1967 Yamaha FG-180 - Neck Reset+

DAY 1 (8/29/23) – Removed the strings, the saddle and the truss rod cover; putting the cover in a little bag, and that bag in a slightly larger bag with the screws, and putting that bag in a larger bag with the strings and the saddle.

Took pictures of the inside of the guitar. The bridge plate is slightly blown out from when they drilled the holes, but certainly not the worst I’ve seen. The finish on the whole inside is darker than usual, maybe thicker too. The damage to the bridge plate is also covered with the darker finish. It must have been done at the factory because the label doesn’t have any finish on it. ODD!!! There’s a pretty good date stamp on the side. And, as typical with early FG’s, there’s a date stamp on the end block with some very over stamped symbols. Other than the dark finish, there’s nothing unusual to see here.

Some odd marking on the brace.




The date code in the distance.


The date code, with double 7's!


The marking on the end block.  I can't read the date code.


Nope, still can't read it.




A very poorly marked serial number.




The top braces and bridge plate.






The top bracing in the mirrors and a 0.6 zoom.


The bridge plate.  They made them from spruce, a soft wood.  They're normally a bit more chewed up and I add a bridge plate patch made from 1/16" maple.  This one isn't too bad, I might leave it as is.


The Early Red label.




Put 3 layers of masking tape around the heel corners and cut thru the lacquer radius with a new scalpel blade.

Wet the 15th fret area (to lessen the chance of chipping the fretboard while removing the fret) and removed the 15th fret with the Stew Mac fret puller, getting it started with the chisel in the front right corner. Drilled the 2 steam holes, definitely hitting the neck pocket.

Put the heat shield on the top and heated the fretboard extension with the halogen light, moving the guitar every 5 minutes, trying to get under it with the spatula’s after 25 minutes with very little progress. I sprayed some water in the small gap a I made, waited a few minutes, tried some more, with some progress, then heated for another 10 minutes, got the spatula’s further in, sprayed more water in the gap, and finally I got the spatula’s up to the 15th fret (45 minutes total). That was one of the harder ones.

Setup the steam generator, put the guitar in the neck jig, and turned on the steam. When the spitting turned to full steam, I put the tip in the first hole, alternating every minute, trying a little wiggling after 4 minutes. No movement. 5 minutes, nothing. And nothing after 6 minutes. Turned the steam off. And I had a family thing and had to stop. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

The tape around the heel, and the corner cut with a scalpel.




And the end of the heel.


Wet the 15th fret.


Put tape on the opposite side I'm about to use a chisel to get under the corner of the fret.  I did that because the fret is completely flush with the fretboard and the sharp edge of the fret removal pliers couldn't get under it on either end.


The 15th fret removed cleanly.


Drilled the steam holes


Heating the fretboard extension, with a heat shield on the top.


Getting under the fretboard with the spatula's.


Finally got under the whole thing.  This one was a pain.


The steam setup.


A closeup of the guitar in the neck jig.


Unfortunately, getting the neck off will have to wait until tomorrow.

DAY 3 (9/2/23) – Clamped the 3D printed drill jig at the 15th fret, and used a 1/16” diameter x 6” long drill (with tape at 3-1/2” to limit the depth) to drill compound angle holes on both sides of the neck joint. I had 3D modeled the Yamaha FG neck and designed the drill jig to intersect the neck joint. The treble side hit some wood, the bass side felt like it hit very little wood. We’ll find out later where they went into.

I turned the steam on, waiting 4 minutes for it to heat up and be shooting mostly steam. I inserted the tip into one hole, alternating every minute with the new holes, wiping the hot condensed steam off the top often with a face cloth. Steam is coming out of all the holes. I figure I can’t wiggle the neck with the tip in the holes since it is supposed to be intersecting the neck joint. I turned the steam off after 6 minutes, removed the tip and the clamp on the fretboard, and wiggled the neck a bit. There is some movement on both sides. And the start of a heel lamination crack on the bass side, it looks to be in the finish only.

I removed the guitar from the neck jig, applied the tape to the heel corners, and cut deeper into the corners. The scalpel went in fairly far and the wood felt soft, except for the upper treble side. I shouldn’t have to mess with that again.

I put the guitar back in the neck jig, turned the steam on, alternating holes for 4 minutes, turned the steam off, pulled the tip, removed the clamp, applied end pressure and wiggled. A little more movement, but it’s not there, removed the end pressure. The heel lamination crack has gotten a little longer, still in the finish. I don’t want the wiggle too much and make it worse, so I’ll let it sit for another 15 minutes to cool and allow the moisture to seep in further.

