Ibanez Superstrat project!

This is my latest Ibanez super-strat project! Here's the story of an Ibanez RG550 Japan neck that was bought used and fitted on this lovely ibanez roadstar body!

http://www.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_electric_guitars.html?partner_id=73786

The roadstar body had already been modified a little as the the neck pickup cavity and tone pot holes were filled with wood putty. The body was originally painted red but it was sanded down and its edges became smoother. Then it was finished in cream white. The result was not that great so the previous owner decided to bolt a single humbucker pickguard on the body and sell it on.

Once I bought the body, I removed the pickguard and reworked its pickup cavities. I used several layers of wood putty and sanded the body every time to ensure the result would be really smooth. I also covered all the pickguard holes and fixed the scratches and dents of the body.
Then, I sprayed 2-3 coats of white primer on the body. Then, I sanded the primer and sprayed the "Sea Foam" blue color on. Once dry, I finished the guitar with 3 coats of clear. The result is pretty good and it looks as though the guitar had never a neck pickup, a pickguard, a tone pot or a pickup selector switch...
Less is more!

As for the hardware, the tremolo is a single locking Floyd Rose licensed one. The tuners are the original ibanez rg550 ones. The locking nut is brand new.
The pickup is a Wilkinson ceramic humbucker with a metallic chrome ring. It sounds hot and full of mids!
The 500K Volume push-pull pot simulates the sound of a neck pickup when pulled up! The neck-sim circuit is a simple tone-cut filter based on a 10nF capacitor. The pickup sounds really smooth, almost like a neck pickup when the push pull pot is pulled up. What a playable tone-monster!


Project specs:
Ibanez RG550 MIJ neck, Ibanez roadstar modified body, licensed by Floyd Rose single locking tremolo, Wilkinson humbucker pickup, chrome pu ring, chrome dome knob, 500k push-pull Volume pot with neck PU simulator!

Check it out:

Cheers,

Thanos