Pulled the trigger for Ibanez UV70p 7-string

[Deleted]

www.ibanez.co.jp/products/eg_page14.php?year=2014&area_id=3&cat_id=1&series_id=22&data_id=141&color=CL01



Wish me good luck my bros! I'll get back with a NGD thread, that's for sure!

[Deleted]

Update : had to return it.
I dont know If i was right or wrong in this decision but the time was tight and I decided to bet that the new one will be fine.

Problems I had with the guitar :
1) (minor) some washer had slipped under the G saddle making it higher than the adjacent saddles. easily fixed.
2) (not minor but neither major) the saddle intonation lock down bolts are of the worse quality. The heads of 3 of them (out of the total 7) stripped easily. Had to replace one of those with a classic one from an old licenced (and very cheap) floyd rose trem.
3) (not minor but neither major) the trem springs gave me the impression that they behave differently depending on the phase of the moon. I setup the guitar one day, only to find it with different action height and trem bridge angle the next day.
4) (major), the neck heel could simply walk freely into the pup cavity, pushing the neck pup from the side and producing this effect :


When it was like this, neck stability was bearable but intonation sucked. When i tried to create some clearance with re-screwing the neck, i always ended up with an ultra unstable setup.

The guitar itself, for the time it was playable, it was just fantastic from every aspect, hence i attempted to ask for replacement.

Lets see how the new one will be.

[cynical1]

That's a drag. Unfortunately, it seems like Ibanez is suffering some of the same pains every other manufacturer (versus individual builder) is suffering from. In a race to meet a price point the quality goes to Hell. Unless you're going for the flagship you might just need a life jacket...

I have three Ibanez instruments. A '95 ATK bass, and a recent Mikro bass and guitar. The ATK is a great bass with no issues, aside from being active. (and that's just a personal thing as my aging brain forgets to unplug the damn thing constantly). The Mikros were a mixed bag. Granted, they are "entry" level instruments and you can't expect perfect. The electronics on both sucked and once something good pops up on eBay both the bridges and tuners are history as well. The bass build quality was surprisingly good and with new electronics, tuners, nut and pickups it sounds pretty damn good. The frets on the guitar were the worst I'd ever seen. I spent a couple days cleaning up the frets and putting in a new nut, but after that it plays quite well.

Keep us posted on how this goes. I've always like Ibanez's build quality in the past. I'd be sad to see them sink to the level of the other whores in the industry.

HTC1

[Deleted]

This mikro bass is nice! Did you use that for some grandchildren of yours ? I bought some 7/8 scale guitar but none of my kids want to touch it.
Anyway, also with my first Ibanez the ARZ800 I got lucky the second time since the first one had that tail-piece problem (http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6548/frets-blues-tight-tune-shim) , and I gotta say the replacement is an exceptional guitar, albeit "made in china", great stability, great tone, sustain at low action.
*Maybe* it would be wiser to solve this tailpiece problem with the first one, since the first one had slightly better fretwork.

Now with the universe UV70p ("made in indonesia"), the first one had a massive beastie neck. So strong and stiff like no guitar I had. It had those KTS titanium reinforcement rods, on parallel with the truss rod. Also the fretwork was just perfect. But it had this problem with the mounting of the neck. The neck heel pocket seemed like it had no "stops" hence no way to stop neck heel in place against the pup cavity. I just could not feel right repairing a rather expensive instrument 3-4 days after I got it.

I will revert back with any updates.

[cynical1]

Actually, the Mikro bass was for me. I wanted a short scale bass, and this is about the shortest scale around. I gutted the electronics, stuck in a stacked DiMarzio Jazz pickup and an old Bill Lawrence P-Bass pickup. It actually sounds much better than I would have expected. ASmith played it while he was over here and liked it.

HTC1

[Deleted]

An update from thomann (the seller) :

they say this instrument has been "repaired" and/or "unscrewed" and refuse to exchange it for a new one.
The pics they sent show some minor scratches in the pickguard and around the neck screws, which IMO can be corrected in less than 30 mins.
They say they will forward the guitar to Ibanez, and if they fix it its ok, if not they will replace it.

So, what's your prediction, will Ibanez service in Germany be able to fix this?

[cynical1]

Unless there is some serious issues with the wood they should be able to fix it.

Most issues buyers have with a new instrument is lack of QC at the factory. Stuff slides through. Back in the old days it was expected that you'd have to setup new basses and guitars when they came in, maybe clean up frets and a nut, before you put them out on the floor. Sadly, these days, no one does much more than take it out of the box and hang it on the wall.

