Ah, the early 80's Ibanez Musician. Anyone remember when these things were cheap? I don't, but in the 70's and 80's Japan starting pumping out high-quality electrics to compete in the world market, Ibanez being the best-known. These were some of the only non-American good quality guitars out there, though the body shapes and headstock logo were often Gibson rip-offs. This era more or less ended when Gibson sued the crap out of the foreign Ibanez, issuing endless cease-and-desist orders. It was a time when Gibson quality was at a low, and Ibanez was providing a very viable alternative. As things sometimes tend to work out, I'm guessing that a side effect of these lawsuits was to provide the notoriety to help make Ibanez the mega-company it is today.
This model has more knobs and switches than any sane player knows what to do with, including an insanely loud fire-breathing active-passive switch that acts like another amp inside the guitar. This one came to me with a lot of corrosion on the frets and in the electronics, but the neck looks great for a 25 year old and I knew the playability could be improved quite a bit with a fret level and setup. The electronics cleaned up fine, and the playability is now better than just about anything out there, including those expensive Gibsons from the same era.

Guitar-a-day

I had the idea for these postings last week, when a small storm of very interesting instruments landed on my bench at the repair shop that is my place of employment. I thought of all the interesting and/or hilarious things we've seen there in the last five years, and knew I'd be doing myself a disservice by not recording at least some of them. I certainly do not plan to stick to posting every single day, but when I get the chance to snap a few photos during the week I'll talk about one instrument for each posting. If only five people, including myself, look at this site, I think it will still be worth the minimum of effort to show at least some of the very cool, bizarre, wonderful or terrible things I get to work on.


We'll start today with a guitar I'm building away from work, in my basement. Here is my humble 9' by 16' basement shop. Builders in Paracho or Granada would kill to have this much space. It is here that much time is spent making messes, losing tools, and trying to find places for tools or wood I may or may not ever use. This is where all the magic happens.






And Here is the object of the day, the Rogers Coffin. Some day it will be used for evil, not good. Or at least for evil-sounding riffs at head splitting volume, which I happen to think is quite good.









Look Ma, no neck bolts. The best way for a builder of electric or acoustic guitars to try to dispel some of the stigma associated with bolt-on necks is to build good instruments with bolt-on necks. A tight fit is essential. As is decent playability despite a bulky heel with most bolt on designs. The advantages offered by bolt-on necks benefit the builder, the player, and future repairers. The disadvantages of a well-made bolt-on instrument are few, and sonically are none.