Today I had in a late 1980s Yamaha RGX112 guitar. This guitar was inherited to the client and they wanted to get it playing well so they can play it. The guitar is basically a super strat of sorts, with the 24 fret fretboard, 16 inch fretboard radius, and neck heel contour. It is really fun to play!
First thing I did was removed the strings, and gave the guitar a quick wipe down. This guitar was not too dirty, and was in great condition, only a few minor scratches. However I did noticed some of the lacquer around the fret ends were cracked due to fret sprout. Fret sprout is the phenomenon when the wood changes due to temperature or humidity, causing the wood to shrink and the frets being metal, to stay put. This causes sharp fret ends which can be a bit uncomfortable to play.
I went ahead and addressed the fret sprout by filing down the edges of the frets smooth. this will help overall feel of the guitar as the player runs their hands up and down the neck while playing.
Afterwards, I stringed up the guitar, and went on to Adjusting the neck relief via the truss rod. This guitar had severe forward bow to it’s neck. After some adjustment, I was able to get the neck relief adjusted within spec.
I then proceeded to adjust the action of the guitar via the saddles on the bridge. The saddles were adjusted and the action was set to a comfortable 4/64ths of an inch at the bass side and 3.5/64ths on the treble side. After this, I adjusted the intonation of the guitar. Once perfectly intonated, the guitar sounded and played beautifully!
See some of the photos below!
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