questions for a good luthier - if there's one on this site

[bloke]

Dear administrators/monitors:
Maybe (??) you could leave this here for a day, and then move it to the correct forum...
I'd like for someone to actually SEE this set of questions, eh?

Someone gave us a Yamaha acoustic guitar.
(Frankly, I had forgotten all about it.)

The thing is this:
A friend (who owns some fancy guitars - along with owning a bunch of money) just offered us way too much for our Martin dreadnaught (as we knew what the Martin was worth), so (as the Martin just left the premises) this Yamaha is the only remaining steel-stringed acoustic guitar (well...except for an old 1940's archtop, that's an old family/sentimental guitar) that we have left here to bang around on...

...so here's the BIG issue with the Yamaha guitar:

The bridge is NOT (nope: not-at-all) pulling loose from the soundboard of this guitar...but the soundboard itself (and the soundboard is NOT a thin one, but fairly thick) has warped upward where the bridge is glued to the soundboard.

Obviously, this elevates the bridge, which elevates the strings.

Sure...It plays "OK" up to the 5th or 7th fret, but the strings are way too high up on higher frets.

I can grind the saddle down to compensate, but the warp is pronounced enough so that the saddle would need to be ground down to not-much-higher-than the rosewood bridge body itself.
I do not believe (even if the saddle is ground down that low, on its underside - and reinstalled) that the strings will buzz against the bridge body, as the ends of the strings are "right there"...but I would just like to run this tack/approach by any of you who actually regularly repair guitars.

The neck is not warped at all. It's probably not "the world's most amazing neck" but (well...) it's "good".

Since the saddle is cheap and replaceable, would you try (what I outlined above) first...or something else?

IF this proves to be an easy fix, BUT the strings DO barely buzz against the rosewood bridge body, what about carefully filing/sanding down the rosewood bridge body along there (being careful to leave a well-defined track/indention for the saddle), so that the strings to not buzz against the rosewood...??

again:
The soundboard is NOT thin, so I just see no real hope of teasing the hump out of the wood.

Thanks for any experienced input.

[Brendan Bohnhorst]

I'm not going to claim to be a good luthier by any means but here are my $0.02

That said, these old Yamaha laminate guitars sound better than a lot of newer stuff and they certainly look nice. The spruce tops on these were usually very good. If the neck doesn't need a reset I don't think that I would tear it apart and try to fix the delamination/warping issue at all. That would be a lot of work and just doesn't seem worth it to me. If we assume that the truss rod isn't maxed out and everything else hardware wise in the guitar is in decent shape... Your idea would get the action to be playable and not really devalue the instrument at all. I would worry about the delamination continuing to get worse over time though.

Improve the playability quickly and easily while keeping it inexpensively reversible if it doesn't work? Do it.

[bloke]

Thanks for the encouragement and insights !

Those saddles are only a buck or so...

delamination: I understand what that is. I believe the laminated top has remained solid, but the layers have all warped while staying together. I mash very hard at the soundboard at that point, and fell no flexing of the layers of wood.

I suspect that the "Achilles' heel" is the fact that guitar builders avoid bracing the soundboards at the bridges, because that would cut down on resonance...but - with no bracing located there on the underside, that increases the chances of the soundboard warping in that location...eh?

I'm not trying to be argumentative...just thinking with my typing fingers.

bloke "who can actually type"

[iiipopes]

This is what my luthier said who fixed some belly bloat on one of my acoustic guitars: there is, or should be, a maple plate under the bridge that anchors the ball ends of the string when the pins are inserted. If the plate is too thin, or loose, and/or the braces that are in the same area are loose (as from dried out glue, rarely from using too heavy strings, since "everyone" uses the "standard" set of 12's, and sometimes lighter), then you get belly bloat. The solution is to get under the top, remove the plate, glue on a larger or thicker maple plate with hot hide glue, assess the rest of the braces to see if they need similar treatment, and hope the belly flattens out. On the mid-priced guitar he did the work for me, everything turned out well. If not, the solution is not to shave more off the bridge saddle, as that lessens the angle of the anchor over the bridge, which sacrifices tone and sustain. The next solution, which all guitars need after fifty or so years, is a neck reset to increase the angle a fraction of a degree to lower the action and retain the relative string break angle over the bridge saddle.

The nickel question is: how much is the Yammy guitar worth that you would have someone else do it; or how much is the consternation worth to fix a lesser model guitar?

[bloke]

I'm just askin' if it's reasonable to risk a dollar-piece of plastic to see if I can make a free Chinese geetar playable...
...and (I suppose) the obvious answer is "yes".

This guitar (like many I've seen) has an "X" brace, which avoids the bridge area completely.

' funny...

