# Titanium reinforcement in Ibanez necks?



## will_shred (Mar 7, 2016)

So, I've heard a lot about Ibanez necks being reinforced with titanium. Mostly the prestige models. I saw in a guitarworld review where Paul claimed that the neck of the RG1421 (what I have) has such a reinforcement, but I have also heard claims that its only on the higher end models. Does anyone know anything about this? Which models have titanium reinforcement and which don't? I've never really had any issues with neck stability on my 1421 in the 5 years I've owned it, its always been as flat as Kansas, but that could also be just because of the fact that its a 5 piece neck. But of course i'm not about to cut open my baby to confirm or disprove Paul's claim. 

Thoughts?


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## Given To Fly (Mar 8, 2016)

The back of the headstock will have the KTS Titanium something something something emblem on guitars with that feature. My 2008 RG2228GK does not have the KTS Titanium Reinforcement but the 2010 models do. I think all the Prestige 8 string models have the KTS system installed now. 

If your guitar does not have KTS written on the back of the headstock than you probably do not have the titanium trussrod system. I doubt Paul was lying, but it is possible things changed before the guitar was produced or he was confused. What is important is your neck is "as flat as Kansas."


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## MaxOfMetal (Mar 8, 2016)

All Prestige guitars had them starting with late 2009 serials, as it was advertised for the 2010 model year. There was no cut-off within the Prestige series. 

Starting last year, or possibly the year before that, they stopped using the KTS rods as 1) no one really cared about them as a feature, and 2) KTS wasn't able to supply them in quantity without a large price bump. 

All that said, Guitar World is usually around 80% accurate on review gear specs, so he could have been reading a spec sheet for a different model year, it happens sometimes.


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## Mach666 (Mar 8, 2016)

I think it's pretty unequivocal, as it was a significant upgrade... You need a sticker like this to be sure... From a 2012 3521:


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## HoneyNut (Mar 8, 2016)

Even if your guitar doesn't have the KTS, do keep in mind that we still have not heard much about any of these 5-piece necks wrapping over time. It hasn't been around long enough obviously, but I am very curious to know if anyone has noticed any seasonal changes with these necks as yet. 

The 1-piece necks I have played did sway seasonally. The difference was obvious. But with the newer 5-piece necks, KTS or not, I have yet to witness any changes. 

If these necks do stay straight regardless of age, season, or even reasonably thicker string guages, I'd have to wow, it's something to appreciate and not taken for granted. Can we throw away our truss rod adjustment tool?


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## marcwormjim (Mar 8, 2016)

Vigier comes to mind, in that respect.


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## rewihendrix (Mar 8, 2016)

Mine has a titanium reinforced neck.

Honestly, I really doubt it makes much of a difference. As mentioned above, 5 piece maple bolt on neck is extremely stable, even at the 17mm thickness of the thinnest neck profile. I assume you have to hollow out some of the wood to put the rods in there in the first place. In either case you're still going to have to do truss rod adjustments.

Probably a marketing tool more than anything, as evidenced by the absurd "tone resonant" claim.


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## PBGas (Mar 8, 2016)

I have a 2015 J Custom with the Titanium rods. I've had 5 other J Customs with and without them in the past. If anything, the one I have now is very, very stable and barely moves even through the climate up here. My Jem 7V7 doesn't currently have them and is also very stable and doesn't move much but it is a bigger neck. 

It would appear to me that they are only putting the Titanium rods in the J Customs for 2016. My new one on the way to me that is a 2016 build has them.


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## Sermo Lupi (Mar 8, 2016)

Jeesan said:


> Even if your guitar doesn't have the KTS, do keep in mind that we still have not heard much about any of these 5-piece necks wrapping over time. It hasn't been around long enough obviously, but I am very curious to know if anyone has noticed any seasonal changes with these necks as yet.
> 
> The 1-piece necks I have played did sway seasonally. The difference was obvious. But with the newer 5-piece necks, KTS or not, I have yet to witness any changes.
> 
> If these necks do stay straight regardless of age, season, or even reasonably thicker string guages, I'd have to wow, it's something to appreciate and not taken for granted. Can we throw away our truss rod adjustment tool?




What's interesting is that neck lamination was a stabilisation technology to begin with, but it's marketability as such seemed to fall out of vogue as synthetic materials became less stigmatised in the guitar community. Companies like Vigier benefit from the idea that materials like carbon fibre or titanium provide the very best in reinforcement technology--and there's probably a lot of truth to that, I'm not saying there isn't--but just because strengthening a neck in this way is (or was) marketed as being on the bleeding edge of guitar design doesn't mean the old reinforcement technologies are flawed or anything. 

