EX

We begin December with a story of resurrection. Ibanez fans will know this Ibanez is from another era with no current lineage. It's an EX360. All EX Series were discontinued in 1993. It's an interesting guitar as the body ergonomics are a fusion of the RG (scooped cutaways) & Radius (rounded edges) appointments. Also, the inlays were the pre-shark tooth version & the headstock decal sits a little more towards the nut. 

When I took over ownership of this guitar, it was in a beat up condition but still playable. The leather bag it came with was severely flaked & was discarded immediately. The headstock had chipped parts along the edges which I managed to touch up & it looks more presentable now as seen above. Two of the tuners were very loose owing to missing washers so I decided to replace all with Wilkinson tuners instead. One of the truss rod cover screws was missing as well & this was an easy replacement. The fretboard was surprisingly clean but dry. Frets are in players' condition with severe wear at the 7th - 13th areas, especially at the treble side. I didn't bother re-dressing them as my light touches manifest only slight buzzing which is tolerable by my standards.

The previous owner was upfront about the body finish which was done by a non-pro. I find it acceptable but had to give it a thorough wipe down & it looked cleaner thereafter. The electronics - it was equipped with a 3-way selector which was duly replaced with a 5-way. The pickups - the bridge humbucker had to be swapped out as it proved to be too weak for any good overdriven tones to manifest. The one you see here is a DiMarzio Air Classic which I have lying around. The default single coils were surprisingly good so they were kept in tact & the pole pieces cleaned up. Volume & tone knobs were recent replacements so they stayed put. The TRS bridge was surprisingly set up properly so very little tweaking was done when fresh strings were installed. Some rusty parts were unforgivingly sanded off. 

This was actually my black Friday acquisition after I decided against buying anything from the shops as there were really no good deals to be had compounded by my limited purchasing power. 

It's already December. For many of us, it's a wonderful time of the year but for me, it's the most miserable month of the year. Living in this country requires you to be fully employed, otherwise, depression will set in quickly.