Super RG

Neck shaping finished







Pickups Routed... almost I think it still needs a single coil in the middle... I guess I should ask.






Starting on the carve





Carve roughed in....Still have a lot to do.

Ready for paint...

Strung it up, made a nut, tuned it up... man it was bad. But after putting the correct radius in the bridge saddles and adjusting the nut a little I could feel some potential. The back bow in the neck I saw earlier in the week was gone with a set of .0011s on it. Neck turned out to be dead straight at pitch with no trussrod adjustment. I think the neck moved a little between the fret job and final shaping. I have some tweaking and polishing to do on the frets but we are ready for paint.

BTW 1 7/8" at the nut is huge... wide and flat (16 in radius).
Turned out much lighter than my RG550. I know it doesn't have pickups in it yet, but the difference is substantial.

Progressing towards Yellow

A little farther along... I will be putting strings on it this week and giving it the play test.

Tuners

Drilling the tuners with my new tuner jig. I drilled 9 holes in the jig... probably only needed 8.

Glueing the neck

Glueing the neck

Covers ...

Built maple covers. Not sure I like them. I dyed them vintage amber as a test. They are the same maple as the neck and I think I am going to die the neck and sand it back to bring out the flame.

Marilyn

Back to RedStar

I think this is the star I am going to use for the headstock inlay

Super RG

Zebrawood/Ebony bodied SuperStrat. This body is based on a cross between an RG and a Blackmachine. 8/4 Zebrawood with an Ebony center strip. The 5 piece neck is maple/zebrawood with an ebony fretboard. I am experimenting
with a longer tenon on this one.

Neck : Maple/Zebrawood
Fretboard : Ebony
Scale : 25.5
Frets : 24
Trussrod : Warmoth

Body : Zebrawood and Ebony strip.
Tuners : Gotoh Vintage RG Tuners
Pickups : V1, S1, V2 Vintage Ibanez RG pickups
Bridge : Fixed Strat bridge
Electronics : standard RG style 5-way, Volume, Tone

Project RG

I needed an RG to play after retiring my heavily modified RG470. I never really liked the feel of a stock RG but I have always loved the wizard neck. Some of the things that needed attention are the volume knob, the arm bevel, the belly cut and weight. In order to retain the look I kept the edges sharp, while drastically increasing the bevels. I still need to work on the heel transition. Since I always hit the volume knob on the stock RG I moved it to a more Gilbert like position out of harms way. Next was to simplify the electronics and the looks. I used a strap jack instead of a regular RG input, removed the middle pickup, single push/pull volume knob to switch pickups, and replaced the edge with a wilkinson. I might add a coil tap switch later but it is not in the plans right now. This is a very personal RG.

The set neck is laminated big leaf maple and walnut with a maple fret board and a bigger Ibanez style headstock (like my 82 destroyer). The big leaf was a little soft but has proven to be quite stiff. The body is poplar, while I should have used basswood I didn't really care since it will be painted and I like the way poplar works. It is currently sealed with thin CA and a top coat of thicker CA. After I assemble it and make sure it is worth keeping I will paint it. No need to paint it to find out it needs a major adjustment.

Neck : Flamed Big Leaf Maple/Walnut
Fretboard : Flamed Big Leaf Maple
Frets : 24
Trussrod : Warmoth

Body : Mostly one piece poplar, small side sections glued on
Tuners : Gotoh Vintage RG Tuners
Pickups : V1, V2 Vintage Ibanez RG pickups
Bridge : Wilkinson
Electronics : push/pull volume swith, strap jack


The biggest issue I have now is painting it. The poplar looks better than I thought it would.

Not Desert Yet....