Restoration: Yamaha FG420A

[joeguam]

Some of you may have seen my thread about this guitar I picked up on craigslist for only $30. Its a solid spruce top dread with Nato back/sides and its in great structural shape...just needs refinishing.

So here I go on this journey, hope you enjoy the pictures!

[joeguam]

Remove the pickguard.





Remove the bridge.

Originally Posted by joeguam

...just needs refinishing...

I realize it's your guitar to do with as you wish, but the very last thing I would do with that guitar is refinish it.

[jared1177]

Originally Posted by Todd Yates

I realize it's your guitar to do with as you wish, but the very last thing I would do with that guitar is refinish it.

+1.

I'd also question the top... sure looks like laminate to me.

[viento]

I would give this box a chance and refinish it for sure.
I own an old Yamaha FG340 from about 1970 built with all laminate even the top.
It sounds super - I´d never expected such quality from laminate.
I don´t know how they achieved that with plywood, but they did their job!

The only thing ist the slightly grown action up the neck that will need a reset in the medium term.

[joeguam]

Originally Posted by jared1177

+1.

I'd also question the top... sure looks like laminate to me.

Jared, here's another shot of the endgrain of the spruce top at the soundhole. Those grain lines sure look like they go through the entire thickness of the wood and are not interrupted by a high-pressure lamination filler.

What do you think?
Can anyone confirm?

[joeguam]

Originally Posted by viento

I would give this box a chance and refinish it for sure.

Thanks viento, appreciate this motivation booster. I've refinished another one of my instruments before (a curly koa ukulele) and the satisfaction of seeing such a beautiful piece of art restored/renewed is priceless. I realize this is a ~$300 guitar, but I believe this 23-yr-old solid spruce top can sound and look great if just given a little love and attention.

Not to mention, the layer of poly finish on this guitar is SUPER THICK! It has to be suffocating the heck of this guitar.

The bridge should be coming off today and it looks like I will have to just use brute force (scraping/sanding) to remove the finish.

[stanron]

Originally Posted by joeguam

Jared, here's another shot of the endgrain of the spruce top at the soundhole. Those grain lines sure look like they go through the entire thickness of the wood and are not interrupted by a high-pressure lamination filler.

What do you think?
Can anyone confirm?

I'm sorry but to my eyes that is laminate. Look at how the grain of the middle layer gets closer together at the sides of the sound hole while the top layer gets closer together at the top. Can't really see what's happening on the bottom layer.

[joeguam]

Originally Posted by stanron

I'm sorry but to my eyes that is laminate. Look at how the grain of the middle layer gets closer together at the sides of the sound hole while the top layer gets closer together at the top. Can't really see what's happening on the bottom layer.

Thanks stanron, let me see if I can get a better picture later today. I really wish Yamaha would just have the specs available somewhere.

[stanron]

To my eyes this looks like a typical good quality laminate. Usually the top and bottom layers are very thin quarter sawn spruce and the middle layer is also quarter sawn but a lot thicker. It may also be spruce.

All the wood is good quality. Because the middle layer is at 90 degrees to the top and bottom the plate is very stable and will never crack. The only down side is that if it gets seriously damaged repairs will be tricky. I would not be surprised to learn that this guitar sounds really nice.

[joeguam]

Thanks everyone for the input.
I've removed the bridge (my very first bridge removal) and got a little tear out. The tear out proves that it's laminate.

Here are the photos, I've learned a ton about bridge removal to do it much better next time. Most important step that I've learned you might ask? Patience.

[joeguam]

Removed the pickguard adhesive, dabbed it with naptha and used a razor blade to scrape it off. Came off pretty easily.






Used my orbital sander to take off the finish, have to be real careful here not to sand through the veneer of the laminate. I'll sand it by hand and a sanding block to even out the blotching. Still deciding whether or not to stain it first.

[joeguam]

Just a quick photo, finally got all the poly finish and paint off. Removing a poly finish sucks. I will never agree to do this again. It took about 3 hours and some serious elbow grease with my orbital sander. The finish was SUPER THICK, about 1mm thick and I'm being conservative with that estimation. I can't wait to hear how this bad boy sounds as I'll only be putting on 4 coats of TruOil to a satin finish only.

[Kitchen Guitars]

Yamaha has a fairly reliable resource for guitar info. There are a few guitars you type in that the info is flat out wrong, such as the FG180
Yamaha is very consistent on one thing, it's including an "S" designation for solid top. Yours is a Laminate.
http://www.yamaha.com/apps/guitararc...itarchive2.asp
Year(s) Sold: 1989-95
Original MSRP(US$): $379.00
Top: Spruce
Back / Sides: Nato
Neck: Nato
Fingerboard: Bubinga
Tuners: Chrome
About Yamaha laminates. Yamaha did not do lamination to make guitars cheaper. Back in the 50's and 60's so many of the Dynamic solid topped guitars were cracking because humidity differences in the uncontrolled factory to the destination of the guitar. As stanron pointed out. The laminate is not a filler. It is 3 layers of quality spruce that will not crack under 99% of conditions. I'd use a wood sealer before you stain. Unless you are going for a spotted cheetah look

[joeguam]

Thank you so much Kitchen for this info, this really helps. One thing I noticed when I had my orbital sander on the top and back, was it made a REALLY LOUD tone from the orbital sander vibrations. It was so loud that I had to stop and put on hearing protection! This made me excited to get this restoration complete and string this bad boy up.

After 23 years, this things should have opened up all that it could. Taking off the really thick finish should give it more flexibility and resonance.

I'll be hand sanding the blotchy spots from the paint, I didn't want to get too deep with the orbital sander for fear of sanding the veneer right off. I'll probably put one coat of z-poxy resin (pore filler) on the entire guitar before I add the TruOil. In the past, I've used z-poxy as a pore filler and sanded each coat back down to bare wood until the pores were filled. Once they were filled ( about 2 coats), I then did one last coat, but didn't sand back down to bare wood and left a small coat to uniform the color.

I do just one coat of z-poxy as the pores of this Nato (which is very similar to mahogany) are already filled from the paint. I'll see how it looks and then decide if I need to add some stain or not.

At a $30 craigslist find, I don't want to spend any money for materials and just make due with what I have. I'm excited and thanks again for the info!