1990 Ibanez RG 550 restoration

[KenV]

When my wife and I got married awhile ago, she surprised me by getting me a really rare left handed guitar. 

This guitar is OLD, at least from my perspective, cause it was made the same month I was born. 

It was an RG550, in left handed maple glory with original case, papers and warranty card. 

The prior owner must have been a mechanic or something tho cause he never seem to have washed his hands. 

Since we have all had a bit more free time since about March.. I decided to take this guitar apart and start cleaning it up a bit. 

Every single piece of metal was rusted. All surfaces were scratched or swrilled. And worst of all. The entire fretboard was black.

At first I wanted to try and just clean the board.. but the dirt had been left on so long it was actually spots where the fretboard finish had been eaten away at. 

I ended up having to scrape the rest off with a razor, sand it down a bit and bleach it with a outdoor deck cleaner. 

After that I spent some time reoiling the neck with tung oil, and then painting all the metal on the guitar black again. 

I'm really happy with the result. 

And btw, the guitar is known as Hera.

All my guitars are named after Greek mythology, and Hera happens to be the goddess of Marriage.

She's made it 30 years, here's to another 30!

[badpenguin]

Very nice, and congrats on a great guitar! I personally think the V7/V8 pickups were some of the best produced by Ibanez.

[KenV]

42 minutes ago, badpenguin said:

Very nice, and congrats on a great guitar! I personally think the V7/V8 pickups were some of the best produced by Ibanez.

I like the v7/8 combo too, but this actually has the older v1/2 set when DiMarzios was still making them for this model!

They sound almost like evos, just a tad thinner.