking to fill with filler?
if you're talking about removing pots then you'd fill that with a hardwood dowel from woodies and some glue...new scratchplates are cheap to get hold of.
I've a body thats got a floyd rose and is set for HSH if you want to replace the body but I'd look into keeping it intact meself......

Celly Smunt

what in god's name was he trying to do there ,it looks like he tried to hook a fcuk load of switches upto a battery

Dammo

No idea what he was trying to do tbh, I know nothing about electronics. It used to play but I've no idea what the battery was in aid of. I only found it again recently and there wasn't a peep out of it. Maybe the battery is central to the whole setup.

I've decided to chance my arm at putting a new body on it (by that I mean I'm going to go stand around looking at other lads cutting, routing, etc.). It'll be a project to occupy me for a while at least.

Rented Mule

The holes can be filled, but then you're going to need to repaint the guitar.

If you've got the time and patience, you could probably do it yourself. If you're going to take it to someone to do the work, it's going to be costly and probably not worth the investment.

Elysian

Dammo wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what could be done with this old Ibanez (not sure of model).

It's a mid 80s RG440:



I used to have a similar one, it was a great guitar but I'd have to go with the consensus here and say that this one in it's current condition wouldn't be worth the time and money it would take to fix it up properly. I'd also love to know why the original owner replaced the neck and middle pickups with Telecaster bridge pickups

steveone

theres probably a good sound out of it... with all the taps and the non standard singles it might sound like the red special..put it together, put a battery in it and see what happens? what have you got to lose?

Gaspode

Looks like he dug out those cavities with a butter knife!

steveone

Gaspode wrote: »

Looks like he dug out those cavities with a butter knife!

they were eaten out by a rare strain of bacteria only found in the highest of places.....:D

Dammo

I was sure he was a professional luthier! Thanks Elysian for the model, my online searches didn't shed any real light on it. I'm fairly sure it'll play with a new battery but I've always hated the look of it so, as I say, I'm going to use it as the basis for my first attempt at putting a guitar together and see how it turns out. Cheers for all the advice/info lads.