# Ibanez RG7621 27" scale conversion neck



## djohns74 (Jul 5, 2012)

So, I was approached by a fellow member recently about building a 27" conversion neck for an RG7621 body, and I decided to take on the project based on my previous experience with similar builds. For those unfamiliar with the process, since the bridge won't be moving, this involves adding the entire additional 1.5 inches of length to the neck, which essentially adds a fret beyond the original nut. This results in a neck with 25 frets where the 25th fret is in exactly the same location as the old 24th, the new 24th the same as the old 23rd and so on.

We decided to keep the specs pretty basic and wound up with the following:

27" scale conversion neck for Ibanez RG7621
Curly maple neck wood
Bloodwood fretboard
25 jumbo frets
430mm fretboard radius
Pearl offset dot inlays (similar to RG1077XL)
White side dots
Bone nut
Standard Ibanez headstock shape
Double-action truss rod

I got the first shipment of materials and pretty much dove right in, and that's where our story continues in pictures.







Just a neck blank and some frets, not terribly interesting yet I guess.






After I got the necessary headstock size measured out I figured out where to cut the scarf joint and set that up on my table saw.






Of course, the blank is JUST a bit too wide for the saw blade to cut all the way through, so I finish the last little bit by hand since accuracy in this area is entirely irrelevant anyway.






Ultimately, we end up here. Notice at this point that the figure in the maple is already pretty visible and there's been essentially no sanding done yet at all. This should be a rather highly figured neck/headstock in the end!






Of course, the headstock is too thick still, so it needs a trip through my planing jig to take some thickness out of the back.






This method is quick and effective, but makes a fairly impressive mess.






This is what the headstock piece looks like afterward. The area that will ultimately become the headstock itself is about .6" thick, which is really darn close to a stock Ibanez.






After a bit of trimming of the rough cut areas, which would be trimmed away before we're done regardless, it's time to clamp the pieces together. I use the method of simply taping the top surfaces into position, spreading some glue and adding as many clamps as will fit. The tape is a ridiculously simple method of making sure the pieces don't slide around when clamping and it seems to work very well.






After an appropriate amount of time for the glue to set and some sanding, the shape is drawn in just to get a feel for where we're at. Without the truss rod or fretboard, there's not a lot else that can be done just yet, but everything is looking as expected so far, so that's always good!

I am expecting the remainder of the materials to arrive tomorrow, so there should be quite a bit more progress through the weekend. I spent much of yesterday evening building a brand new truss rod routing jig that looks to make that process much faster and easier, so I'm looking forward to trying it out! Updates will be coming as progress occurs.


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## spilla (Jul 5, 2012)

Great work so far man, love the flame!


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## theo (Jul 6, 2012)

This is well and truly cool


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## phillisbeuford (Jul 6, 2012)

Stoked to see how this turns out


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## Justin Bailey (Jul 6, 2012)

send me the old neck


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## kylendm (Jul 6, 2012)

Looking great so far. I can't wait to get it! That really hoping for some nice color in that bloodwood fretboard!


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## Konfyouzd (Jul 6, 2012)

Damn, Dave... You're gettin' busy! Based on the specs this should be SWEET.


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## oliviergus (Jul 6, 2012)

Looks great. Is it possible to order from you and how much would it be for this exact neck +binding?


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## djohns74 (Jul 7, 2012)

The rest of the parts arrived and it's the weekend so it's time to get some more work done!






Bloodwood fretboard, LMI truss rod and a bone nut blank.






The color of the fretboard is kind of hard to capture, but it seems to be a quality piece and sands to a crazy glass-like smoothness even without a finish of any kind on it. Here, the very end of the board has been sanded to 1200 grit to see what it will look and feel like.






Here it is next to my RG7620 neck for a comparison against the rosewood.






Okay, moving on, I measured out the frets, sawed the slots then marked out the location of the inlays and drilled them all in one quick step. Okay, not exactly, but I didn't really get any pictures of the processes involved. Trust me, it's all rather dull until this point, when it all comes together.






