A very special Yamaha (FG-140)

"Never before has folk music sounded so good..."

Yamaha FG-300

Yamaha FG-140 Nippon Gakki guitar

The dirty yellowed plastic tuning heads caught my eye. Then I noticed the deep yellow patina of the top and well I had to have it. I love its weathering.

Online one can find posters raving over Red Label Nippon Gakki Yamaha guitars. The argument goes, though it possesses a laminate spruce top, the red label FG somehow exhibit aging characteristics of solid top instruments. Ehow claims the early FGs are solid tops but I believe they are mistaken.

This FG-140 has the serial number 1291xxx. After placing a call to Yamaha's astoundingly accommodating customer service line, I was able to date the guitar circa 1969-70. The FG-140 model was made between 1968 and 1972.

I also found out FG-140 guitars were also made in Taiwan starting in November 1970. However, the made-in-Taiwan instruments can be distinguished by its serial number which would include the letter "T". On this example, the label is more pink than red.

The FG-140 was described by the Yamaha service staff as a "smallish, full-sized dreadnought". Other notable details are the open gear, three on a plate tuners.

At a webapge posted by Mark Searcy, the woods used are listed as follows:

• Top: Spruce
• Back/Sides: Mahogany
• Neck: Mahogany
• Fingerboard: Rosewood

And it sounds pretty all right to me.

To find out the age of your Yamaha "red label" wonder (notice, I've bought in), visit Yamaha's serial number app site.

If it doesn't pan out, try their customer service number: (714) 522-9000.

They will punch in the number and do their best to answer your questions. A fantastic brand building service. Don't forget to thank them profusely.

Franken Tenor Guitar/Banjo

Ingredients

1. Near stripped Kay Banjo with ripped skin circa 1930s (that’s what Craig told me but I think it’s later)
2. Cheap tailpiece from toy banjo ukelele
3. Friction tuning heads from above ukelele and from weird DVD rental store/old music shop by the highway in Greenwood BC
4. Nut (made by yours truly) made from maple
5. D’Addario Jazz Strings
6. New Fishman Neo-D passive pickup

1974 Di Giorgio Classico No. 28 - Made in Brazil

My apologies for not having better information. It is rather scant.

As far as I can tell, the guitar top is solid spruce or Oregon pine. The back and sides are Brazilian rosewood (jacarandà, is that right?). I believe they are solid wood as well. Some posters online say the fingerboard is rosewood too.

The book matching of the back pieces suggests the wood is solid. The back, it appears, is arched. The best site on Di Giorgio's I've come across belongs to Marco Bessone.

He describes a Estudante No. 28 as follows:

"This instrument has classical shape and dimension and owns a good quality sound. It's ideal for beginner guitar players. The resonance chamber is made of Pau-Ferro and the harmonic board is made of Oregon Pine. The frets are in alpaca and the machine head is in steel."

My 1974 Classico No. 28 may differ as they are different model years and, apparently, the quality of the lower-end Di Giorgios declined over between the 70s to the present.

Bessone also describes Di Giorgios which he personally owns. He too has a Classico No. 28 but it is from the 1960s.

The lower bout (lower width in Martin parlance) is 36.7 cm at its widest. Its depth (outside edge) is 11 cm. Scale length is 64 cm.

RCA? mono portable turntable with a 25L6 tube

Suzuki Model No. 700 Classical Guitar

 I found this poor instrument on Saturday morning, tossed up on the shelves of the Salvation Army.

The top was loose. But it was solid spruce (I believe it is cedar now). There were two holes: one at the bottom near the end pin, another at the waist, where one would find the hip bone jutting out.

The bridge has started to peel off the top but not so much that the intonation is terribly off. I payed $24.99 and felt free to do some crude repairs to it. I find it thoroughly enjoyable to play and will get someone to fix the bridge soon.

Note, November 13, 2015. The only place I've found any decent Suzuki guitar info is here and here. I think it's the same dude.

Another mystery brand instrument, the Dana banjo ukulele

It came in two pieces and it took a few tries to figure out how to put it together. I had to add two l-brackets and two threaded bolts to strengthen the whole pot which really wanted to bend. It's really a toy but for $24 I bought a neck and a pot and with a bit of fiddling I was able to put together a whole instrument.

Turning a tape cassette player into a guitar amplifier

I've been trying to do this for the last few weeks. I've messed up one (not collectable) old radio. But, I've figured out how to do it on a cassette machine.

I followed the instructions of a straight forward youtube video. There were a couple I found useful. This one does a good job of showing the potential but not exactly the clearest instructions:

The simple instructable is to cut the wires leading to the play head (in the centre of the image right).

There will be a live wire, red. And the other wire, in this case white. This is the wire the signal will go down to the amplifier in the player and down to the speaker.

In my case, I put a 1/4" socket next to the speaker. There wasn't really that much room, so I had to remove the tape player's motor.

