Hey guys so I just got my 2nd rg7620 and im excited that it came just about as mint as they come. I had a 1999 7620 about 6 or 7 years ago and sold it the same year I got it. This one happens to be an october 1997 model , and immediately after putting it in my hands the neck felt much rounder and much thicker than I remembered it being on the 1999 7620 I had. I got a 1991 rg570 with the original square heel wizard neck a few months ago and i remember trying to find it in the old Ibanez catalogs and remember seeing the 7620 having a wizard-7 neck. Well I went to go check the 1997 catalog specifically and didnt see an rg7620 , so i went to the 1997 price list and was surprised to see the 1997 price list these as having a universe neck for 1997 which ive read to be thicker and rounder than other ibanez necks. The ones after 1997 all say wizard 7 neck onwards, but the neck on my current 7620 is very different from my regular wizard neck now on the rg570. Is this just a typo in the catalog and my memory of my old 7620 tricking me or did this 1997 7620 actually come with a universe neck???
I did the exact thing you did, the second one I got had a much bigger neck and it messed with my wrist. Ended up having to sell that one. The first one I had was so much thinner and had less shoulder. I think things were pretty inconsistent back then and they just used whatever necks were around.
The catalogs are a rough guide, and even then are often wrong/poorly copy/pasted. Until the early 00's pretty much everything was still hand sanded from the copy carver so there can be considerable variation in neck shape and thickness. Pretty much the only thing that was set, due to hardware fitment, was width.
One story I heard, and not knowing if it is true, is that the inspiration for the 76xx series was lacking sales of the universe. Ibanez had bodies and necks with few orders. So the double humbucker 76xx series was born and they used up universe necks...all the early ones I have owned were one piece and no stripes of any kind, and very similar to me in regard to universe guitars I owned at that time. I find it quite possible that profile changed as new necks were made to continue the 76xx and 74xx series as the 7 string revolution with Korn, etc took off.
I have a buddy who has a mij 1999 7421 that im going to compare necks too later , just need to find someone with a universe to see just where this 7620 neck fits into the story. Also later gonna pop off the neck and see what kind of stamping is in the neck joint
I have a (F97) RG7620 that I bought brand new back in 1998. Neck is more glossy (some spots are worn down from years of playing) than my 2000GN. Also, the guitar itself has always seemed to be a little heavier than my UVs/7620GN. I’ve thought about weighing it so many times. One of these days I will, just out of curiosity.
- They vary, even from the same years. I've had many of them and some are thin with wide rounded shoulders and some are fatter with smaller shoulders. -
newer RG7620 necks were more consistent, less shoulders time to unlock your WTB thread for daily bumps
so i compared it to my buddys mij rg7421 with a one piece maple neck also and they were not perfectly identical , but dare i say not drastically differrent either but definitely some. we didnt have calipers or anything just our hands and eyes , but on the 7620 in question the neck was noticeably thicker from frets 1-7 after that it wasnt so easy to tell without proper tools for measure. more striking than the difference in thickness was the difference in finish. the neck on this new rg7620 has a completely different finish than his rg7421 and my rg570 and old rg7620 (all which have the same ibanez slight glossy finish over blonde maple) where as this new 7620 in question has a very pale almost white neck with a much more matte finish on top of being slightly thicker. now just need to find a similar generation UV and compare
The Universe and RG7620 (or any regular production RG7s) never shared the same neck. The necks were final sanded and shaped post fretboard install, and neck pockets weren't compatible until 98', precluding the 97' RG7s. If anything it would be reverse as the RG7620 came out summer of 97' while the UV777 came out the following fall/winter of 98'. Again, different inlays and the presence of binding means it wasn't a 1:1 swap. That's not to say you can't find examples of extreme similarity between RG7s of the 90's and UVs of the same time period. I've owned double digits of both models and you can expect as much as a 3mm variance between models built at the same time. I've had 99' RG7s with necks as thin as 15.5mm and as thick as 18.75mm at the first fret, those are the extremes, but it there's plenty in the middle. Shape wise, there is a similar variable. Like I said, until they switched to CNC late 2001, where necks then only needed fine sanding before finish, sanding and shaping was done significantly by hand.
I might have played one of those mega-flat 7620's you were saying you had from 1999. That neck was the flattest, shreddiest 7 string neck I've ever played. My 2007 Universe however has more pronounced D shoulders and was nothing like it. Like Max said above, that was probably one of the hand-sanded ones.
at this point im not exactly sold its an exact universe neck either more than likely odd variations and bad catalog info, but perhaps these earlier profiles were much more similar or inspired by the UV than what ended up being the flatter thinner broader shoulder profile I remember.maybe when the 7420/7421/7621 came around they had a more official consistent neck profile that intentionally strayed away from universe similarities ? if I ever find a UV around me to compare and useful information comes of the comparison i will report back here. im starting think maybe when the 7620 was first built it was more similar to the UV neck since it was basically offered as an alternative , but as the series went on it took on its own more distinct profile.
All the 25.5" scale MIJ RG7s had the same neck at the time of production. There was never a sub-model part number. It was always the "1NKRG7620" or "1NKRG7621" for all RG7620/RG7420 and RG7621/RG7421. The whole "it's an RG742x with an RG762x neck" is a myth. They all had the same neck as each other for the same production years. The RG7620 ran from summer of 97' to fall of 02', the RG7420 from fall 00' to fall 02', the RG7621 was fall 98' to fall 02', and finally the RG7421 was fall 00' to summer 02' much like the trem version. The MIK RG7321 replaced the RG7421 models in 03', the short lived RG15271 replaced the RG7621 in the Japanese market from 03' to 06', while the RG7620 was outmoded by the RG1527 in 03'.
