1970s Yamaha FG-331 000-Size Flattop Guitar

Yamahas! I love the design of their mass-market old guitars -- thin, quality ply for the body plus light bracing and practical, sturdy necks is a winning combination -- you get good bass, good volume, and good punch combined with durability, too. I know that sounds like me talking them up a lot -- but it's true. If you've been around older ones that've been serviced and are playing well, it's pretty hard to not recognize the bang-for-the-buck on these.

This slightly-smaller-than 000-size FG-331 was made in Taiwan around the late '70s and has that beige, oval-style label in the soundhole. It's in good condition overall but the top definitely has a bunch of smaller scuffs, dings, and playwear. The back and sides are in better shape. Its truss-rod works 100% and it's playing spot-on with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. Because these can get overdriven-sounding with heavier gauges, I've used 54w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12 on it. There's decent saddle-height left after work, too.

Work included a fret level/dress, minor shave to the bridge (I took 1/16" off the top to allow more saddle travel and then buffed it back up), cleaning, and a good setup. It's ready to go and this guitar is very loud. It has a lot of reserve power -- which is good, because it sounds best using moderate force rather than a heavy hand. The sound is good fingerpicked and flatpicked, both, but because the high-end of any ply mellows out with fingerstyle approach, this gains extra brownie points as a fingerpicker.

Specs are: 25" scale, 1 11/16" nut width, 1 7/16" string spacing at the nut, 2" spacing at the bridge, 15" lower bout, 11" upper bout, and 4 1/8" side depth at the endblock. The board has something like a 14" radius and the neck has a medium-depth, Martin-ish C/V back shape.

Materials are: mahogany (or nato?) neck with rosewood fretboard and bridge, ply spruce top, ply mahogany back and sides. The guitar is 100% original right down to the pins. The pickguard looks black in the pictures but is actually a dark red tortoise. The saddle has one old chip-out that was repaired on its bass-side extremity in the past, but doesn't come close to the strings so doesn't matter. I left it because it's cute that someone took the time to glue that little bit back on...

The Japanese tuners are actually pretty standard-fare period openbacks under those covers. I seated all of the mounting screws a little better, tightened them all up, lubed them, and put them all back on the headstock and they're working just fine.

I also added a brown, plastic strap button from my parts-bins at the heel. Why not be prepared for standing?