Turned the steam on again, alternating holes. I realized I can wiggle with the tip in, so after 2 minutes I wiggled the neck a little each time after moving the tip. I turned the steam off after 6 minutes, it seemed the neck might be ready to pop, but it seems a bit stuck on the bass side. The heel lamination has now opened to a crack on the bass side. Not wanting to make it worse, I stopped wiggling, removed the guitar from the neck jig, and cut into the heel corners a little more, just in case. It felt good, that’s not the problem. The dovetail must still be stuck. Let the guitar sit for 15 minutes to cool a little. Too much heat, moisture and wiggling will separate the heel lamination, releasing the neck, but leaving the chunk of heel in the guitar, which is not fun to remove.

Turned the steam on again, alternating holes, adding pressure after 2 minutes. I did a little wiggling here and there, stopping the steam at 6 minutes. More pressure and some wiggling and the neck popped. At total of 22 minutes over 5 steam sessions (including the one 3 days ago). I used the steam to remove some of the finish blushing on the top (caused by the steam). The steam softens the lacquer slightly and gets inside. Steam puts it there, and steam will remove it. Later I will use the hair drier to heat the rest of the moisture out of the lacquer.

The first layer of the treble side of the top was stuck to the bottom of the fretboard extension. I removed that with the spatula while the glue was still wet. Parts of the neck dovetail, on both sides, were still stuck in the neck pocket. No surprise. The 2 holes I drilled hit the back of the neck dovetail, explaining why I got almost no resistance of chips. I’ll look at that more later.

The most important thing to do now is to clamp the neck heel in the Stew Mac guitar vise so the heel crack doesn’t open any further, and to allow it to dry in the closed position. Leaving it as it will result in it drying with a big gap, I’ve seen it actually get worse. Clamping it shut is very important. I use a popsicle stick at the top of the fretboard so the clamping force is at the outer edge of the bass side, not at the top of the fretboard radius (in the middle), which will leave a gap. It will be pinned later.

With the neck clamped, I can glue the piece of the top back to the top. At this point the 2 halves have dried a bit from the heat. I remove any small pieces of loose wood fibers with the scalpel and realign any fibers out of position, apply wood glue to both surfaces and clamp them together; with a piece of wax paper (so nothing sticks to the top), a piece of thin foam (for any irregularities), a ¾” block of wood, a custom clamping caul for inside the guitar (with cutouts to avoid the braces), and (2) squeeze type clamps. I leave it clamped for a couple of minutes, remove everything, wipe up the glue squeeze out, and reclamp, keeping any eye out for additional squeeze out.

They will both stay clamped until tomorrow. I’ll then take a closer look at the neck joint, clean it up, and pin the heel.

The drill jig.










The drill, with the tape at 3-1/2".


After drilling.  Not many chips.


The outer holes are the ones that were just drilled.  The drill jig locates on the fret slot and is designed to drill the holes thru the center of the fret slot so they are covered by the fret later.


Ready to steam!!


The neck is off!!


You can see the missing top ply in the treble side.


There's the problem.  Even with the many minutes of steam, and some wiggling, the neck dovetail was still stick in the pocket on both sides.  The only way to get the neck out is to shear the dovetail.


Not a lot of glue, just a very tight joint.




The piece of top stuck to the bottom of the fretboard extension.




The heel lamination crack.


Yea, it's ugly.  It's amazing the neck stays together, with all the heat and steam.


The piece of top scraped off.


Clamping the heel.




The piece of popsicle stick used to put the clamping force over the crack.


The bookmatched pieces of top.


Both parts with glue on them.


The first clamping.


Everything clamped.




The neck supported, covered, and a towel under it in the vise, just in case.

DAY 5 (9/4/23) – Removed the nut, first putting a piece of tape behind the nut, scored the seam around the nut, cut under the corners of the nut, and popped it off with a spatula.

Checked the fret level. On the bass side, the straight edge hits on the 3rd & 4th, and 12th & 13th, with very low 8th thru 10th. On the treble side the straight edge hits on the 1st & 4th, and 12th & 13th, and very low 6th thru 10th. The height of the frets range from .034” to .027”. The problem is the low frets may be .010” to .015” low, requiring sanding ALL the other frets down to their level. I recommend a full refret for the longevity of the guitar.

