New Fiber Optic Sidemarkers: Green (Ibanez)

[Monty-Jay]

A few folks were asking if I had any pics, so I thought I'd put a few up. I'm still working on the routing, I just gotta wait for it to securely settle and then I'll be ready to glue the fretboard back on the neck.

This is my brother's Ibanez 7 string and we're working on refinishing it, adding in some more green, etc so we wanted the side markers to match Ibanez (well, this one anyway) seems to do a little better job on their side marker placement. These ones aren't too crooked like on my LTD EXP





MJ

[tone4days]

that completely kicks ass and i want it on every guitar i own!! (except the PRS - i want it in blue for that ) ...

what is the bottom pick that shows far fewer greenlights?

t4d

[FretFire]

what is the bottom pick that shows far fewer greenlights?

I think that's close up on frets 9-12.

[Monty-Jay]

what is the bottom pick that shows far fewer greenlights?

t4d

UFOs! Yeah, it's frets 9-12....

MJ

[Imp]

what are you powering those with? i think i missed the original thread :$

[Monty-Jay]

what are you powering those with? i think i missed the original thread :$

A 9volt battery in the control cavity powers one LED (green in this case) and then the light feeds into the strands of fiber

MJ

[Monty-Jay]

Yes, I've been meaning to do one for awhile and it will probably happen pretty soon. I think I'm just gonna do an online/html in progress type of thing.

MJ

[Stringmachine]

That looks good. Nice work.

[tone4days]

cool - must be a blast to play

enjoy!

[FretFire]

That is very cool, nice work .

[Woodcutter]

That's awsome.

Is it hard to do?

[darkshadow54321]

Yep, I love LED's... Nice work!

[pac112]

how do u route the fiber optic cable thru the neck ? do u have to bore it?

[Monty-Jay]

Small (width of the strands) channels from each marker meet on the treble side and go down one channel towards the end of the neck.

MJ

[Monty-Jay]

Yep. After the board is removed, you need to drill directly into the center of each side marker. Once that is done, I route a tiny channel from the bass side of each side marker towards the center of the board. Then they curve down towards the treble side of the board and all the strands meet up. Near the end of the board, it goes through the neck, into the heel, and into the control cavity.

In the cavity is a 9 volt battery and one end is hooked up to some kind of switch. This could be a push/pull, mini toggle, or even just switched via stereo/active jacks. The other side goes to the LED which is positioned directly in front of the bound/heat shrunk fiber optic strands. I don't heat shrink this connection though, it's tough enough to keep it's place and not move. This also allows you to change out the LED fairly quickly if you want a different color.

MJ

[Forbes]

I'm very impressed, looks like a great job.

[Erlend_G]

im not particulary into the idea of putting ligths into your guitar, especially not carving out the neck...

Cool anyway!

[Metalman_666]

Has it affected tone at all Monty Jay?

[Monty-Jay]

No not at all. The routes are all very small and then filled, so it hasn't physically changed too much.

MJ