1960s Yamaha FG-75 (Japan) Flattop Guitar

Acoustic clip (above)...

Electric clip (above)...

This late-'60s, Japanese-made ("red label") Yamaha FG-75 is owned by the son of the original owner. At some point its top had been half-sanded and it had fallen into disrepair. After the usual neck reset, fret level/dress, and new saddle, I did some extra for him as well.

It received a fresh set of Gotoh Kluson-style tuners, new bridge pins, and a refinish of the top to "vintage white" and the headstock to black. I also wired-up his old '80s DeArmond soundhole pickup to an endpin jack and grounded-out the jack to the ball-ends of the strings via a bridge plate ground (copper foil).

The result is a one-off, hip-looking guitar that, at first, appears entirely vintage. I'll tell ya, though, it was not fun removing the pickguard (which had been glued with some devlish substance at some point) and getting all my tape for the spray-job to mask-out the proper areas. 

Sound-wise it's nice -- these old FG-75s are popular with a number of Vermont guitarists I know and they have their own thing going. They're ply-bodied instruments with fan bracing on the top (rather than X like most of the Yamaha flattops from this time) and so they make really nice fingerpickers. This one has the advantage of the soundhole pickup which also transforms it into a "hollowbody electric" guitar at the same time, albeit with a very clean and sparkly pickup sound.

It plays bang-on and is in good health, now.