With a bit of CA glue in each hole, the various dots get installed. The idea here is similar in concept to the RG1077XL where the first four dots are the largest (1/4" in this case), the 12th pair and the next four are a little smaller (5 mm) and the pair at the 24th are smallest (4 mm). I'm reasonably sure Ibanez makes at least the last couple even smaller, but I thought they'd look good like this too.

Apart from the size of the dots, they're designed so that the edges of the dots are all the same distance from the edge of the fretboard and are generally closer to the fret that their position indicates than the previous one, though the last couple end up more or less centered. Having never seen an RG1077XL up close, I'm kind of guessing here, but this is supposed to be an "inspired by" rather than an exact match anyway.






Routing a slot for the nut is accomplished pretty easily with my dremel tool and a 1/8" routing bit, combined with the router base with a nice flat edge. I just stick a scrap piece of MDF with a straight edge sanded into it the correct distance away and take a couple of quick passes.






Nice and simple.






After a couple of passes through the band saw and some sanding, the fretboard is just about down to its final size, plus a bit of overhang at the end that can be dealt with later.






Moving back to the neck itself, here's a look at my brand new truss rod routing jig, the basic design for which was taken from a post I saw on another forum recently.






My trusty router, ready to do its work.






Yep, that seems to work just fine!






And the truss rod fits perfectly too. In fact, this LMI rod is far superior to the ones I've used previously in multiple ways. It's narrower, doesn't require as deep a channel, and the adjustment nut is the same width as the rod itself. And yet like the Stew-Mac rod, it doesn't require either a fillet or a curved cavity to operate correctly and is a double-action design. Perfect!






Might as well drill the tuner holes before doing any other shaping of the neck or headstock. I just stick my template in place and use it to line up the drill press and put some scrap wood behind the headstock to keep it level and prevent tear-out at the back.






Nice and clean. Just for fun, the fretboard is set in place to mock-up the finished product a bit.

At this point, I'd like to note that I don't always work QUITE this fast, but when I get in a zone and things are going smoothly, I tend to get a lot done. The next step will be gluing the fretboard into place, then I can rough cut the neck profile, radius the board and all that good stuff. Still a ways to go, but it's coming along pretty well so far!


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## kylendm (Jul 7, 2012)

Damn this thing is taking shape better than I thought. Maybe if I got the reversed headstock this thread would be like 1000 pages by now . I'm happy with how it looks. Love that flame and the bloodwood contrasts great with it! Overall super satisfied.


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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jul 7, 2012)

Remind me to contact you for one of these for my Horizon one day.... But dude, this is amazing. Instant subscribe.


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## abadonae (Jul 7, 2012)

awesome


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## djohns74 (Jul 10, 2012)

More progress over the last couple of days, it's really starting to look like something now!






Time to attach the fretboard with my usual random assortment of clamps.






Once the glue dries, a quick trip through the band saw gives me a rough shape.






My belt sander brings the maple to an ultra-smooth match with the shape of the fretboard.






Time to start radiusing that fretboard.






Damn, does this process make a freaking mess! I wound up taking about 1/16 of an inch off the fretboard thickness in this process, along with radiusing it, which was actually exactly what I had in mind from the start. Of course, that meant that I left roughly this much sanding dust 3 or 4 different times, but it was worth it.






In the end, after sanding the radiused board with a few different levels of sandpaper, it becomes nice and smooth and actually quite shiny, for raw wood.






Next, I lay out the position of the side dots and start them with an awl point bit before drilling them out with a 1/16 inch drill bit.






Each one gets a bit of CA glue and is cut off and later sanded down flat.






Side dots done, and the starting points for the carve have been cut with the spindle sander.






The band saw again comes into play to cut away the bulk of the back of the neck.






After that, a combination of a rasp, a spokeshave and sandpaper produces a very rough carve.






A little more work with the above-noted tools and we've got a mostly smooth carve to the back of the neck, shown here next to the target RG7620 stock neck. It's worth noting that at this point, the thickness of the neck at the 1st fret is a fraction over 19 mm and at the 16th fret it's about 21.5 mm, and both measurements are within a tenth of a milimeter or so of the stock neck. A little more smoothing is all that's really needed on the back of the neck at this point.

