Sunday, May 26, 2013

The un-blackening (4)

The final few touches for my Ibanez S470 happened yesterday. The ZPS system was restored as depicted above. When I bought the guitar, the previous owner had one of those screws (1) missing, the surviving one was terribly corroded. The whammy bar was also stuck in the bridge shaft. I had to work the mechanism from the rear, broke some very fragile, plastic parts along the way (2) but managed to get the bar out. I placed orders at Eillek Oet & it took a while to come. The entire back plate was oxidized & threatened to decay but that was taken care of by some chrome polish which worked wonders.

Before heading over to Beez's, it was re-strung with a set of Pyramid strings (.009).

Moving over to the headstock, the entire nut locking assembly was replaced; one of the locking studs was missing, one was rusty & the final one was rounded. The chassis was removed as well, I'm very happy with the Gotoh replacement unit- fits to a tee. The string retainer bar was also replaced & I had a hard time finding a direct replacement. The ones in the shops now are conforming to Fender/ Floyd Rose measurements so they are a little narrow. The one here was another Eillek Oet order. Chrome screws- a little out of place, I know. They will be replaced in time to come.

Finally, a new set of tuners as the previous set was half-dead with corrosion threatening to take over. They were on sale at Eillek Oet anyway so it was a good catch.


Electronics makeover done by the Beez master himself. Can you see the orange cap in there?

All done.Glorious restoration, I'm terribly satisfied. Played with it till late last night while watching Batman.

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