My '77 Ibanez project

This stray followed me home last night.

Seems to be a 2420CW made March of 1977.
Hopefully she arrives in one piece w/ the Super 70's !

Looks like she could use a nice bath.
Hopfully with some TLC she'll behave nicely in her new home.

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

Tomek - Congrats on your new pet. The stray has found a home!

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

The seller has just gotten back to me.
Apparently he's going to put the guitar in it's case,
then bubble wrap the case, put it in a box, and ship it tomorrow!

So far so good! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

I think you'll have the Japanese equal to the Gibson Les Paul, they pretty much copied the Gibsons, and Martins at this time.. resulting in a stop doing that lawsuit from both companies... :lol: Steffan

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

I think this might be from "the lawsuit era"! - :lol:

""On June 28, 1977, Norlin, the parent company of Gibson, filed a lawsuit against Elger (Ibanez) in Philadelphia Federal District Court .
The case was "Gibson Vs. Elger Co." eith Gibson claiming trademark infringement based on the duplicate "open book" or "moustache"
headstock design of the Ibanez copies. Allegedly Gibson had threatened to sue Elger/Ibanez for a long time regarding the use of
the headstock which Norlin claimed as a Gibson trademark. Ironically, by the fall of 1976 Ibanez had redesigned their headstocks
to look much like those found on Guild guitars. The new headstock design even appeared in the 1976 catalog!

So, conspiracy theorists, by the time the lawsuit was actually filed, the headstocks had already been changed.
While "lawsuit" head generally means a Gibson copy headstock, the Ibanez headstock at the time of the lawsuit was
actually a copy of a Guild headstock.

It is an urban legend that the Gibson/Norlin lawsuit was filed against a number of Japanese companies.
It is also commonly held it was over the exact copying of American designs. Neither of these urban legends are true.""

Taken from http://www.guitarattack.com/destroyer/lawsuit.htm

edit - typo / formatting

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

I was talking to someone not too long ago that was at the Gibson trade show, again not too long ago, they have a studio in Maple Ridge, and were the only people invited that weren't Gibson dealers, anyway the guy I was talking to said that one of the older guys at Gibson told him that the old Japanese knock offs were "every bit as good as the Gibsons..." you may have a winner there. Steffan

Re: Not a Guild, but a nice new score

Hahaha... Good story, thanks for sharing!
Keeping the fingers crossed. :wink:

PS - like your quote!

Re: My Ibanez project

So she's made it here!

I'm glad to report the neck and frets are in great shape!

She's gonna need a serious cleaning, so I'm in the process on taking here apart.

Any idea what that green gunk on the pups is?
Apparently the hardware is gold plated...

Any idea if CLR would be save on the hardware?

Cheers, Tomek

Re: My Ibanez project

Taking it all apart... Manged to break 3/4 knobs taking them off, doh! hehe
It's like they haven't been taken off in 32 years! :roll: shees

Man oh man, is this thing cruddy!
I tried cleaning it with lighter fluid, but no go. Didn't do a thing!
Guess what did it? My warm breath (so it fogs up) and wipe - repeat till clean. She cleaned up nicely (pics to come).

Took some 0000 steal wool to the frets and neck. Perfect!

Plugged 'er in, oh oh! no sound.
Looks like a problem at the patch cord! (I could tell by wiggling the cord).

Take a look at this! My soldering iron couldn't even get through this crud! hehe


It does look like she came with the original Super 70s and everything is wired with nice shielded cable.
Too lazy to de-solder everything for now gonna try and get her up and running ASAP.

Great-looking project tomek. Those are really fine guitars--just preceding what I feel is the "Golden Age" of Ibanez. A musician colleague of mine played one of those for years, and I do think they easily surpass 70s Gibsons in quality. I had a '79 Ibanez Studio ST300 that just plain rocked! It also had those classic late 70s big fat Ibanez frets.

The green stuff is simply oxidation--common on brass and copper based metals. Brass polish should add that post-breath sparkle.

Can't wait to see the finished product. It looks like the top should polish up nicely. :wink:

Re: My Ibanez project

tomek said:

Any idea what that green gunk on the pups is?

Click to expand...

Previous owner maybe? :lol:

jp said:

Great-looking project tomek. Those are really fine guitars--just preceding what I feel is the "Golden Age" of Ibanez. A musician colleague of mine played one of those for years, and I do think they easily surpass 70s Gibsons in quality. I had a '79 Ibanez Studio ST300 that just plain rocked! It also had those classic late 70s big fat Ibanez frets.

The green stuff is simply oxidation--common on brass and copper based metals. Brass polish should add that post-breath sparkle.

Can't wait to see the finished product. It looks like the top should polish up nicely. :wink:

Click to expand...

Thanks jp,
Which era would you consider Ibanez' "Golden Age"?

Phase one is complete...(General cleaning w/ warm breath and microfiber cloth, 0000 on the fingerboard and frets, and testing to see if it works.)
She plays, feels, and sounds great! It's truly a pro. instrument. Very balanced sounding acoustically.
Very fast action, but a little bit of buzzing around the top three frets (gonna cut me a new nut).
The super 70s sound cool.. A little lo-fi and break up easy for my liking, but definitely great old school sound (Jimmy Page comes to mind).





Once some parts come in (nut,tuner bushing, pickup harness, knobs and pins) I will proceed with faze two:
Cut new nut, clean brass, polish guitar and brass, inspect electronics (even though everything appears to work fine let's look inside).
I wonder in re-soldering all the electrical connections would affect the sound...

tomek said:

Thanks jp,
Which era would you consider Ibanez' "Golden Age"?