I just (as several unexpected "guitar" things happened at blokeplace, today) pulled my (weird: because no one thinks of them as having made "classic"/nylon-string guitars) *Guild, U.S.A. classic/nylon out, started messing with some of my old-old-OLD rep', and discovered that I actually DO miss it, and (well...) from all the work that I do, I still have all the hand strength required for constant barring, as well as the callouses.

I believe - were I to somewhat seriously revisit the guitar, I would work on bossa-nova/samba stuff...even though there is ABSOLUTELY NO MARKET for it.
______________________________________________
*My Guild is a 60-year-old Rhode Island-made cedar-top MK-2...similar to this one that someone's trying to sell on Reverb:


movement of this thread to the appropriate forum request put in...Thanks for the responses !

[Three Valves]

Bloke + chick with decent voice = Bossa Nova gold!!

[sdloveless]

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... octor.html

There's a video on that page showing how it's installed. Easy peasy chicken squeezey.

[bloke]

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... octor.html

There's a video on that page showing how it's installed. Easy peasy chicken squeezey.

Thank-you !!!

Though I'm not sure it would work on this guitar, as the saddle is already too high.
I guess it's worth a $30 try...

Did not work for me
By Bob Doherty from Medfield, MA
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Verified Buyer


I bought this to fix a belly bulge that was creating a very high action on my Mitchell MD-100CE dread. It was a last ditch effort to fix while not spending a lot of money. I think that it did not work for me because the guitar has been like that for a while and I believe it's a laminated top. I tried the middle setting and the outside setting but no matter how much I cranked it the bulge never budged. The saddle remained at a downward angle toward the sound hole.

I know it can work since I saw proof in a few videos but it just didn't work for me.

[bloke]

Bloke + chick with decent voice = Bossa Nova gold!!

This seems like a nice combo...
drummer/bass/guitar/singer/trombone...I actually know I very fine multi-horns (many-horns) player...
If there's a b-n guitar player who would do I better job than I would (and I would have to spend months working my chops back up), I'd be glad to be the bass player in the combo.

People seem to prefer loud/obnoxious music, these days...so (well...) no market for this.

[hrender]

I think a bossa-nova combo would be welcome at most smaller cafes and coffee shops, probably most social gatherings, too. I think people will be craving this sort of thing when things open back up.

[Three Valves]

I think a bossa-nova combo would be welcome at most smaller cafes and coffee shops, probably most social gatherings, too. I think people will be craving this sort of thing when things open back up.

[Three Valves]

When she picked up the trombone and began playing I almost had a moment!!

[Kirley]

Thanks for sharing, bloke. That was awesome!
Definitely a market for that where I live/work.
As with just about everything these days, decent videos are needed to show the client what you got.
Also, to show them that they want it! People often don't know what they want.

[Three Valves]

Thanks for sharing, bloke. That was awesome!
Definitely a market for that where I live/work.
As with just about everything these days, decent videos are needed to show the client what you got.
Also, to show them that they want it! People often don't know what they want.

If you wait for someone to say "I'm looking for something understated, elegant and classy" you will otherwise be waiting a LONG TIME these days!!

[Three Valves]

Why do I find Rita so attractive??

1. I am attracted to talented women.

2. She is not overtly sexual. On a scale of strictly animal attraction, she is cute. Not drop dead gorgeous. So, she seems more approachable?? Hey, maybe I got a shot!!

3. Modestly dressed. No green hair. No bone in her nose, no visible tattoos. Feminine.

4. If I had a daughter, I would happy if she chose Rita as a personality worthy of fandom.

[Three Valves]

Bloke + chick with decent voice = Bossa Nova gold!!

This seems like a nice combo...
drummer/bass/guitar/singer/trombone...I actually know I very fine multi-horns (many-horns) player...
If there's a b-n guitar player who would do I better job than I would (and I would have to spend months working my chops back up), I'd be glad to be the bass player in the combo.

People seem to prefer loud/obnoxious music, these days...so (well...) no market for this.

She up and gone weird on us.

[Doc]

If bloke had extra hours in the day, he could record/produce/sell his own recordings. Lay down his own bass lines, then lay down the guitar parts. I'd buy his album.

Doc (who thinks bloke probably has a bunch of other stuff that would likely take up any extra hours)

[Three Valves]

If bloke had extra hours in the day, he could record/produce/sell his own recordings. Lay down his own bass lines, then lay down the guitar parts. I'd buy his album.

Why did you leave out singing??

[Doc]

If bloke had extra hours in the day, he could record/produce/sell his own recordings. Lay down his own bass lines, then lay down the guitar parts. I'd buy his album.

Why did you leave out singing??

I know nothing of Joe's vocal prowess - he can handle that or hire it out. Or leave it out. Either way, I trust he wouldn't release a final product that was caca.

[Three Valves]

Like Rita's latest video??

https://youtu.be/dY5JcDNBmDk