Yamaha AES 620 mod?

[kr236rk]

Hi,

 

Have a Yamaha AES 620 electric guitar which is cool but the LP style cutaway has a 'baffle' in it which makes accessing the upper frets awkward. Basically, I want to drill then file this bump out, but I don't want to damage the rest of the body.

 

You can see the dark baffle here - I find it a pain.

 

May need to copy-paste.

 

http://www.biickert.ca/guitarchoice/yam_aes620_large.jpg

 

Any advice please?

 

Thanks.

[Mr.Grumpy]

 

My advice is to sell that guitar and buy an Epiphone Les Paul.

 

Modding your Yamaha will most likely damage it cosmetically and reduce its resale value. It's really hard to make an even, sharply curved cut in a thick guitar body. And it will be really hard to file and sand inside the cutaway to a 'factory smooth' surface without tools like a spindle sander. So, it will either look like a 'hack job' when you're done, OR it will take a lot of fiddly surface prep extra work just to get the cutaway smooth.

 

But I'm just some guy on a forum. You do what you want.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It's not really a baffle so much as it is a Venetian cutaway that's cosmetically made to look like a Florentine Cutaway.

 

I wouldn't bother trying to modify it either. If you find it gets in your way, you'd probably be better off with a guitar with a deeper cutaway, such as the Epi Les Paul that Mr.Grumpy suggested.

[kr236rk]

Thanks, I'll leave well alone then. It's much too good sell though, plays like a dream - it's just getting to those higher frets!

[onelife]

Those are great guitars - an excellent alternative to a Les Paul.

[kr236rk]

Can only agree - have never played a Paul but the 620 plays like a dream

[WRGKMC]

I agree with others. All you'll do is botch the thing up. They would need to be cut out with a band saw, sanded with a drum sander then refinished to match. Unless you owned those kinds of shop tools and had the experience to do the work it couldn't be done right.

 

A Les Paul is even harder to get to the upper frets because they have no cutaway. You can get to maybe the 20th fret but to bend strings on the 22nd you literally have to untuck your thumb from in back of the neck and suspend you hand free form above the frets. Its not an easy technique to learn because you are used to pinching the strings down with your thumb. When you untuck your thumb you have to treat your hand like a hook and apply pressure from the elbow. If you've ever seen someone play an acoustic guitar above the 12th~15th fret, getting the hand to play above the body takes allot of practice.

[kr236rk]

Thanks. Dunno, never played a Paul. My main guitar is a Pacifica 112, it is much easier to get to the high frets. I toyed with the idea of taking the 620 to a luthier but from what you are saying, this would not make getting at the high frets that much easier. How did Jimmy Page cope I wonder with a Paul, then?

 

[onelife]

How did Jimmy Page cope I wonder with a Paul, then?

 

There are lots of notes available on a Les Paul, not just the high ones.

 

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Players tolerate things like the weight and the limited high fret access because it's one of the most versatile and best sounding guitars out there.

 

check out the guitar solo two and a half minutes into this tune...

[video=youtube_share;wPYVsDYeg3U]