Click to expand...

IMHO, it started immediately post-Gibson lawsuit, when Ibanez committed to creating their own designs. One could claim that the lawsuit was the best thing that could have happened to them. At their start it seemed that they literally copied everything on the market--Gibsons, Ricks, Fenders, and even Hofners. I think the Artist was one of their only original models.

In '78 they went to market with the Artist, the Iceman, the George Benson GB-10, the Studio and Musician series, as well as a host of others that probably fulfilled just enough design variation to keep the legal dogs at bay. They also landed some big endorsement/artist models--Bob Weir, Rik Emmett, George Benson, and of course Gene Simmons. In addition, I think (don't quote me on this) they made all their own hardware and electronics. I know every piece of my neck-thru body ST300 was like nothing I'd seen before: tuners were customs locking with tension adjusters, a hybrid brass/bone? nut, absolutely ripping humbuckers with an active EQ, and a very interesting yet effective bridge. Everything was quality with telltale signs of craftsmanship. I recall that they also started landing endorsements from lots of jazz/fusion guys like Steve Lukather and Lee Ritenour.

Arguably, depending on your musical and instrumental tastes, I feel this was their golden age which continued until maybe '83 or so, when bigger hair and super strats took over. They had huge successes later in the 80s and 90s with the Steve Vai and dude metal wang bar kinda models. Then I lost interest.

There are so many Ibanez fansites out there it's astounding--catalogs posted, registries, massive collections. I wish I still had my Studio. It was the perfect thing when I was going through a Santana phase. Mine loooked very similar to this.

Your resto looks great so far! Looks like you'll have fun with it. That is, if you can put down that S-100 you just scored

jp said:

They also landed some big endorsement/artist models-- xxx and of course Gene Simmons.

Click to expand...

LOL too bad. hehe

jp said:

In addition, I think (don't quote me on this) they made all their own hardware and electronics. I know every piece of my neck-thru body ST300 was like nothing I'd seen before: tuners were customs locking with tension adjusters, a hybrid brass/bone? nut, absolutely ripping humbuckers with an active EQ, and a very interesting yet effective bridge. Everything was quality with telltale signs of craftsmanship.

Click to expand...

Very cool!

jp said:

Arguably, depending on your musical and instrumental tastes, I feel this was their golden age which continued until maybe '83 or so, when bigger hair and super strats took over. They had huge successes later in the 80s and 90s with the Steve Vai and dude metal wang bar kinda models. Then I lost interest.

Click to expand...

I'm with ya there! Just when I thought the new Ibanez sutff is great (bang for the buck) it's just not the same as these older ones. I use to have a "recent" Iby 335 copy and it was good, but not like we know they can be I guess we can say that about many a guitar company, that it's just not the same.. While the new stuff does sound and feel ok (good) they seem to lack the icing on the cake (sort of say).. The new ones just feel and sound sterile (or lacking character) for lack of better words. I wonder if that's more to do w/ the aging of the instrument, or build/material? Perhaps it's both, but I sure do love the oldies!

jp said:

There are so many Ibanez fansites out there it's astounding--catalogs posted, registries, massive collections.

Click to expand...

Interesting, I've always kinda been my own Ibanez fansite, but it would make sense as they are beautiful instruments. This one is a great example of that. Anyone that's come-by my house the past two days, cannot put it down! I've never seen my friend play so much! EVER! hehe

jp said:

I wish I still had my Studio. It was the perfect thing when I was going through a Santana phase. Mine loooked very similar to this.

Click to expand...

Yes, I ogle these as well as other "customs", "studios", and the like.
big fan of the late '70s stuff from them. I'll let you know when I see them flying around
Sounds like you have some making up to do!

jp said:

Your resto looks great so far! Looks like you'll have fun with it. That is, if you can put down that S-100 you just scored

Click to expand...

Thanks, you caught me! haha
I'm going to have to thin the heard a bit to pay for the S-100 (which I'm confident will be my #1 for a long while).
How can you choose which child to sell to slavery? IMPOSSIBLE!
Wish me luck! hehe

Tomek, if you haven't already found it, the Ibanez Collectors World is a great website, particularly for the vintage 'leccies like this.

^^^ are you insinuating I get my hunk 'o junk off this forum? :?

Just kidding, I'll check it out! Thanks for the tip

Tomek

Heck no. See my sig...

I yes... I see, I'm not the only Iby lover around here

Edit - anyone have any idea where to find a brass tip for an "import" switch? Thanks

Edit 2 - I just finished giving this thing a rip as no one is home...

It lasted about two hours, and I've worked up a sweat.
There were times the hair on the back on my neck stood,
while at other times, I was in some other world that may have been haven.
(if that tells you any thing) hehe

Holly poop! :shock: I thinks I just shat my self. :lol:
Man those '70s sure are Super

I have never sounded that good (with the tubes a hummin)

Sounds like you're havin' a blast, Tomek.

I have been collecting series I Artwoods, which were original design acoustics, post-lawsuit, that took over in the Tama shop in Owari Asahi, Japan. What fantastic guitars.

You'll get some good feedback on your desire for parts / info over in the ICW, Tomek: http://www.ibanezcollectors.com/forum/v ... onlyand41/

Thanks Chazmo,
I'm getting some help over there now.
Sounds like we're going to be soaking all the hardware in coke overnight to clean it! hehe

I'll be sure to post some pics once she's complete.

Cheers,
Tomek