Ibanez Artist inspired walnut and Pine built.

I'll be honest, I always loved those early own designs from Ibanez and I owned an early eighties Artist in Natural which sounded amazing but weighed as much as a grand piano.

So a couple of days ago I traced a Les Paul and flipped the thing over to create the Artist outline on a piece of plywood, to make myself an Artist routing template.

And today put it to use on a plank of pine which splintered at the upper horn.

Luckily, I had enough pine left to glue another piece on there. But the thing is, with pine you can't used a Tune O Matic and stop bridge because the wood is too soft to actually keep it secure. So I knew I had to add a top which was sturdier than pine and I had some pieces of walnut lying around which came from an old closet.

As for the neck, I'm going to use a Washburn neck which I had lying around on this.

 

Thanks for the offer but for me the fun is doing all of that myself.

Anyway, here's a little update.

Glued the top and back together, drilled the cavities for the controls and switch and gathered up the parts I'm going to use, which include a seventies Harmonica bridge which is as authentic for a guitar of this design as it possibly can get.

The body is five centimeters/1.968503937 inch thick, which again fits with the look and vibe of a late seventies guitar.

 

Well here we are today.

The pickup routs look rather sloppy but that's because of the drills I used to deepen the routs. And no, the switch wasn't in when I drilled and routed the body.

The neck pocket is too shallow but my router bit simply couldn't go deeper, so I have to chisel and rasp my way into the proper depth.


But it's starting to look like something although I have no idea what it's starting to look like. 8)

 

Probably wine red.

Nothing wrong with Wine red.

 

Yes, just like that and seeing that guitar makes me wanna put a Bigsby on there too.

 

Slowly but surely it's starting to come together.

But for some reason she reminds me of Malcolm Young's Gretsch more than an Ibanez Artist.

 

I spend a lot of time painting, sanding, lacquering, sanding, lacquering, sanding, adding up to around seven layers of lacquer.

But the result speaks for itself.

I had some mishaps with the dye dripping at some of the edges but I couldn't remove it fully without having to strip it all off.

But seeing this color gave the guitar its name "Candy"

 

Well here we are today.

It's not quite done, I still need to make it some back plates, Two of the pots weren't turning so I didn't hook them up and I screwed up the bridge alignment so I have to plug the hole of the lower stud and re-drill it. It actually intonates perfectly so I actually don't have to do so.

But she plays and sounds just fine, the middle section is out of phase but I actually like the "Peter Green" sound it has that way. You may notice there's no height adjustment screws for the neck up, I screwed it straight into the wood.


But my intention of making a guitar that has the vibe of an early eighties Made in Japan solid sure came true, although, it doesn't really nail my intention of making it look like an Ibanez Artist. It reminds me more of one of those Roland GR guitars that Pat Metheny still plays.