Goodbye: JPM

Finally bid farewell to the Ibanez JPM as it made its way to its rightful owner, Mr. Amin. This instrument was under my care for a makeover of sorts. Here's what took place:

• Complete fretboard clean up + re-moisturizing
• Fret polish
• Pickups clean up
• Bridge clean up
• Tuners clean up
• Replacement of entire top lock nut assembly & string retainer
• Re-string + action set up

My take-away from this episode

1. Clean vs replace. We shouldn't be too quick to replace parts. The initial approach is always to clean them as parts are salvageable, it's a matter of knowing how to clean them. If you are dealing with Ibanez parts especially, off-the-shelf replacements are likely to fail. Many of us assume that Floyd Rose spares & its derivatives would work but no. Even the Japanese Gotoh parts do not conform entirely to the Ibanez specs. Replacements need to be exact & American parts should never be in the equation.
2. Strength in limitation. OK I'm not a qualified luthier by any means but I got away with out-witting the conventional approach. The clean up process here for instance involved simple, user-friendly products some of which are non-guitar related. For the metal parts for instance, Autosol & Mr. Brasso are commercial affairs that manifest limited reliability. If you notice, over time, Autosol treated parts would turn green. I had since resorted to vehicle care products & the Turtle Wax range of buffing & polishing compound are currently my go-to brand. These were formulated to be weather proof so treated parts would withstand moisture attack better than the general, household brand. Also, pitted & mouldy surfaces could be easily restored using these products as opposed to scouring them with sand paper. I have the above tuners as proof. 
3. Try & keep trying. I had a hard time dealing with the fretboard as a thick layer of gunk threatened to make its residence there permanent. The specifics of this will be discussed in details soon but suffice to say that a few attempts were necessary & it involved some improvisation & the embrace of, once again, non-conventional supplements. This came about because of an initial failure. I am so used to cleaning the fretboard with just a cloth & oil approach but these were insufficient to deal with stubborn stains. 

The top lock nut assembly & string retainer bar were replaced entirely. The painful lesson here was that, some online Japanese stores are mere brokers, they source for what you need from the Western countries & that would mean one thing - incompatibility. It took me about two months worth of correspondence & repeated purchases to get this right. Please take note of specific measurements when dealing with online purchases. Be ready to quiz the seller (politely, please) on what you need precisely. No, any replacement unit of similar make won't work, especially for Ibanez parts. These people take pride in the fact that they are not reliant on after-market replacements to furbish their instruments, it's all about being self-sufficient & to hell with what others have to offer.

Not a big DiMarzio fan but the Air Norton/ Steve's Special pair are deserving pickups here. The Air Norton, to me, should be the benchmark for those who are neck-inclined when it comes to solos - lots of clarity & very good cleans. The Steve Special might not be everyone's cup of tea but it has a good bass response for guitars featuring tone-robbing bi-directional whammy bridges. 

The JPM100 is a simple guitar that works extremely well for high octane rock & beyond. Despite being a signature model, it's actually a no frills player. The neck isn't a Super Wizard but it's a very addictive affair, still very shred-y & speed inducing.