Got my fingers crossed for you.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Thanx Cyn1!
As I understood, the problem was that the body apparently had no "stops" to hold the neck heel in place,
(an AANJ 24 fret looks like :

you can see the little "horns"-stops at the end of the neck pocket, providing a safe place for the heel to sit, apparently this was missing in mine
or was damaged somehow
)
hence the neck had the tendency under heavy trem use, to slip towards the pup cavity, thus harming intonation + the neck heel/body joint was unstable, + apparently the neck screws were drilled under this condition (wrong) thus creating an unstable guitar :
- every time I was able to fix the neck firmly to the pocket, it was stable but pushed the neck pup abnormally also harming intonation, since the whole system was moved towards the bridge.
- every time I created the needed clearance between neck heel and neck pup, the neck pup looked ok, parallel with the body, but the whole system would become ultra unstable, it would keep moving towards the bridge, + not all recessed screws would screw all the way in.

So, I think two things must be done :
1) create some stop in the pocket that prevents the heel to walk into the pup cavity
2) plug and re-drill at least one hole in the neck.
3) the worse case scenario would be to plug and re-drill all body and neck holes, in case the body holes were done badly since the start.

I am afraid they will return the guitar back to me, as is, and say its ok.

smth also tells me, that it was better that they didnt replace the guitar, cause i really liked the neck and fretwork of this one.
If you remember the case with the ARZ800 and the loose tail-piece, guess what, the second one, was just a tad worse than the original, in the sense that the 13th fret is slightly higher, smth that was not the case with the first one. I wish, I have kept the first one and just repaired the tailpiece stud gluing in the body.

[cynical1]

If the neck is good and you like the feel I'd just remork it until it was stable and screw the warranty...but that's me.  Sounds like a design issue. No big deal. If it comes back with the same issue, Sonosonny did a great post on using inserts instead of the typical wood screws to attach a neck.  Might even consider throwing another insert\screw in there for extra stability.

It does seem odd to have so little reinforcement for a seven string neck.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Nov 13, 2014 16:16:59 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

If the neck is good and you like the feel I'd just remork it until it was stable and screw the warranty...but that's me.  Sounds like a design issue. No big deal. If it comes back with the same issue, Sonosonny did a great post on using inserts instead of the typical wood screws to attach a neck.  Might even consider throwing another insert\screw in there for extra stability.

It does seem odd to have so little reinforcement for a seven string neck.

HTC1

Great post Cyn1, kind of eye opening, smth tells me, I'd have to rework it myself. Sonosonny's work is very interesting. Thinking again about it, the body holes where the wood screws go in, are recessed, they are those :


So, plugging and re-drilling the body is smth I would like to avoid. I will see what I can do with only dealing with the neck.

[cynical1]

You don't have to fill the recessed holes. Once the inserts are in the neck, just use the length screw needed to make a tight fit. You may have to pull the countersunk screws bushings, but that's easy enough to do.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Nov 14, 2014 16:45:27 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

You don't have to fill the recessed holes. Once the inserts are in the neck, just use the length screw needed to make a tight fit. You may have to pull the countersunk screws bushings, but that's easy enough to do.

HTC1

Hi Cyn1,
I didn't mean filling the recessed holes. What I meant is that it is harder IMO to move around the body holes in this one, than e.g. on a strat, where everything is flat. So, if plugging and re-drilling is needed I would prefer to do it on the neck heel, and leave the body holes alone.
Also I did not understand about pulling the countersunk screws bushings. Where are those supposed to be? Can you please explain?

[Deleted]

They replied to me, it might take them one month to have an answer from the Ibanez service in Germany, so, for the moment we wait their verdict or any actions.

[Deleted]

Just an update : Ibanez Germany said that the warranty was voided, since I had unscrewed the neck! But that they repaired it in good will, they fixed the neck and adjusted the instrument. I cannot know exactly what they did, but I kind like how it went, given that the fretwork and neck were gorgeous! Crossing fingers that no damage has been done in the meantime. If they fixed the neck (plugging / drilling?? I dont know) that's all fine, all that is left for me to do is deal with the crappy saddle screws and potentially some heli-coiling. If not, then I will have to do the neck myself with your help.
I'll let you know !

[cynical1]

Well, it all sounds good so far. As long as the neck is good the rest of it you can work out.

Fingers crossed accordingly.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Nov 28, 2014 0:46:08 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Well, it all sounds good so far. As long as the neck is good the rest of it you can work out.

Fingers crossed accordingly.

HTC1

Thanx Cyn, I hope it will be workable. There was nothing dramatic in the reply of Ibanez. I will have to wait for it to come, to see what exactly have they done and where.

[Deleted]

I had warned those people that the fix was not easy, and this is what those ppl replied :

The guitar neck was unmounted by you before it reached us, as you confirmed us already when staring the reclamation.