The next major task is fretting of course after which the nut will need to be cut and installed. These will take most of the rest of this week, based on my schedule, but we're moving along pretty well so far, I think!


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## kylendm (Jul 10, 2012)

Beautiful! Crazy progress and I'm loving the look of that fretboard more than ever. Glad I picked it!


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## spilla (Jul 10, 2012)

The neck profile looks good and i love the off set inlays, that a nice touch.


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## Levi79 (Jul 10, 2012)

Wow this is coming really fast!


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## skeels (Jul 10, 2012)

That bloodwood does look really nice!


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## theo (Jul 11, 2012)

tidy work. I approve


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## peagull (Jul 11, 2012)

This is some superfast progress. And the bloodwood and maple work really well together. Looks like someones cut a Mars Bar in half mmmmm  Why does wood always look so tasty?

I personally would have liked to seen a volute. But that's just me, it looks outjeffingstanding regardless


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## AwakenNoMore (Jul 11, 2012)

Oh bloodwood, so beautiful, but such a bitch to work with. Always chipping and cracking no matter how gentile you are with it. I admire your patience I don't miss dealing with bloodwood.


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## djohns74 (Jul 12, 2012)

Thanks for the kind words so far guys! Just a quick update tonight to keep things moving along.



AwakenNoMore said:


> Oh bloodwood, so beautiful, but such a bitch to work with. Always chipping and cracking no matter how gentile you are with it. I admire your patience I don't miss dealing with bloodwood.



Interestingly, I have had very few such issues with the bloodwood. A little bit of chipping on the edges, but nothing major, and certainly no cracking. Granted, it comes across as a rather hard wood, which would generally seem to make it brittle, but maybe I've just gotten lucky!







Frets bent, cut to size and organized. Every neck I make, I grab my fancy fret organizer, look ahead to next few steps in the process, and feel the smile on my face gradually slip away. What starts as kind of fun quickly becomes incredibly tedious, but you've got to do what you've got to do I guess. Bending and cutting is definitely the fun part.






Frets pressed into place, a process that's normally just dull, but in this case required a bit more work, another testament to how hard the bloodwood apparently is. Most of the frets needed a little coaxing with the fretting hammer both before and after the press did it's job, but they're all in solid and looking good now.






Fret ends trimmed, filed and sanded. This, of course, is merely the quick first step to finishing the fret ends. Rounding them comes later (as soon as I stop putting it off) after which I can do any spot levelling that may be needed, which hopefully won't be too much.


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## Leuchty (Jul 12, 2012)

Wow! Looking good!


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## Jason Spell (Jul 13, 2012)

This looks like it is turning out nicely! Clean work.


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## russmuller (Jul 14, 2012)

Dude, this looks beautiful!


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## kn1feparty (Jul 14, 2012)

Oh god I am so full of gas right now. I need this for a 7321 with a rhs and ebony board.


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## Darkstar124 (Jul 14, 2012)

How much would you ask to have one of these made? I have an RG7420 that could use another inch ana half ifyaknowwhatImean nudgenudge


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## russmuller (Jul 14, 2012)

Poor dude is going to be flooded with emails begging for his services.


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## Darkstar124 (Jul 14, 2012)

Well its his own fault, posting all this gorgeous woodwork for all to see.


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## djohns74 (Jul 16, 2012)

Progress continues as we near the finish line!






What have we here? Appears to be a piece of leftover bloodwood, conveniently thinned down to about 1/8 inch. Whatever shall we do with that?






Well, that's kind of a neat shape I guess. The screw hole certainly implies that it's supposed to be used for something too.










Ah ha! Okay, so it's not exactly a typical Ibanez-shaped cover, but I thought that would be a little over the top in this case.

The fretwork is complete now also, thankfully. The nut is 90% done, I just finished filing the slots to a good depth, just have to trim and smooth it a bit then glue it into place. The holes for the tuner set screws have been drilled, along with the neck bolt holes. Really, it's just a tiny bit of spot levelling on a couple of frets, some final smoothing of the maple and then it gets hit with sanding sealer, and it's done! Should be completely wrapped up by the end of the week I'd say.


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## kylendm (Jul 16, 2012)

Damn that's nice man!