I wanted to make the heel lamination crack more stable and fill it so it isn’t so obvious. I started by using the mahogany marker to color the crack, wipe the excess, clean with denatured alcohol. Then I put tape on both sides of the crack, filled the crack with water thin super glue (a couple of times, it seeps in deep), then GluBoost Fill N Finish (set with GluBooost accelerator), then scraped it (many, many times, trying to get it flush without going too deep). Then I started sanding with MicroMesh, starting with 1500. Once I got to 6000 I knew I hadn’t sanded the glue flush, so I started over. I got a little greedy and started to sand thru the color. I quickly went up the grits moved to polishing with Meguiar’s Ultimate Compound. Then I filled the lighter area with mahogany marker, and polished by hand. It looks pretty good. The worst problem with fixing any finish is finding the line between not enough and too much. I didn’t want the obvious bump where I fixed it, but I didn’t want to go too far, which I slightly did. In the end, it looks pretty good, but I’ll never be satisfied.


About to remove the nut.


Got under one corner.


It's out!!



Colored the crack with mahogany marker.  And I cut off the dowel in the heel.


Taped around the crack and filled it with water thin super glue.


And then GluBoost.


After removing the tape.

Starting to scrape with a rounded edge razor blade.  You have to be careful to not scrape too deep, otherwise I'll have to add more GluBoost and start over.  And you can see some compression cracks/ridges in the finish from the pressure required to remove the neck.  I'll sand them too.




After the final sanding, and starting to sand thru the color.


And you can see that it still isn't flush, but there's no way I'm sanding anymore.  The ridges from the compression are gone, although the fin cracks are visible if you look REALY closely.


After polishing and adding a touch or mahogany marker.  I'm not touching it again!!

DAY 7 (9/6/23) – Unclamped the fretboard, it is now bent down about .04”, perfect. We’ll see if it’s still there tomorrow. No time to do any work on the guitar today.

DAY 9 (9/9/23) – Lubed the tuners with Tri-Flow.

Made a new bone saddle. The saddle slot is .112” bass & middle, and .115” treble; and is .14”/.17”/.14” (bass, middle, treble) deep. It sticks out .30”/.27” (Bass/Treble). A bit much!! Sanded about .07” off the bottom. It now sticks out .22”/.20”. A good place to start.

Made a new bone nut. The 1967 models have a .25” thick nut, vs. .22” for 1968 thru 1981 models. I make the regular nut from 6mm(.236”) thick blanks, I have special .27” thick blanks for these. Slotted the nut with 1.44” string spacing (center of E to E) for medium strings.

The saddle.


The tools to make the nut.


Starting the first slot.


All 6 slots started.


The rough nut finished.  It will get finish sanded later.  The pencil line if the fret plane projected from the actual frets with the half pencil.

DAY 11 (9/11/23) – Verified the action is a little over 1/8” low D & a little over 7/64” high D. Removed the original strings. Set the tape on the heel at .03”. Filed & sanded to the tape. Installed the supplied medium strings and tuned to “D”. The neck relief is good.  The neck is centered.  The action is 7/64” low D & 3/32” high D. A little more to go.

But first I “Ramped and Slotted” the low E & A pin holes, the windings were getting stuck.

Set the tape on the heel at .02”. Had to undercut the heel a little more. Filed & sanded to the tape. The action is now 3/32” low D & 5/64” high D. Still 1/64” high. Leave it overnight and check again. There’s plenty of saddle, I may leave it there and sand the saddle a little later.

The second stringing.


I'm going to "Ramp & Slot" the pin holes, widening the existing low E & A string ramps (cut by the strings), and slotted the hole slightly, both so the windings don't get stuck.  And ramped the other holes to clean them up.


After.


The third stringing.

DAY 13 (9/13/23) – Unclamped and removed the guitar from the neck jig. Removed the nut and filed the high D slot to roll it back sooner. Chamfered the edges of the slots. Reinstalled the nut, and tuned the guitar to D. The open high D string is good. The action is a little lower than expected at a little over 1/16” low D and a little over 3/32” high D. It plays cleanly except for a slight sitar buzz at the high D 8th fret if picked hard. Barre chords up the neck are clean. The action will typically go up 1/64th in the next 2 to 4 weeks. I’ll have to watch if for a week or 2 and hope that happens. I don’t want to raise the saddle anymore or have to take the neck off for a minor adjustment. It sounds great! But looks weird because of the tape on the fretboard.