So, what will my ITI (Ibanez Talman Intermax) project involve? First of all, my Intermax is 13 years old and has seen a lot of use as far as I can tell. Some cleaning, polishing and easy replacing is really needed on this guitar now.
1. Nut replacement: the nut has been filed with inappropriate tools and too deep by one of the previous owners
2. Saddle replacement: the saddle was sanded previously by someone to improve the action of the
guitar. Unfortunately, it was sanded 2-3 millimetres lower than needed, so an
extra
saddle shim was glued to the original, now too low saddle. The
result is terrible, the action is still too low and casuses buzzes here
and there. Also, I wonder how the sound transferring capabilities of the original, plastic saddle was affected by gluing a piece of wood to it. Many people claim there is no degradation of sound when you are using a shim extended saddle,but who knows. It certainly looks strange to me.
3. Strengthening the bridge: the maple top (which is only a very thin layer over the mahogany body) has a 1cm long crack on both sides of the bridge, which is glued only to the maple top, without any screws. It seems that 13 years of string pulling had it effect on the bridge which slowly started to move away from the maple top layer. This needs to be fixed urgently.
4. Polishing the top: the beautiful guitar top has some scratches from heavy strumming, I would love to see those disappear.
Once the general maintenance is ready, I have a few modifications on my mind, we will see how far my inexperienced luthier hands will go.
- Installing a midi pickup with a 13-pin output (Roland GK-3 kit)
- Installing a custom single coil telecaster pickup
- upgrading electronics with the least amount of modification needed to current setup
- installing a battery box for the 9V battery currently located in the electronics cavity
- do all these without harming the current beautiful style of this Ibanez Intermax
I plan to finish the project by the 1st of January 2013, but we will see, I have very limited free time these days, and I am almost brand new to guitar modifications. I have installed an under saddle piezo pickup with a preamp on one of my acoustics, I have adjusted necks and set up actions a few times, but that was it all. We will soon see whether I am hopeless or I will be able to bring new life into this lovely, old Intermax guitar.
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