Old skool Yamaha

First up we have a very nice, I think, late 80s/early90s, Yamaha. Its came to me as a Yamaha body with a beautifully made custom neck also to be painted but leaving the stunning wood of the fret board still fully showing.

This is basically how the body arrived. The front had already been roughly stripped back to the wood, whilst the back and sides were still fully painted but in pretty bad condition with a few chips and very scratched up; all easily filled and fixed though. In this photo you can see all the necessary areas have been masked off. This stops any unwanted build up of primer and clear coat, especially important in the neck pocket area (so as not too affect re-fitting the neck) and to a lesser extent the floating bridge cavity.

There were also a few slightly larger repairs and touch ups needed. It looked as if the bottom left control knob hole had been drilled for a more complex electronics setup than it was originally built for. The original tone knob hole had also been made much bigger, so would not take a conventional pot size. I wanted to keep it all simple with just one volume and one tone pot, so rather than making the hole size better I decided to completely fill it in and use the newer hole instead. The filler is the big grey patch under the bridge. Once the filler had hardened it needed a fair bit of work to get it to follow the curves of the body exactly, a fair bit of sanding and some extra filler here and there. Filler used is non shrinking filler, as you don’t want the filler changing shape or moving at all when the other coats are applied, making the repair noticeable. It’s hard to tell in the photo but the carved top of this body is very contoured and pronounced - looks and feels really great but made re shaping the filler to match pretty tricky.

The other smaller repairs needed were around the neck pocket. In the photo you can just about see two tiny grey squares between the neck pickup cavity and pocket. There were two tiny cracks here running down about 3 or 4 mm, with some wood missing. These were re-glued and sanded flat, then the same filler was used to bulk it out again and add strength. The repairs look bigger than they were as in the photo the filler is raised slightly and wider than the crack. After wetsanding it became totally smooth and flush with the body. These weren’t major problems but ones that definitely needed to be dealt with. Firstly to give the strength back to the wood in an area where it’s needed and secondly, cosmetically, to get everything smooth and perfect.

Here’s the back after the prep work. You can see the unusual recessed jack socket area, cool feature although a bit trickier to paint and refinish. Notice also the little light wooden circle in the electronics cavity where the unwanted hole was. Filler alone probably would have been enough but just too be sure I plugged it up to provide extra strength and give the filler a base to adhere to and build on. Masking around the inner edge of cavity stops material build up, for easy fitting of the cover plate, simple but makes life easier down the line.

In the above photo all of the prep work has been done. The light thin finish on the back was rubbed down to prep it, not really any reason to strip it all off. As there were no major chips or dents on the back the rubbing down got rid of all the imperfections and scratches. The whole body was then taken through a few progressively finer grits of sanding to get it nice and smooth for the primer coat.

Here we have the guitar fully primed. The white primer coat is very light and barely adds any thickness at all. The few repairs are now completely covered and no longer visible. The masking stays on the neck pocket throughout the whole process; but was removed from the pickup and bridge areas to allow me to paint over the edges, creating a nice smart end to the artwork at these points. This is not so important at the bridge pickup, which will be covered by a surround, but it keeps it all looking good around the bridge and the other two pickups. With this basecoat on you can really see how deep and heavily the cutaways are carved. The whole body is really heavily carved and contoured and I want the artwork to show off these features as much as possible.

A quick shot of the back primed up. The whole body now gets a going over with fine grade wet ‘n’ dry to keep everything super smooth and prep it for the artwork. This is one of the more exciting times. It makes the extra prep work worthwhile, so you have a completely smooth, blank canvas ready for action.

Front fully painted and black edges done to frame it all nicely and keep it looking smart. This one is obviously very detailed and colourful; therefore pretty labour intensive so a design similar to this would be at the higher end of the price range. Design wise I try to make it good looking and striking from a distance but with enough detail and extra touches to make it interesting and good looking up close too, a good balance between the two is the aim. A quick clear coat sealer goes on to protect the artwork while the rest is painted.

The black edges and sides continue around onto the back. The only bit of artwork on the back was done to show off the back contour and the top side shape, tying in with the front of the body and the back of the neck (shown a bit further down). After a quick sealer coat, then a few final tweaks and touch ups, the painting side of things is done. So it is on to the final stage - the clear coating; providing the final finish that fully seals in and protects the artwork, and gives the high gloss finish of a pro guitar.

Now seems a good time to show a bit of the neck that will be part of this guitar. The basic principles of prepping the body are applied to the neck. This was a brand new neck and not much really needed doing. Whilst the back of the neck was not a particularly attractive wood the fret board itself was stunningly grained light wood, I imagine a quilted or birds eye maple but I’m no expert on woods. I obviously wanted to keep this completely untouched so it was all masked off including the sides of the fret board. As with the body a light coat of primer went on next.

This photo shows the neck masking and the headstock partly painted. It’s not shown here but the truss rod was masked off to stop it being glued in by primer, definitely don’t want that happening!

Just a quick one of the back partly painted...

And a quick one of it fully painted here, just about to be clear coated. If you would like a neck painted as well, both the body and neck really need to be here at the same time so that they can be fitted correctly once done. Whilst the painting and finishing is thin it still adds some thickness, not a problem any where else but potentially can be in the neck pocket and when re-fitting the neck.

Another option that’s not as full on and cheaper, but still very effective, is having just the front of the headstock painted. A matching headstock works really to bring the whole guitar together as one visually and adding more interest, just a cool little extra touch.
Come back soon to see the final few photos and the end result.