Our experts demounted it again, installed it correctly and adjusted it.

All in all a small repair job, that would not have been covered by warranty (due to the manipulation done by yourself beforehand) but that was carried out without charges as goodwill treatment.

No mention of the stripped saddle screw heads, the trem springs, the fact that the neck with the correct clearance was totally unstable and not being able to screw the last screw all the way in.

I guess I will have to revert to the old methods learned here and elsewhere, and never contact those irresponsible people again. If they are unable to handle such minor problems, they should quit selling musical instruments and just start selling cookies.

[cynical1]

Nov 28, 2014 5:42:05 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

If they are unable to handle such minor problems, they should quit selling musical instruments and just start selling cookies.

And here's the new line for 2015:



Honestly, I'd rather deal with a bad saddle than a bad neck. My guess is that if you haunt the Ibanez forums you'll find more than a few people disenchanted with Ibanez trem-leos. They used to make a decent one, but the farther you go down their model line it leaves a bit to be desired. The good part is that you can generally swap them with aftermarket upgrades without too much pain.

As far as their response, they could quote me Russian verse of the 19th century in their reply as along as they fixed the damn guitar.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[Deleted]

About trems, the lo-pro and edge zero are fine trems. The edge zero-ii is so and so with lower quality materials but nice design. Unfortunately my guitar has this one, the saddles screws heads stripped right after 3-4 usages.

About Ibanez.de, they didn't fix anything. Their response was too generic : unscrewed, installed "correctly", bla bla bla etc... plain BS. I will have to wait to get the guitar and see. Next week. I am sure the guitar lacks those stops shown here :

Also most probably as we discussed earlier, some holes are off and will need to be plugged and drilled some mm's away. (or doing the insert thing although this one is more adventurous)
There is no way the shown stoppers to be there and the heel to push freely the neck pup. Cyn, If you notice those stoppers are small. I cannot recreate them with glued wood. This would be too weak. I did some tests on scrap wood with 2-part epoxy and it worked great, could handle some 50+ Kgs of force. However epoxy has no elasticity, but its ok unless the guitar takes a header of some sort.

So, having covered :
1) stoppers by 2-part expoxy
2) redrilling 1 or 2 neck holes, and maybe enhancing all of them
3) replacing all saddles screws, with decent ones
4) potentially helicoil-ing all trem plate saddle screw holes

After all that, it will be an OK guitar. The neck was a beast! I just hope that those ppl at Ibanez.de did not ruin anything, cause frankly the whole story was a joke.

[cynical1]

The "stoppers" are just the remnants of the neck pocket after the neck pickup routing. Their intent is to wedge the neck pickup as close to the 25th fret as possible, as is traditional. I've seen more than my share of SG and Les Paul bolt-on clones with nothing at the base of the neck pocket but air, and those necks stayed in place just fine. I would be less concerned with the "stoppers" as to how secure the attachment is between the neck and body. It appears, from the symptoms you detailed, that this joint is somewhat lacking.

Either jumping up the screw size, adding an additional screw or go to the inserts would make the "stoppers" insignificant. The one thing that strikes me about the neck pocket is how little contact it has with the neck to accommodate access to the upper frets. 4 screws seems a bit optimistic for a 7 string guitar with vibrato. My '95 Ibanez ATK 5-string bass has 5 beefy screws.

Ibanez is also a big fan of basswood. Not that there's anything wrong with basswood, Project #2 (Blue Murder) is a basswood body guitar. Keep in mind, though, it's not a hard wood in the vein of ash or mahogany. With enough repetitive force it can even split. Steve Vai's Evo is a prime example:



All this may be academic if the guitar comes back and all is right with it and the world. I'm constantly surprised at how little attention some manufacturers pay to the neck joint. From a mechanical perspective, this is the single most important point of construction on a bolt-on neck guitar. It directly or indirectly touches everything on the guitar or bass. It needs to be as tight as climbing shoes and as precise as the scope on a sniper rifle. Sadly, some builders are satisfied with much less to meet their target costs so they can turn a nickel on the sale.

All that being said, if the neck feels good and plays well, that's 75%-80% of the battle.

In regards to the trem...as much as I genuinely like and respect Ibanez, some of their hardware is just pure crap. Sometimes just replacing the offending member is the only logical solution...for the instrument and your sanity. Once I pulled the factory bridge off the little Ibanez Mikro bass and dropped in a Schaller roller bridge it was like night and day. Crisper with a noticeable improvement in sustain as well. I know the idea of buying a new guitar and making drastic modifications seems counter-intuitive, but keep in mind that all the guitars we modify here were new at one point, and these mods are merely to improve short comings in the original design that a "price point" put there.

