Customer Repair - 1971 Yamaha FG-180

I'm beyond STOKED that she is in your hands Dave!! I'm excited to track the progress . Thanks again!

DAY 1 – Removed the strings. Some of the tuners are a little tight, as expected. Removed the truss rod cover, definitely for the first time, the screws were very tight. I will remove the truss rod nut & lube the threads after the neck has been removed. Put the cover and screws in separate bags, and put them in the main bag. Put tape on the heel inside corners and cut thru the lacquer radius with a new scalpel blade. Use the halogen light and spatula’s to loosen the fretboard. Put the guitar in the neck jig, set up the “steam generator”, and turned it on. 6 minutes of steam and there was no movement in the heel. There was immediately some steam leakage on the end, a small spot in the treble side, and the treble side of the top. I continuously wiped these surfaces to hopefully reduce the chance of finish blushing. Removed the guitar from the neck jig, put the tape back on the heel corners, and cut into the heel corners, enough that it feels like the heel is not glued to the sides. Back in the neck jig, 6 more minutes of steam and the treble side feels fully loose, but the bass side is restricted. I left the steam on for another minute with maybe a little more improvement. Both sides of the heel lamination are starting to crack. With the steam off I wiggled the neck, with various amounts of end pressure. It finally popped after a couple of minutes. Almost half of the fretboard extension area of the top was stuck to the bottom of the fretboard. I quickly removed that, scraped off any hide glue from the dovetail surfaces, and clamped the heel in the guitar vise to keep the heel lamination cracks from opening. And glued the piece of top back to the top. Overall, it wasn’t the hardest, but not the easiest. Each one presents its own challenges, which can’t be anticipated, they can only be quickly reacted to as they happen.

The steam setup.


The guitar in the neck jig.


After 6 minutes of steam the end of the heel is curling.  This area doesn't have any dovetail connected to it.


The neck is off!!  But, not without any damage, a chunk of the top, which is the first layer of the 3 layer lamination, is stuck to the bottom of the fretboard extension.  When pushing the spatulas under the fretboard, they can do odd things as they hit the rosette.  There's no way to tell what's going on, or correct it, until the neck is off.


The joint is pretty clean.


You can see patches of the neck dovetail stuck to the body dovetail.  That was what was keeping the neck from coming off.


You can sort of see when the neck was stuck in the pocket.






The chunk of top stuck to the fretboard extension. I quickly scrape that off while the glue is hot and wet.


And the top damage. I use the scalpel to remove any loose "hairs" of wood that will keep the piece of top from fitting cleanly.


The excess hide glue scraped off.














The neck clamped in the guitar vise.


Gluing the piece back to the top.


Both pieces hanging out separately.

DAY 2 – I pinned the treble side of the heel with a piece of 3/16” hardwood dowel and epoxy, using (3) sizes of drills (1/8”, 5/32” & 13/64”), to be able to get deeper into the corner and less chance of blowing out the side of the heel. The largest drill is 1/64” over the diameter of the dowel to have room for the epoxy.

I installed a 1/16” maple bridge plate patch, transferring the shape from a template, cutting it out on the band saw, and sanding it to size on the belt sander. I held it in place against the bridge plate and put one clamp on it, checked the position with the lighted mirror, marked the plate thru the bridge pin holes (to make positioning it easier), practiced clamping with a wax paper padded caul, applied epoxy to the patch, clamped it in place for 15 minutes, removed it and clean up any glue squeeze out, reclamped it, and set the guitar aside.

I removed the nut with the scalpel, pushing it in from the outer corners. First, I put a piece of masking tape on the headstock to not scratch it.

He's requested a full refret to not have the typical "wavey" fretboard result in random low frets, which it already came with from the factory.  Replace them all, along with sanding the fretboard level.  It's essentially a new neck.  I removed the frets, starting by spraying water on the first 5 frets, waiting a few minutes (to soften the wood to hopefully reduce the chance of chipping the fretboard), wiped off the water, and pulled the frets with the Stew Mac fret puller. Then I wet the next 7, and repeated the process, and did the same for the remaining frets. I had to use the chisel to get under the edge of 3 frets, the fret pullers couldn’t get between the wood and fret at either end.

Now I look and see how many chips were pulled. I only found 4. I dropped water thin super glue on them, held them down with a toothpick for a few seconds, and wiped up the excess glue with the damp paper towel from the fret pulling. And I filled the steam holes at the 15th fret, first cleaning out the slot with a .016” saw, putting a Teflon dam in the slot, packing some rosewood dust in the holes, dropping in water thin super glue, adding some more rosewood dust, after a couple of minutes remove the Teflon damn, and scrapping the surface flush.

