Members katopp Posted July 22, 2020 Members Share Posted July 22, 2020 It's been a while and life hasn't been too kind, well, not THAT bad, but, you know ... could have been better, much better. Why am I back? Because I need your help. A little bird has flown into my stable. Actually a Yamaha FG-365S with a lot of nice and honest patina and, well, more than a hand full of issues. Frets I to V are totally done, deep grooves on the bass strings, fingernail divots in the nice fretboard, but no nasty cracks. Well, no cracks but, you may have guessed it already, an issue with the neck angle. Now, it sounds like a cannon. Really. Those old Yammies are sought after for a reason. But the neck angle is ... bad. Bad as in straight neck, action 3/32 on the 12th fret. Straightedge hits the bridge at 1/32 to 3/64 below the top of the bridge. I doubt, that - as nicely as it sounds - a neck reset is warranted. So I just replace the frets I to V and sand down the bridge 3/64. Any comments/ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nabisco Posted July 22, 2020 Members Share Posted July 22, 2020 I had an FG-365S years ago and it was a great sounding guitar. One of about a dozen guitars I wish I never let go of. I hope you can get yours back in shape. Here is a How-to on Yamaha neck resets: https://yamahavintagefg.boards.net/thread/18/vintage-yamaha-neck-reset-procedure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members katopp Posted July 22, 2020 Author Members Share Posted July 22, 2020 Thanks, mate. But with those. old Yammies, steaming the neck out is almost all the time a lost cause. They glued everything together 200%. Sometimes it works, mostly it won't. It's not a prewar Martin, so shaving the bridge is possibly the easier way. Freeman Keller - is he still around? - has a method converting them to mortise/tenon neck joints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nabisco Posted July 22, 2020 Members Share Posted July 22, 2020 Whatever works for you, but anyway, here is a Yamaha neck successfully streamed off and re-set on the Rosa String Works Channel on youtube: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted July 22, 2020 Members Share Posted July 22, 2020 3 hours ago, katopp said: Thanks, mate. But with those. old Yammies, steaming the neck out is almost all the time a lost cause. They glued everything together 200%. Sometimes it works, mostly it won't. It's not a prewar Martin, so shaving the bridge is possibly the easier way. Freeman Keller - is he still around? - has a method converting them to mortise/tenon neck joints. Welcome back. I bought (very cheaply) a 12 string guitar some years ago that had the same problem. I sanded down the bridge to achieve a better break angle - took off approx 50% of it's thickness. To compensate for the loss of mass I glued a strip of 3 ply (approx the same size as the bridge) underneath the bridge inside the guitar - just drilled through the pin holes when it was stuck. That was over 5 years ago and it's been fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted July 23, 2020 Members Share Posted July 23, 2020 On 7/22/2020 at 9:16 AM, katopp said: Thanks, mate. But with those. old Yammies, steaming the neck out is almost all the time a lost cause. They glued everything together 200%. Sometimes it works, mostly it won't. It's not a prewar Martin, so shaving the bridge is possibly the easier way. Freeman Keller - is he still around? - has a method converting them to mortise/tenon neck joints. Katopp, I'm not really around. Once in a while I look in to see if anything has changed here and I might even comment if I get the urge, but mostly I don't have a presence on this forum. I did do the saw off the neck and convert to bolt on on my personal Yamaha and that made it very playable again. Its not for the faint of heart. Sometimes forumite CTGull swears that he can get Yamaha necks off and I think one of the keys to this is angling the hole for the steam tube to better hit the very small void in the dovetail - I tried to steam mine off and it would move but its possible that I just didn't hit the sweet spot. I've turned down work on several Yamahas - it just isn't worth my time - but I keep thinking that if I ever see one at a yard sale I might just try another reset. I won't shave a bridge, just one of those things I don't believe in doing. As far as the conversion, I did do a thread here and altho I bookmarked it good old HC gives me an error message when I try to access it. It wouldn't matter anyhow, the photo links are all broke. I do have the photos somewhere and I could recreate the thread but honestly, why go thru the trouble. The last three or four times I've posted anything here it has pretty much been a waste of time. Too bad, this was fun once a long time ago and I miss a lot of the old folks and our discussions. But like the necks on old guitars, things change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members katopp Posted July 24, 2020 Author Members Share Posted July 24, 2020 Freeeman, yah, things change. Not for the better, mind you. But those old Yamahas, they have something. They have mojo. They sound better. They wear their battle scars with pride. If it wouldn't be for the damned neck resets. I've taken a very good look - again - at that FG 365S and there are signs of a previous neck repair. The lacquer around the heel is ever so slightly different and the corners aren't as sharp as they should be. This thing has had an interesting life. But ... well, I know it's not the proper way, but it is the economic right way to just shave the bridge and have it play on for another 5 to 10 years. Yes, the pull of the strings will make the issues worse, but it is, after all, just a plywood side/back Yamaha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brindleleaf Posted August 4, 2020 Members Share Posted August 4, 2020 Hiya katopp! Last time I heard from you, you were happily ordering custom-made guitars straight from Vietnam! What you doing with a beat-up Yamaha?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.