The fact is that a multi-piece neck overcomes a lot of the factors that contribute to warping, even if you're just interrupting the grain direction of a one-piece neck by cutting it into three pieces and flipping around the middle piece. As I understand it, using two or more species of wood helps too, because obviously different woods weather differently and are less prone to shrink or expand in the exact same way. However, laminated necks are also really aesthetically attractive to some of us, so it seems to have become more of a visual design choice these days rather than a structural one. Perhaps this has contributed to the marketability of the alternative neck stabilisation technologies, especially in an age of 7-, 8-, and even 9-string guitars where neck stability is more of a concern. 

Anyway, this is just to say that, in theory, there's no reason why a laminated neck should warp any more than a titanium reinforced one. I always assumed Ibanez started using the titanium reinforcements not because their laminated necks were warping, but because it was a new technology for them that added another bullet point to the spec sheet and, ostensibly, added assurance that a neck will never warp.


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## mikolo (Mar 8, 2016)

Jeesan said:


> Even if your guitar doesn't have the KTS, do keep in mind that we still have not heard much about any of these 5-piece necks wrapping over time. It hasn't been around long enough obviously, but I am very curious to know if anyone has noticed any seasonal changes with these necks as yet.
> 
> The 1-piece necks I have played did sway seasonally. The difference was obvious. But with the newer 5-piece necks, KTS or not, I have yet to witness any changes.
> 
> If these necks do stay straight regardless of age, season, or even reasonably thicker string guages, I'd have to wow, it's something to appreciate and not taken for granted. Can we throw away our truss rod adjustment tool?



My RGA 121 and older Radius both have had slight neck twists... Both needed heat treatment to correct. Not supper noticeable until a straight edge was applied to each and carefully looked at. The 14' Carvin DC7x I bought off a forum member did as well.


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## technomancer (Mar 8, 2016)

Mach666 said:


> I think it's pretty unequivocal, as it was a significant upgrade... You need a sticker like this to be sure... From a 2012 3521:



Not all guitars that had the rods had the sticker on them... Some of the later Premiums that had them did not have the sticker but had a hang tag that came with the guitar. I know this for a fact as I owned one for a bit.


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## laxu (Mar 9, 2016)

mikolo said:


> My RGA 121 and older Radius both have had slight neck twists... Both needed heat treatment to correct. Not supper noticeable until a straight edge was applied to each and carefully looked at. The 14' Carvin DC7x I bought off a forum member did as well.



That's pretty bad luck. I recently sold a 1989 RG550 that has the thinnest neck I've ever played but it was totally straight. Then again my even older Yamaha semi-hollowbody with a chunky mahogany neck had a slight twist in it (fixed by sanding the fretboard) so it's a crapshoot if a neck twists or not.


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## PBGas (Mar 9, 2016)

I had bad luck believe it or not with a 3727 a couple of years back when it first came out. My distributor confirmed that there was a slight twist in the neck. They offered to fix it or get me something else for stock. I opted for the later.


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## will_shred (Mar 10, 2016)

In general I haven't really had any issues with warping on any of my necks, one piece mahogany necks, one piece rosewood neck on my strat, zero issues with any of them.


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## Spicypickles (Mar 10, 2016)

Do the rod's hinder relief adjustment?? I don't like the idea of completely straight necks. I need the slight relief.


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## Sermo Lupi (Mar 10, 2016)

will_shred said:


> In general I haven't really had any issues with warping on any of my necks, one piece mahogany necks, one piece rosewood neck on my strat, zero issues with any of them.



A properly cut, high-quality piece of wood is going to be pretty stable to begin with. Quartersawn maple, mahogany, etc. is not something I'd worry about too much if you're taking care of it properly. 

However, a one-piece neck would give me pause if I was buying an old strat that had been stored in a garage for 20 years or whatever. For 90% of us it won't be an issue, but that doesn't mean the accounts of warped one-piece necks are false either.


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## DeepSixed (Mar 10, 2016)

technomancer said:


> Not all guitars that had the rods had the sticker on them... Some of the later Premiums that had them did not have the sticker but had a hang tag that came with the guitar. I know this for a fact as I owned one for a bit.



My RG927 is like this - doesn't have a sticker on the back of the headstock, but does have a KTS hangtag.


