Project guitar

[rsm]

My "les paul" / fav hardtail dual humbucker guitar is the Ibanez PS10. Unfortunately, Ibanez doesn't offer snow white / alpine white, just black, or the various cracked mirror.

So I decided to do a project guitar. Luckily, Chinese factories are accommodating.

I have this now, fit and finish is very good, nice action out of the box, minor intonation adjustment with the original strings.

I ordered a set of DiMarzio D Activator-X pickups in white - 25% off sale; chrome and white pickup rings, see which I like better; white speed knobs, and chrome pickup selector tip.

Need to condition the fretboard, which should make it darker.

Pickups will take 4-6 weeks to ship.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

How is the fretwork? Are they leveled well? Any fret sprouts, sharp edges or lifting?

I've considered picking up one of the Chinese Icemans for a long while since they have several colors other than black to pick from. I'd do it as a similar project. I have stuff in my parts box to swap out pickups and upgrade the bridge & tuners. But if the frets need a lot of work I really don't want to put that much effort into it.

 

[rsm]

How is the fretwork? Are they leveled well? Any fret sprouts, sharp edges or lifting?

I've considered picking up one of the Chinese Icemans for a long while since they have several colors other than black to pick from. I'd do it as a similar project. I have stuff in my parts box to swap out pickups and upgrade the bridge & tuners. But if the frets need a lot of work I really don't want to put that much effort into it.

I have three of these from aliexpress, this white one and another (purple) are very good, one has finish damage under the clearcoat but other than that they are good players, no major issues with frets, neck, hardware, setup and intonation.

The problem is not all of the "shops" are the same, though I think they get guitars from common sources...I think I got lucky 2 out of three times.

You can see the white clouds and dots under the clear on this one:, but the rest of the fit and finish is very good, even the binding is near perfect which you can see in this pic, and it plays well, well balanced and stays in tune, sounds good stock:

 

[rsm]

These guitars were all under $300 shipped; I think the white one was $240 IIRC, maybe $260 tops. These all have set necks, the fretwork is good, and the overall fit and finish is very good for the price (except the silver mirror body top; the rest is very good). They stay in tune, intonate and setup easily, no neck adjustments. The pickups are ok, for the white one it's more wanting white pickups vs having bad stock pickups; I had a D Activator-X set on an older Ibanez Iceman, maybe the ICT500 or similar, and liked them; my PS10's and PS120 have Seymour Duncans, so this will be different.

White and chrome hardware will ghost this out, nice contrast from my black PS guitars.

 

[rsm]

Chrome pickup selector tip, white speed knobs. Also have the chrome and white pickup ring sets, waiting for the DiMarzio D Activator-X white set to be delivered.