Trying to rework a trem-leo bridge can turn into a fools errand. Depending on the type of metal used it may be impossible to rework the machining or rectify the results of a poor casting. I would be willing to bet someone out there has encountered the same issues you have with the lower end Ibanez trems. With a little searching I'd be willing to bet your solution is already out there waiting for you to trip up on it.

Granted, this being a 7 string guitar your options are limited. If aftermarket saddle are available I'd look in that direction first. Heli-coil, liquid steel and re-tapping...they're great solutions for auto parts, but a bit tedious on trem-leo parts.

Well, that's enough extrapolating for this early in the morning. I need coffee.

Again, fingers crossed accordingly.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[Deleted]

Thank you Cyn1, your info on the stoppers and your experiences with other guitars lacking those + all the rest of info are VERY helpful. Hopefully a heli-coil would not be needed at least for the first period. The plate might be cheapo metal, but is thick (4mm) and well designed. Also after markets saddle screws are on sale on ebay. Lets see.
PS
Why do you think heli-coil would be tedious for m3 bolts? You are implying the difficulty in pertaining the 90 deg angle to the plate?

[cynical1]

Heli-coil was designed with industry in mind. It works best the bigger you go...and it was never meant to be anything more than a temporary fix.  M3 is pretty small. Not a lot of meat to grab, as it were. If there's enough material on the saddle, it might just be better to tap it out to M4, get good quality set screws and be done with it.

Happy Trails -

C1

[Deleted]

^^^ I agree, I have thought of that as well but it concerns me the fact of removing material from the plate. Lets see.

[b4nj0]

C1 is correct. The smallest that I've done is 6-32 UNC thread-locked and they're a pain. With a combination of worn insertion tools, thread locking and sloppy technique, I tend to waste more than I put in successfully, and that is in the bigger sizes. Too, you'd have to tap out with the appropriate tool to accept the 3mm Helicoil, you may as well just tap out to 4mm.

e&oe

[Deleted]

Hmm I guess I was too optimistic about it, but there are chances it won't even be needed. Just in case, I have ordered a m3 v-coil set and I am gonna practice a little bit on old licenced floyd plate.

[cynical1]

Nov 30, 2014 12:33:49 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

...Just in case, I have ordered a m3 v-coil set and I am gonna practice a little bit on old licenced floyd plate.

It never ceases to amaze me the pain you inflict upon yourself in the sake of knowledge.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[Deleted]

Nov 30, 2014 17:31:09 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Nov 30, 2014 12:33:49 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

...Just in case, I have ordered a m3 v-coil set and I am gonna practice a little bit on old licenced floyd plate.

It never ceases to amaze me the pain you inflict upon yourself in the sake of knowledge.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

I did the v-coil (helicoil) thing! It was ridiculously easy, I was starting to worry until i tried to screw the saddle in. It took me : drilling, tapping, screwing the new thread in, testing, no more than 10 minutes! And the new thread seems a little bit tougher than the original threads (well those which were not stripped!).

Cyn1, you wont believe this, in order to tap for the new thread's outer coil, the instructions talked about a T-shaped tool *not* included in the kit. Guess what, I had one, since the days when we were trying to fix the nut of the carvin if you recall. A screw was broken in the wood, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to extract that screw with some broken screw extractor. I had bought this T-shaped handle back then, and finally I did good use 1.5 years after!

[Deleted]

I received it. With the same exact problem. Again I cannot make the neck pup move, it seems like stuck in there :




It seems like it is in the exact "optimum" state as when I sent it back to them. Clearly if the neck pup was parallel, one of thew screws would not go all the way in. I am at a total loss.

[cynical1]

Greek -

First question: How is the fit on the neck in the pocket?

Second question: Can you make the pickup rock back and forth with your finger? Does it rock both ways? (fore and aft?)


The saddle issue wasn't something they were going to fix anyway, right?

Over the years I've seen some amazing engineering fiasos. If they got the neck right, and you like the feel, the rest of this stuff can be worked out...probably without much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  If you've given up on Ibanez warranty service, I'm almost certain you can turn this guitar into a first class player.

Keep the faith. You're a metal guy with a 7 string guitar. If nothing else it looks kickass in the mirror...

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[b4nj0]

Just a thought 'dude, I have the self same manifestation on one of my Firebird pick ups. I don't recall a response to C1's query as to whether you can rock the pick up with your finger(s). All of my Yamaha hums have two height adjusting screws on one side and one on the other. Accordingly, they do not exhibit this "fault". I figure that I cannot get the 'bird pick up to sit level with just the one screw each side, although I haven't ruled out trying a wider diameter spring with the ends of the coils machined to sit flat each side. Maybe try some Fender type tapered springs instead of those slinky little Gibson "solutions"?


e&oe