Partscaster Gets Some Help

Here's a good-looking sunburst Partscaster assembled and refinished by a Adel, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Pekan; Pahang. Pretty impressive work, I must say. Reverse headstock, 25.5" scale, 14" radius dark hardwood fretboard, maple neck, locking tuners, two humbuckers, master volume and tone, vintage six-screw tremolo; what's not to like? 

Quite a lot, it would seem. For one, the guitar was unplayable. The action was way too high, especially at the nut; and the strings could not be intonated based on the 12th fret harmonic. Also, the break angle at the headstock was non-existent due to the straight headstock and lack of string trees. The strings kept popping out of the nut slots as if they had a mind of their own.

Then there was the problem of fitting the pickguard. Trying to position the pickguard as I wanted it could not be done. The pickups could only be adjusted so far sideways or be lowered so much before running into wood. Right away I realized that the pickup cavity not only needed to be widened; but deepened too. Besides this, the three-way switch had been wired "backwards." Selecting the neck humbucker gave you the bridge instead; and vice-versa. The volume and tone controls were working as they should; thankfully. 

To compound the problems already mentioned, I noticed that the high E string was almost falling off the fretboard edge and string/pickup polepiece alignment for both pickups was way off. To remedy the situation, I knew that (i) the bridge would have to be repositioned laterally; and (ii) the neck shifted slightly in its pocket.

And so began the task of getting this Partscaster into playable condition. After taking some measurements, the scale length was determined to be 25.5 inches. Only problem was that the saddles, with about 1/16" of play left; were 25.75" from the nut. So I knew that the bridge would have to be shifted forward until the saddles were at the 25.5" mark.

As for solving the string/fretboard edge and string/polepiece alignment issues, it involved deepening and widening the pickup cavity, lots of measuring and testing with a length of string; as well as a slight neck adjustment. All this meant that the old holes would have to be plugged and leveled; and new ones marked and drilled. Tedious, no doubt; but absolutely necessary.

To provide sufficient downward pressure at the headstock end of the nut, a Floyd Rose-licensed string retainer was added. Besides this, the nut slots were deepened sufficiently; and the whole nut reprofiled afterwards. Before re-assembling the guitar, the "backwards" switch wiring was taken care of.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this job was the request by Adel that the tremolo bridge be immobilized and effectively turned into a "hardtail" or fixed bridge. A man wise beyond his years, Adel be! To this end, two more springs were added for a total of five, the trem claw screwed in nice and tight; and a painstakingly-shaped block of hardwood installed in between the trem block and cavity wall.

Once this Partscaster was reassembled and set up with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys; the time finally came to plug it into my Fender Champion 40 and give it a good workout. I must say the tones that emanated from this guitar were way better than I had anticipated. If you'd like to know what this guitar sounds like, do check out the YouTube video I've uploaded. That's it for this post, and thanks for dropping by :)

Ibanez RG370AHMZ | Part Two

◀ Part One

In the previous post on this gorgeous Ibanez RG370AHMZ, I highlighted some of its more pertinent specifications. Now, in this post, we'll take a closer look at the Edge Zero II tremolo bridge, ZPS3Fe "counter-tension tuning stabilizer system;" and also the control cavity components.

The Edge Zero II tremolo bridge consists of a cast alloy base plate, individual saddles; and fine tuners. As a "double-locking tremolo" system, the bridge works in conjunction with a locking nut. But you knew that already, right?

Meanwhile, the ZPS3Fe "counter-tension tuning stabilizer system" consists of two "sub springs," string stopper, stop rod and spring adjustment knob. Ibanez believes that the ZPS3Fe helps to "ensure tuning stability" by returning the tremolo more "quickly and accurately" to the neutral position when the tremolo arm is released. 

I'm no expert on tremolos and such, but I do say that the ZPS3Fe works as it should and saves a lot of time and labor during setup. For one, the spring adjustment knob and stop rod eliminate the need for fiddling around with screwdrivers or tapered wooden blocks. 

The control cavity appears to be shielded with conductive shielding paint, and the inside of the cover with aluminum foil. Components include an Ibanez 3SWLSP5 five-way switch and two dime-sized Alpha (Korea) pots.