Once in place I soldered the wires and drilled two holes so I could pass the wire in the cassette area.

Then you solder the wires together. It took me a while to figure out what part to solder to the jack, so I've posted what I did (see above). Just in case you're using a different brand of jack (mine was Radio Shack), the tip of the jack is live/red and the shaft is black and it will carry the signal to the rest of the machine  (in my cassette that wire was white).

Note, the little bit of copper you see hanging out is actually reinforcing wire. I wasn't sure what to do with it but it doesn't seem to effect anything so I've left it there.

The video that best help me understand how to wire the cassette player up is embedded below.

Mine turned out to be overdriven as I'm using a piezo with no volume control. But I think it sounds fantastically crunchy (below).

 

Popular Mechanics, June 1917

A schematic on how to construct a cigar box ukulele. You can find the complete instructions at Popular Mechanics on Google Books

Canora Guitar

For the last few weeks, after viewing a video of Edmonton singer-songwriter Michael Rault playing on a old mail-order catalogue guitar (Stella, Harmony, Silvertone... one of them), I have been looking for a cheap guitar. I once owned two guitars but sold them to keep the family larder full.

I found the Canora at Value Village ($43 tax included).

The Canora Guitar is a Canadian guitar brand of the mid- to late- 1960s. According to Eugene Trademan, who was in charge of musical imports for Great West Imports of Vancouver, the brand came about when the company's electronics buyer, Dave Willis, returned from a trip to Japan.


Willis had news for Trademan. Trademan could expect a shipment of 2000 guitars from the Ida Gakki factory in Nagoya, Japan.

It was one of the companies that made Ibanez guitars.

Willis needed a name for the line of guitars. He asked Trademan what was his hometown. Trademan said, "Canora, Saskatchewan."

Canora is one of those mystery brands. Only a few thousand of these guitars emerged out of Japan and possibly from Korea. Later on, according to Trademen, the line of guitars switched to the more common Raven brand. There are scant references to them and very few images.

The guitar here was originally a fixed bridge model. The guitar top had settled into a pronounced bulge below the bridge and a caving in of above the bridge.

Reaching into the body, I found ladder bracing typical in this type of instrument.

The repair technicians at Rufus Guitars discouraged me from making them repair it. I could easily buy a very pretty Suzuki Model No. 9 (nylon strings AND a pickguard) for less than it would cost to repair.

In short, they pretty much had no time for the Canora. I also felt they had no time to discuss the finer points of guitar repair with a person who would fall in with a crap guitar. I had fallen on the wrong side of the us (keepers of the guitar flame) and the thems (those who diddle on guitars and then leave them to languish in the corner of a basement or those who wish to learn enough chords to play Lady Gaga or Black Eyed Peas tunes).

I felt a wall was being thrown up between the technicians and I. And I still needed their help.

Music was playing in the background. Guitar music. Beautiful music and I knew what it was.

I said, "It must be nice to listen to Joe Pass while you're working" (From his Virtuoso album).

I had said the right magic words. Chuck, one of them was Chuck, said, "French CBC has some of the best music."

I resisted the urge to tell them, I once worked for the Mother Corp - any how it wasn't needed. Joe Pass had opened the door. His name, me knowing it, meant I listened to guitar, maybe even knew how to play it well. I was not them, or at least, not completely them. Joe Pass let Chuck know I was a little bit of us.

Chuck put down the wet banjo skin he was tugging on, " Let me see it." He groped around on the inside. "Ladder bracing."

"Yeah, I was wondering if it should be nylon strings."

"No. It's steel." Then Chuck began to rummage on his work bench. He showed me a fancy tailpiece for an archtop guitar but it was too long. But he kept on digging. He kept on saying, "I have a Dobro tailpiece. You can have it." ($28)

He yanked it out from under a white plastic bag. "Knock off the old bridge with a chisel and try it."

With the tailpiece, I bought a bridge which the strings would arch over ($10).

When I got home, I realized I didn't have a chisel. So I tried a knife and ended up gouging a part of the guitar top. I wasn't really well-equiped to take on the project. But then I remembered what the sales clerk said at the shop - somewhere in our point of sale chit chat he assumed I was going to plane down the faulty bridge. And why not? I own a plane.

So there on the living room rug, with Melissa trying not to lose her temper, I began to plane down the rosewood bridge. I worried immensely about harming the top anymore than I already had. It worked.

I shaved the bridge  down and attached the Dobro-styled tailpiece. The saddle Rufus sold me stood too high and I hadn't the heart to mutilate the new saddle with vigourous sanding. Instead, I used the original floating metal saddle. With its two flat-tipped screws, I could adjust the height.

The instrument is actually quite playable. The neck hasn't suffered any bowing and the action has been set quite low without fear of buzzing. The intonation is surprising in fact.

The back has a loose brace and is pulling from the sides but it doesn't effect its playability.