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## skeels (Jul 16, 2012)

You are just unceasingly bad agent, man.

Sweet.


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## Konfyouzd (Jul 19, 2012)

Beautiful.


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## djohns74 (Jul 21, 2012)

Just the last few steps to report on this time around, this baby is done!






Somehow, photographs fail to capture the excitement that is nut making. Nevertheless, here's the blank with its sides trimmed and set in place.






I measure out the spacing with this handy little ruler made specially for the task. I've never used it on a 7 string and, not surprisingly, it works perfectly fine, just have to find a set of slots with 5 in between rather than 4.






Here's a convenient little vice to hold the nut in place while I slot it. The slots are technically started here, but I doubt if you can really see it. Under a camera flash, the bone of the nut seems to light up like the sun, obscuring all details.






The finished slots are a little more apparent here.






Again, not so much here. Probably could have skipped this picture. Oh well, more pictures makes it looks like I accomplished more. 






And out to my paint booth (AKA my garage) for a little sanding sealer. I gave it three coats with the intention of sanding most of it right back off anyway.






Tried to show the progress in the sunlight. The figure shows up a little more, but it otherwise doesn't look too special yet. Damn my limited photography skills!






Back inside following some final polishing of the frets and fretboard.






And the freshly sanded back, showing plenty of figure under the flash. You can see a little bit of glow that implies glossiness, but it's just that it's as smooth as a baby's bottom, so reflects light rather well. There's no gloss coat on it at all.

With that, I'm ready to call it good. Of course, I have had it on my RG7620 to make sure everything lines up and works and whatnot and it operated very smoothly. I was able to get some awfully low action on it, hopefully it works as well on the destination RG7621!


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## bob123 (Jul 21, 2012)

win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win win


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## Levi79 (Jul 21, 2012)

Wow. That literally took you two weeks start to finish. Props man!
Is that the stewmac nut vice? I'm looking to invest in their nut slotting kit when I have some extra cash. Needle files make awful nuts haha.


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## djohns74 (Jul 21, 2012)

bob123 said:


> win ....... win


Thanks, bob! 



Levi79 said:


> Wow. That literally took you two weeks start to finish. Props man!
> Is that the stewmac nut vice? I'm looking to invest in their nut slotting kit when I have some extra cash. Needle files make awful nuts haha.


Yep, all my nut making tools came from Stew Mac. I actually did a 5 string bass nut for my first try, so I have a pretty full set of their two-sided slotting files now. Still getting used to slotting really, this one actually took me a couple of tries because of different problems, but ultimately it turned out pretty good.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Jul 21, 2012)

Looks great! And fantastic job documenting this too, good stuff for the layman like myself!! Makes me want to do more DIY guitar stuff.


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Jul 21, 2012)

Great job duder!


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## spilla (Jul 22, 2012)

Fantastic work man. The bloodwood looks great and i love the grain in that maple. Also, i really like how you used the different sized fret position inlays, very cool.


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## kylendm (Jul 22, 2012)

Love it can't wait to get it!


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## BlackMastodon (Jul 22, 2012)

Looks very good man!


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## russmuller (Jul 22, 2012)

Gorgeous!


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## All_¥our_Bass (Jul 22, 2012)

Smexeh as hell man!!


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## Mehnike (Jul 22, 2012)

That looks excellent! Not to mention those fret ends.. wowee. Any chance you have an up close of some of em?


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## Konfyouzd (Jul 23, 2012)

If it's anything like the necks you made for me the customer will be one happy camper. That bloodwood board looks freakin awesome!


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## oniduder (Aug 4, 2012)

fap


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## BlackMastodon (Aug 5, 2012)

Every time I look at that neck, goddamn. Bloodwood is too underused.


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## LeAdEr (Sep 20, 2012)

Awesome. Great work, you really know what you do.


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## PureImagination (Sep 23, 2012)

Hi (Please excuse the necropost), but I was wondering what truss rod you used? I am going too build a neck and want it pretty thin.


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## djohns74 (Sep 24, 2012)

PureImagination said:


> Hi (Please excuse the necropost), but I was wondering what truss rod you used? I am going too build a neck and want it pretty thin.


Model TRED off this page.


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