This Ibanez Cimar I have been fixing up...

[IFoughtTheLaw]

So, about a year ago I got this Ibanez Cimar semi-strat looking guitar. My dad had a friend at work who had got it from another friend, and he knew I played guitar, so he gave it to me for free. It was covered in stickers and sticker residue, and there were even some red permenant marker markings on the pickguard. The knobs were both yellowed on one side, same thing with the slider switch. The input jack plate was missing, and to replace it the guy had cut out a hotel key-card and screwed it in place. The guitar really looked bad, and it didn't sound too hot either. I was considering just leaving all the stickers on it, because I knew a little bit about Cimars and the fact that they are kind of low-end models. But one day I had nothing to do so I decided to try and get some of the stickers off, residue and all, using some rubbing alcohol. I also replaced the jack plate.

Here is what the guitar looked like when I got it (you can kinda see the white from the edge of the keycard near the input jack):


This is what the back looked like:


After I got the stickers off the front and de-yellowed the pickguard a bit with some rubbing alcohol and elbow grease, heres what it looks like now:


I still have to get some of the stickers off the back, but those ones I could tolerate for now, and/or not get off at all (sorry for the blurry pic):


After having gotten off the stickers on the front, you can notice the slightly blue tint to the almost black finish. I took a bit of compressed air to the spaces around the humbuckers, and it helped the sound a lot. I have yet to take off the pickguard and see what kind of mess the wiring is in. But I actually prefer playing this to my $200 Ibanez GAX70 which was my first guitar. Supposedly this one is a lower end, but I can get some nice tones from it when I have it plugged into my Boss BE-5 effects processor box. I actually prefer playing it plugged into my Ibanez bass amp that came with my bass guitar. That with the box and I can get some nice chiming, yet meaty clean tones.

It feels nice to know that I kinda saved the guitar from a pitiful end sitting covered in stickers in someones dusty old attic

[Professor Plum]

cool! i would have left the choking victim sticker though!    crack rock steady!

[IFoughtTheLaw]

cool! i would have left the choking victim sticker though!    crack rock steady!

I actually put that sticker, along with the Suicide Machines sticker, on my helmet for skateboarding, lol.

[ohm-men]

Ibanez made some very nice guitars. My first real guitar after a Squier was an Ibanez S-440II Very cool and superb sounding guitar. I bought it slightly used for cheap, and sold it 10 years later for about the same amounth I paid for it. it had a super fast thin neck and a sleek strat-ish pointy maghony body and sustain for Days...a V-2 Humbucker and two V-1 single coils.
Nice guitar, but after I got into Jm's and Jag's it didn't suit my playing style anymore. But I have very good memories on this guitar....

[Professor Plum]

cool! i would have left the choking victim sticker though!    crack rock steady!

I actually put that sticker, along with the Suicide Machines sticker, on my helmet for skateboarding, lol.

good call. 

[spacecadet]

I would have totally left every single one of those stickers on there, but that's just me

I'm not a sticker guy, and I have none on my JM, but if I got a cheap guitar for free covered in stickers, I'd almost feel bad removing them.  Come on, you gotta keep that Britney Spears sticker! 

[benecol]

Nice to see another Cimar floating around - seems there are some really ropey ones, and some good ones (usually the earlier ones); I've got a 1970's '72 tele custom copy, and it's actually quite lovely. I stripped it to refin a couple of years ago only to discover that it's made of mahogany, which is interesting in a tele, to say the least! Put GFS p'ups in it, and it really is a doozy now.