NGD - 2022 Yamaha FS5!!!

CTGull,

Congratulations on the new to you Yamaha Guitar, looks very nice.
Hope you aren't going to sell that fantastic Martin OM21, that the wife bought you, it isn't even broke in yet, ever heard of sellers remorse, not nice.

I got the guitar 2 days ago.  It is not like new, as they stated, but fairly close.  and the sound didn't blow me away, like I had hoped.  But it does have the vintage FG sound, although the vintage equivalent is actually a little louder.  No thuddy open G like the OM21!!  I took some pictures and did a little writing, but my wife has kept me busy, and I need to take some pics of guitars to sell before it rains tomorrow.

The Story – I had been thinking about the FG5 (Dread size, Made in Japan), and then this FS5 (Folk size, Made in Japan) shows up on Shopgoodwill.com. 2.5 hours before it ends, I throw $925 at, what I considered a low bid, assuming it would go for over $1000. I woke in the morning to find I won!! I don’t NEED another guitar!! But if it works out, this will be the replacement for the Martin OM21 I never bonded with. It was shipped the same day I paid for it, and I received it 2 days later.

INITIAL OBSERVATIONS – It was packed well, with bubble wrap. The case looks mint. I open the case to find some bubble wrap holding the guitar in place. And it sure smells new!! The previous owner must have kept it in the case.

It is not “Like New”, as the ad claimed.  I had noticed the rough fake woodgrain pickguard had been removed, which I would have removed myself. The first thing I notice is the pickguard area and around the bridge have some shininess, probably from cleaning off the glue after removing the pickguard. I find a few patches on the upper side of the upper bout of what looks to be finish blushing. And some grunge where the arm goes over the lower bout. The 1, 3, 5, 7 & 12 side fret markers are covered with an oversize patches of white paint!! The 15th marker does not have that. There is some fret wear in the first position, and very slight divots for the B & E. The strings look to be Elixir Nanoweb PB Light. The G string is fuzzy from strumming.

The saddle is rounded except for some B string compensation. The saddle string spacing looks to be 2.165” (55mm), and sticks out .16”/.14”. The nut string spacing is 1.46” (37mm). the nut action is maybe a little high for some strings. The action is 3/32” low E & 5/16” high E. The neck relief is good.

Quickly looking inside, the braces are small, somewhat scalloped, but not rounded or tapered on the sides. The bridge plate is nice and clean (minimal blowout), but there is a blob of something stuck to it.

The sound didn’t initially blow me away. Definitely no thuddy G!! Good clarity, note definition, and overtones. Clarity and definition are better than the FG-140. It sounds different than the FG-140, but they are different body sizes. I found my former favorite 1970 FG-110 with 5 year old TEST EXP strings, which still sounds pretty good, I will change them because I remember them sounding like the guitar lost some midrange with them vs. EJ16’s.

The bridge pins are ebony, 3 degree, .209” diameter under the head. I have exact match bone pins, with ebony or abalone dots. I’ll install the ebony dot pins. The bone pins stick up about 1/8” because the ebony pins are not straight on the taper. Had to chamfer the end of the bone pins to keep the ball ends from getting hung up on them and not seating. I can’t tell if the bone pins made much difference, but the FG-110 is definitely louder and seems a little more “alive”, but probably because it’s a little louder. I think the best thing to do is restore the FS5 back to the factory strings (Elixir Nanoweb Light 80/20, which I have), and the original ebony pins. And change the strings on the FG-110 to Elixir Nanoweb PB Light.

The nice Yamaha hard case.


Packed for no movement.


The plastic bag with instructions and truss rod adjustment Allen wrench.  The original rough fake woodgrain pickguard was not included, which I would have removed anyway.  It would have been nice to have it to trace from to make a new one.


It's very difficult to photograph, there are shiny areas, in the matte finish, from the pickguard glue being cleaned off.  I don't like the matte finish.  Do I dull the shiny parts, or shine the dull parts??






