Some of you may remember that I still have the first guitar I ever bought - a 1969 Yamaha FG-150 purchased new for a hundred bucks. Here it is in roughly 1970 - funny, I don't recognize the guy playing it tho. Did we really just coil the strings up like that?
Over the years the action has crept up and been lowered until finally I couldn't do it any more. I'm going to take a road trip the end of March and wanted a guitar to take with me so I figured this was the time to get with it.
Before doing anything I had to get the fretboard extension loose from the top. The aluminum bars have been heated on my stove and is (attempting) to loosen the glue while I work a couple of thin blades between the fretboard and top. It is not going easily....
Before I get brutal I'd better try the usual method - some reports say that it is possible to get Yamie necks off with steam and pressure. This is my home made neck press and an old espresso machine to make steam (and an Americano while I wait).
Didn't work. Time to get rough. This is following a thread by forumite Yamahaneck. This is a thin bladed flexible saw called a Japanese saw - it only cuts on the pull stroke and the teeth have no kerf (they are the same width as the blade)
Working my way through the dovetail, trying to avoid the truss rod
(I think this is as many picture as I can do in one posting... continued)
OK, here is the neck off. The wood had absorbed all the steam but the joint hadn't budged a bit. You can also see that some of the laminated spruce top has separated and stuck to the fretboard
Now the secret. These are little metal 1/4-20 inserts being threaded into the heel. I've already done some of the work to set the angle
Now the usual flossing and futzing until the angle are correct - both side to side
as well as up and down. At this point I have tightened the bolts and am gluing down the fretboard extension - this is just a final check that everything is OK
Because I pulled the 15th fret to inject steam I need to put that back and level it. Here I am using a little straight edge as a rocker while I file it down level with the others. You can see a little bit of the damage to the top along the edge of the fretboard - I'll try to fix that with a bit of lacquer.
The first five frets had pretty bad divots so I leveled and crowned them also. Because this is kind of a hassle to post pictures you'll have to take my word. I made a new bone nut
and found a saddle in my bag of bone that would work pretty well (one of these days I'll make a new one). Also tried to cover up the worst of the damage to the wood with a little drop filling and some slight over spray
Looks better than the rest of the guitar. The action is a lot better, I have sufficient saddle to lower it in the future, setup is pretty darn good, time for a cold adult beverage and a little play time
My beloved old Yamaha gets a new lease on live and I have a guitar to take road tripping.
So, if you were ever doing another one, would you skip the steam entirely and go straight to the pull saw?
Yes. The Yamie has very small frets and the f/b was pretty brittle. There was some damage and the only fret wire I had was a bit too big, so I had a pretty bad rocker at 15 which needed a lot of work.
Terry, I think Guilds come apart pretty normally, but I have no experience with them. I also had an interesting question from my wife about this - she asked if the new Yamahas were built the same way - I told her I didn't know. The rumor is that the glue is some kind of two part stuff - epoxy or maybe a marine glue. Here is a closer picture of the sawn off neck - that old dovetail is tightly fitted and had no intention of coming apart.
Freeman_Keller wrote:So, if you were ever doing another one, would you skip the steam entirely and go straight to the pull saw?
Yes. The Yamie has very small frets and the f/b was pretty brittle. There was some damage and the only fret wire I had was a bit too big, so I had a pretty bad rocker at 15 which needed a lot of work.
Terry, I think Guilds come apart pretty normally, but I have no experience with them. I also had an interesting question from my wife about this - she asked if the new Yamahas were built the same way - I told her I didn't know. The rumor is that the glue is some kind of two part stuff - epoxy or maybe a marine glue. Here is a closer picture of the sawn off neck - that old dovetail is tightly fitted and had no intention of coming apart.
Have no first hand knowledge on it, but there a thread over at Let's Talk Guild and other places about Guild neck resets being difficult/expensive. Have thought about possibly having my Guilds' necks, therefore, re-done like modern Taylors (bolt-on).
jamesp wrote:Wanted to echo acousticdepot's sentiment here The value of this thread goes beyond what can be said with mere Kudos.
One way or another we'll port this thread over when your account gets squared away.
Once again, thanks. A long long time ago I did a few threads that people found useful - the so called "Sick Guitar" parts one and two, one comparing bracing, a couple of setup threads, the infamous pin and string tests, as well as the build threads. Some were made into stickies, then they were archived at the Annex (which, like MelodyVine, never reached critical mass) and have mostly been lost,
Anyway, I like doing them and if anyone wants to see a particular topic related to care and feeding (or construction) of acoustic guitars, I'll try to resurrect them.
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