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Mar 16, 2016)

Is there any definitive way to check if my guitars have these? I have a 2009 and 2014 Prestige and I'm kind of curious as to whether or not they have the reinforcement. 

No stickers on either of them, but like it was said earlier in the thread that doesn't necessarily mean anything


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## mnemonic (Mar 16, 2016)

The RG8 I bought in 2013 had a KTS hang tag on the headstock, so I guess it wasn't limited to their nicer stuff. No sticker though.

Checked archive.org, and it even mentions it on the page for the RG8
https://web.archive.org/web/2013071...9&color=CL01&year=2013&cat_id=1&series_id=147



MrPepperoniNipples said:


> Is there any definitive way to check if my guitars have these? I have a 2009 and 2014 Prestige and I'm kind of curious as to whether or not they have the reinforcement.
> 
> No stickers on either of them, but like it was said earlier in the thread that doesn't necessarily mean anything


This is their guitars page for 2013, the individual page for the guitar hopefully is archived:
https://web.archive.org/web/2013082...series13.php?series_id=147&year=2013&cat_id=1

Their 2009 page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090422180236/http://www.ibanez.com/product.aspx
I can't get to any individual models though. 

Their 2014 page:
https://web.archive.org/web/2014081...series_pre.php?year=2014&cat_id=1&series_id=1
Looks like nothing is archived past there, no individual models. 

I suppose it won't prove anything, but at least you can see if it was supposed to be there for that year.

I can't think of any non-invasive way of checking if the rods are there. Apparently titanium is non-magnetic so you couldn't use a magnet to check for rods.



edit- Or I could have saved myself a ton of time and just looked at the historic catalogs 
http://www.ibanez.com/anniversary/index.html


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## Randy (Mar 16, 2016)

FWIW, I've installed the same titanium rods on a couple necks I've built. How much it effects the stability positively is debatable (like others have mentioned, quartersawn or 5 piece necks are pretty stiff). 

One thing I noted is that varying materials involved in the construction of a guitar neck (just like anything else) all react to the elements and to one another varying ways. Even though the titanium rod adds a "stiffer" material into the neck construction, you're still routing two 1/4" deep trenches down the length of an otherwise stable (and fairly thin) piece of wood. No adhesive is going to force the wood to react completely 1:1 with the titanium (aka, not at all), which means some degree of shifting is going to be going on inside of the wood and it's simply being "stopped" by the titanium rods. 

I've never heard any complaints about bulging or loosening fretboards with titanium rods or anything like that, so I'm sure it's a structurally sound feature but with the trade-offs versus a solid 5-piece or 1-piece quartersawn neck... I'm not entirely sure how much the rods improve stability over non.


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## mnemonic (Mar 16, 2016)

I have strats with one-piece maple necks and no separate fingerboard wood and I've never had stability or twisting issues with them, so I agree its probably not necessary. 

Though it does sound cool to say my guitar neck has titanium rods.


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## jpickeral (Feb 3, 2017)

it figures, they'd do this AFTER i bought an SR5000E bass (Prestige).

I noticed they've changed the electronics on the bass, also....

I still love her, though  She's probably the best bass I'll ever own..

-Pick


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## Jonathan20022 (Feb 4, 2017)

Definitely helps but I've only adjusted my RG550 once in the year and a half I've had it so far. It's be extremely good to me, and it's a 1pc Maple Neck. If someone gets a flame maple neck or some more fragile material that is weaker than other materials neck reinforcement is definitely something to look into. But wood is going to move regardless of reinforcement or not, it's temperamental. You should definitely check your relief/neck bow everytime you restring and adjust accordingly anyways. And I think people generally restring their guitars every 2-3 months, so not a huge deal if you keep your eye on it.


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## couverdure (Feb 4, 2017)

My RG821 has the KTS truss rod and it came with a tag that says it. The later similar models (RG921+) don't have them.


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## electriceye (Feb 5, 2017)

Seems very redundant to have rods in a multi-laminate neck. It's going to be plenty stable as it is.


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## Lemonbaby (Feb 5, 2017)

The thin Titanium rods used in a wizard neck will actually not prevent it from warping if the wood really &#8220;wants&#8220; to move. Titanium in general has a higher elasticity than aluminium or hardened steel. From my point of view they were introduced as pure marketing arguments and I'd have a lot more confidence in the new Ibanez Premium necks with 11 pieces from different woods.


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