Some arm grunge.


You can see shiny areas around the bridge.


A little left over glue.


Attempting to show the shiny areas again.


The vertical shiny area to the left of the bridge, and the top of the bridge, to the left of the saddle, was dulled while cleaning off the glue from the top.


You can sort of see the dull area of the bridge.  And the tiny B string compensation.






Attempting to show there is a little fret wear.


Some area of what looks to be blushing in the finish.


Another spot.




Nothing on the bottom side.








Only one small marked area on the back.


It coudl be buckle rash.  Not sure I want to risk having to sand the whole back to fix this.






The back of the neck looks good.


A little bit of glue and vertical scratches on the end of the heel.

DAY 2 (7/3/23) – Used denatured alcohol to remove the blobs of white paint over the fret marker side dots, finding there isn’t a 1st fret dot, which agrees with the top fretboard dots. I’m guessing the previous owner put these blobs on the side of the fretboard to be able to see the fret markers easier. Sanded the fret markers areas, and the whole side of the fretboard, with MicroMesh 3200 thru 8000.

Made the pickguard using the thin fake tortoise material. I checked the vintage FG pickguard template to the shadow to find the rosette radius is different. I had bought an actual modern Yamaha FG pickguard, which fits the shadow and radius perfectly. Traced that on the pickguard material, cut it out, and sanded the edges smooth.  The edges still need to be beveled.

The action is still 3/32” low E and 5/64” high E. Capoed the strings at the 2nd fret and removed the strings from the bridge. Removed the saddle with great difficulty, I made it a little too tight. Sanded the tight areas. Slightly slotted the low E & A bridge pin holes so the strings don’t bind in the pins. Increased the ramps for the G thru high E holes slightly. Sanded .030” off the bottom of the saddle.

I finally took some interior pics.

I don’t like the matte finish top, it shows fingerprints too easy, and it doesn’t look vintage. Started sanding the top at the lower lower bout with MicroMesh 3200 thru 6000, but the very fine scratches from the scouring Yamaha did are still slightly visible. I’m not taking any more lacquer off. I switched to using Meguiar’s Ultimate Compound to polish the top, which took 2 hours, stopping 3 times thinking I was done but finding more dull areas, and I still wasn’t completely satisfied. The whole top really needs to be orbital fine sanded to remove the straight line sanding marks Yamaha made.

I forgot to take a before picture.  Here is a pic from the ad showing the large side dots.


After removing the side dots.


After sanding and polishing.




The purchased Yamaha pickguard on the fake tortoise material.


The Yamaha pickguard is very thick!  The stuff I'm making a new on from is not.


After it's cut out.  The plastic cover dulls the colors.  


The new pickguard placed on the top.  I won't stick it on until after the top is polished.




Slightly slotted the low E & a pin holes.


And added to the G thru high E ramps.





Finally some internal pics.  the dark area on the end block is a chunk blown out when the drilled the endpin hole.


The very obvious difference between this and a vintage FG is the addition of the side crack stop pieces.


There's some marking in white pencil, but I can't read it.




There's some blob on the bridge plate.  And some chipping from drilling the pin holes, although not as bad as the vintage FG's.

















A laminated neck block.

Amazing work there CT, you are an inspiration 👏

CTGull,

Excellent work as normal, it's looking one hell of a nice guitar.
Hope it sounds and plays as good as it looks.

PS Don't forget to play it.

Red label Yamahas are such sweet guitars.

I have been seriously considering a LL16 as my next acoustic. Looking for a larger bodied guitar in rosewood for a warm strumming tone, and really like the sound of Engelmann spruce. The LL16 ticks a lot of boxes for me in terms of a mid range solid wood spruce/rosewood workhorse. I particularly like the darker brown one, but the sunburst is also nice. My other options is a Larrivee L03. But won't happen in a while, New guitars are a rare thing for me these days.