CA Guitar Repair Blog: 2009 Ibanez JEM-JR Overhaul

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Further Servicing

It's been raining hard all day and well into the night. What's a poor repairman to do, then? Tell you what, the hardware has been soaking in MultiLube for a day or so. Should be good and ready for further cleaning with an abrasive buff. In the image below, items in the aluminum baking tray on the left have already been buffed, while those on the paper towel on the right have yet to be. That oily reddish-brown patch shows you just how much corrosion has already dissolved into the lube.

Servicing Hardware/Rotary Tool/Abrasive Buff

Reassembling the Edge III

Moving on to the Edge III, disassembled components have been soaked in lube and cleaned, as described in the preceding section. These include the locking nut rear mounting bolts and washers, tremolo arm height adjustment screw, knife edge and base plate mounting screws, saddle lock bolts and washers, string holder blocks, string stopper bolts, and tremolo arm torque adjustment grub screws. As for the larger components such as the base plate, knife edge, tremolo block, and string saddles; they've been cleaned, polished and lubed. Additionally, all threaded bolt mounting holes have been cleaned with cotton swabs soaked in naphtha, and lubed with synthetic lithium grease.

Reassembling the Edge III

Edge III Fully Reassembled

Headstock-Mounted Hardware

Over on the headstock side of things, each and every component located here has been carefully cleaned, lubed, and/or serviced. These components include the truss rod adjustment nut, tuners, tuner washers and bushings, locking nut, pressure pads and bolts, locking nut rear mounting bolts and washers, string retainer bar and screws; as well as the plastic truss rod cover. The string retainer bar, truss rod cover, and locking nut pressure pads will only be reinstalled during final setup.

Locking Nut Reinstalled

Locking Nut Rear Mounting Bolts

Greasing the Tuner Bushings

Tuners Reinstalled

Reinstalling the Neck

Let us shift focus to the neck now. You might recall from Part 3 that the fretboard and frets have already been taken care of. What's left, then, is to reinstall the neck. The neck mounting screws and ferrules have already been cleaned of corrosion, discoloration, and various categories of crud, and I believe there is visible improvement. One more thing needs to be done before actually screwing in the neck, though, and that is to lubricate the screw threads with candle wax.

Neck Screws Waxed

Neck Reinstalled

Restringing and Final Setup

The JEM-JR is now ready for restringing and final setup. As the owner prefers 10s, I've put on a set of Dunlop DEN 10/46s. Setting the intonation has not gone as smoothly as anticipated, though. Now, look closely at the second image below. The high E, B, G and D saddles are where they should be. However, the A and low E saddles are about level with the D, when they're normally much further back. Strangely enough, this is where I've had to lock them for proper intonation. Ah well, all said and done, this 2009 Ibanez JEM-JR is now good to go, and that's all that really matters.