GS270 (6)

Done & good to go. Reminder - this is an Ibanez GS270, a GIO Series guitar made not to look like one. This is my third GIO given this kind of treatment.

Was at Beez's yesterday to get the electronics done.

Nothing fancy, a pair of Artec rail-type high output humbuckers. The middle single coil is the default pickup which was given a black metal cover.

Not too pleased with the replacement truss rod cover as it sports cloudy build ups but glad it was available.

A fresh set of Olympia strings. 

Was this re-finish necessary? No. It was a fun engagement for sick people like me to pass the time. I enjoyed seeing my efforts come to fruition & was not bound by any standards. I'm not a pro guitar tech who makes a living out of this. I also don't believe in sending my guitar for a pro paint job because it's costly. Thanks for reading / following. 

TEJ

After some digging, I found out this is a Fernandes TEJ-75 model. I am the third owner of this guitar, the second owner had scant info that he gladly shared with me. The body's previous finish was stripped down & re-finished with what looked like a gold top. There were numerous scratches on the guitar body so I gladly re-finished it in blue with a light glitter coat.

Here are the scratches, evidently, I didn't use a filler before applying the blue coat. This was intentional because I used whatever colours I have in the mean time, I obviously did not have any fillers 😅 The glitter coat was meant for another guitar but it made its debut here. The pickups in there are DiMarzio Distortion S models. Was told the previous pickups were active units but I am not a fan. I prefer angry passive pickups.

Will continue to use Olympia strings as long as they are still available. 

Black S (2)

Once upon a time (CLICK to know when exactly this was), I promised to do a follow up on this guitar but somehow failed to keep to the promise. The primary frustration was getting those upper frets to not buzz. After countless attempts, I gave up. Today, I decided to re-look at things from a fresh perspective. It seems that the neck didn't sit level against the pocket surface. Was wondering how the previous owner dealt / endured this. Have a feeling he didn't venture up the upper frets. A quick levelling of the neck pocket (sand paper) & shimming did the trick. Folks, whatever the issue, sometimes it's important to leave things unresolved & return with a renewed vigour to solve things, not just guitar-related issues.

A quick re-string, of course.

 

If you are atrracted to & intend to purchase these Chinese rail-type humbuckers - don't. 1) There are no specific neck / bridge models so the neck & bridge tones are the same (no kidding) 2) Excessive bass. In fact, I had to put my amp's bass level to ZERO for it to sound normal / acceptable but it could have been lesser. 3) Note separation is absolutely rubbish 4) The clean tones manifest fuzzy farts & this would give you a clue to the kind of output on offer. These pickups are dirt cheap (less than $10 each) but I regret not spending on strings instead. Oh, well.

Wishing everyone a good week ahead.