Now, what does the Ibanez RG370AHMZ sound like? To answer that question, do check out any of these great YouTube videos:

Moonrunner Music 

Megahurtz30 

Bax Music UK

Dawsons Music & Sound

 

Iceman Gets a Bigsby | Part Three

Related Posts  

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

This post is the last of three on a made-in-Korea Ibanez Iceman; more specifically an IC300DM. The guitar was sent in to have a Bigsby B5-style vibrato tailpiece and brass nut installed; and some electronics modifications carried out. 

In Part One, we looked at the features of the guitar as received. Then, in Part Two; all the mods that needed to be done were discussed in some detail. Now, in this post; let's lay back and look at some pics of the finished product. If you're wondering what this Iceman sounds like after all these mods, here's a SoundCloud audio file for your listening pleasure :)

Acknowledgement

BIGSBY is a registered trademark of Fender Musical Instruments Corp (FMIC)

Iceman Gets a Bigsby | Part Two

Related Posts

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

This post is the second of three on a made-in-Korea Ibanez Iceman; more specifically an IC300DM. The guitar was sent in to have a Bigsby B5-style vibrato tailpiece and brass nut installed; and some electronics modifications carried out. In Part One, we looked at the features of the guitar as received. Now, in this post; let's take a look at what was actually done to fulfil the owner's wishes.

One of the first tasks carried out was deepening the pre-routed switch cavity to the proper depth for a toggle switch to be installed. This was carried out with a Forstner bit on my drill press. Following this, the hole for the switch was drilled with a suitably-sized bit. 

Thankfully, a test fit confirmed that the job had been successful. Following this, a hand-held drill was used to create a wiring channel connecting neck pickup and switch cavities. The neck heel tenon was also carved a wee bit to make way for the wiring that was to come.

Meanwhile, the string-through holes needed to be filled and leveled as they would serve no purpose once the new vibrato bridge had been installed. The holes were first plugged with glued-in wooden dowels from both sides. Once the glue had dried, the plugs were trimmed flush and a sealing mixture of wood dust, black dye and super glue applied. 

Once the top and bottom sealing layers had hardened, they were wet-sanded to make them as flush as possible with the surrounding finish. Now, a refinish was not on the cards as it would be too expensive and time consuming. As such, the sealed holes were visible after the job had been done.  

The pickups that were to be installed in this guitar were an Epiphone humbucker in the neck position, and a Seymour Duncan STK-S10 YJM Fury in the bridge. Obviously, the YJM would require some sort of humbucker to single coil conversion ring. Eventually, after lots of careful measuring, both pickups were installed. The conversion ring for the YJM was fashioned out of a piece of black SSS pickguard glued on to a flat-bottomed bridge humbucking ring.

Now it was time to install the Bigsby B5 (clone) vibrato unit. The general rule of thumb was "measure twice, cut once," as there was absolutely no room for error. The three major factors determining correct bridge placement are:

Correct scale length to ensure accurate intonation

In this case, the scale length was 24.75" and as the bridge post studs were already in place; there wasn't really much to do.

String/fretboard edge alignment

Get this wrong and you might have the high E string slipping off the fretboard edge when you play.

String/pickup polepiece alignment

You want each string to pass over the center of its corresponding pickup polepiece for optimum and balanced output across all six strings. Although it's not always possible to achieve this, I try to make sure that none of the strings miss their mark completely. It's always been a matter of compromise, see.

Yet another issue to be taken care of was the new controls layout and related wiring job. Now, as the toggle switch had been relocated to the top bout, that left a large unsightly hole that needed to be filled. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and relocate the output jack to the former toggle switch hole. 

Trouble was, neither an NYS229 nor Switchcraft #11 could fill the void, they were just too small. As luck would have it, I had an input jack from a Marshall amp lying around; and it fit perfectly. With that, the pre-existing output jack cavity on the butt end of the body became redundant. The cavity was plugged with a large wooden dowel; and sealed with a mixture of black dye, wood dust and super glue.

Once the electronics had been wired in place and tested, it was time to tackle nut setup. As I'd predicted, the brass nut was way too tall; so the top was filed down and new string slots cut. Once I'd gotten the string action at the nut just right, the whole nut was reprofiled, sanded; and polished. 

I'm glad I used a set of cheap "stunt" strings for this procedure; as they were totally trashed by this point. Next, the whole guitar was vacuumed clean, and a fresh set of 10s installed. After a proper setup, this Ibanez IC300DM Iceman was rarin' to go :) 

Acknowledgement

BIGSBY is a registered trademark of Fender Musical Instruments Corp (FMIC)