Normally I would level the fretboard, then open the fret slots. I think I’m going to reverse that. It is difficult to open the slots, the saw is only a few thousandths of an inch larger than the existing slot. As soon as it is starting to pull thru the slot, it will bind. Sometimes you can carefully pull it and it will continue, but most times it is stuck, and will have to be carefully removed to try again. Not removing it carefully can result in a pulled chip, requiring it to be glued before continuing. If you try to force it thru the slot it can jump out of the slot and make a gouge in the fretboard. THIS is why I’m going to reverse my procedure. Any minor drag of the saw teeth across the fretboard will be sanded away during leveling.

FIRST, I will drag the .016” saw thru the slots to clean them out. BUT!! I had forgotten about the 3D printed saw guide I made! I use the .020” Stew Mac saw to line up the guide with the slot, clamp it, and draw the .025” saw (it cuts .023"/.024") until the back edge of the saw hits the top of the guide. That sets the depth. Then I unclamp the file guide, clean out the slot with the .020” saw, and check the depth with a modified piece of fret wire (bent 90 degrees and the tangs filed off). This may backfire if too much has to be removed while leveling the fretboard, requiring deeping some of the slots. We shall see!!


PINNING THE HEEL

The stuff.


Drilling the first hole.


The second hole.


The third hole.


I put tape around the heel to make clean up easy.


Mixing the epoxy.  I roll the dowel in the epoxy to be sure it is fully coated.


The dowel is in!  


DONE!!  I also dropped some thin super glue into the crack in the heel lamination.




INSTALLING THE BRIDGE PLATE PATCH

The template and the patch to be cut out.


The patch and the padded & wax paper covered clamping caul.


The caul clamped.









REFRETTING THE NECK - PART 1

Removing the nut with the scalpel.


It came out pretty easy.


Preparing to remove the frets.


Pulling a fret.  And a terrible picture, my hand was blocking the light.


The Teflon dam in the 15th fret slot.  The bag of rosewood dust collected from making bridges, and the water thin super glue.


The rosewood dust after adding the super glue.


Done!


The .016" saw, make from a hacksaw blade.  I have PULL and PUSH versions, made from each end of the blade.


The frets after cleaning.






WHAT'S THIS??!!  It looks like a crack running almost horizontal in the fretboard?? I glue the piece at the end, the rest looks solid.




Getting ready to open the fret slots.  The normal fret slot saw it at the top of the picture, it is large and heavy, and hard to control.  The Stew Mac saws (.015", .0120", .025") and very lightweight.  And the 3D printed saw guide.


The saw guide clamped.  I line it up with the .020" saw (.015" shown here!!), clamp it, then pull the .025" saw (it cuts .023"/.024") thru the slot until the back stiffener hits the top of the guide.  That's the easy version, it isn't that easy, the saw still binds, but the fretboard is protected.  








The depth tester.


GOOD!!


The fret slots have been opened!

Great job Dave!! Thanks again for the updates! I can't believe how fast and precise you are.. MIND BLOWN

DAY 4 – I marked the tops of the frets with black marker, leveled the frets, starting with the 8” long block to take down the slightly high 6th & 7th frets, and then the 21” beam to level them all, remarked the fret tops, crowned them with the Stew Mac Original Z File, and smoothed the fret ends with the Stew Mac fret end file. Also tubed & cleaned the tuners. I was on a roll, so I drilled, taper reamed, and ramped the bridge pin holes.

REFRETTING THE NECK - PART 3

The fret tops marked.


Frets crowned.




Fret ends smoothed. I'll have to check them again after the tape is off.





FINISHING THE BRIDGE PLATE PATCH

Getting ready to drill thru the bridge pin holes.


Ready to go!


Drilled!  The epoxy filled the holes, including the defects in the original bridge plate.  Drill and taper reaming restored the original holes.


The 5 degree taper reamer.


After reaming.  The holes look a LITTLE better than the original bridge plate!


Getting ready to ramp the bridge pin holes.  That is cutting angles slots in front of the holes to increase the string break angle.  There are already slots there, I'll just increase them slightly, increasing the width for the larger strings and the length for the smaller strings.


The string ball ends against the patch.


The strings going thru the slots you can barely see.

DAY 6 – Well, tonight didn't work out as planned, I didn't get much done.  Finished the nut action, individually filing the slots. Tuned to “D”, the action is now 1/8” low D & 7/64” high D. The neck is off center 1/64”, need to take off the bass side. Installed LIGHT new strings (DON’T CUT). The action is now a little over 1/8” low D & a little over 7/64” high D.

DAY 8 – I forgot to tune the guitar! I left the strings slacked for the past 6 days!! Tuned to E, the action is 5/64” low E & 1/16” high E.