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I bought a Yamaha AE1200S made in April of 1985 for around $1200 on Craigslist. It plays very nicely as far as action is concerned and it looks like it has had some recent fret work as they are in great shape and the feel of the guitar is great. But, the guitar has some issues I want to properly address.
It looks like there are some holes that have been drilled in it. There is an extra hole for the input jack that was plugged with some kind of filler and upon removal of the top hat knobs I found another set of holes had been drilled, which the seller neglected to mention, not super thrilled about that.
The second issue it has is that when I plug it in, I have to crank my amp way up to get decent volume.
It is a well crafted vintage guitar, but how much do holes like this in a guitar effect the value? Did I just buy a guitar in misrepresented condition?
Why would someone drill these extra holes, is it done often?
Can it be restored so that it doesn't look like a child spackled wood filler on its side?
Just trying to understand the logic here (seems like a bad idea to ever drill holes in your guitar)
If I replace the pickups and mess with wiring, is it harder to work on than a solid body guitar with a control cavity?
(I like how it looks but I can't get good volume out of it right now so I'd think that I have to start with the wiring)
Does the corrosion on these pickups have an appeal to anyone? I actually think it looks cool
Where can I find a pickguard for an AE1200S?
Appreciate any commentary I can get. I've been buying and selling guitars for a bit but this is my first hollow body pre 90s and I don't how to evaluate this kind of --- can I say..vintage -- instrument. Especially when its not something highly collectible like an ES-175
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12-11-2023 12:28 AM
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The pickups might be toast. I have never seen that type of humbucker with Phillips head pole piece screws. Someone might have messed with them. Not sure what you would want in pickups to replace them but you might want to replace all the wiring, pots, etc. as well. You can see some YouTube videos that show how archtops are retrofitted with new electronics. It isn’t really difficult but there are techniques for fishing the wires through.
If the holes by the knobs are covered by the knobs they wouldn’t bother me and wouldn’t be worth the trouble to fix, IMHO. The hole by the jack is unsightly but it is also in a place that isn’t very prominent.
I had pickguardian.com make me a pickguard once. Might want to try them.
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Most of it wouldn't bother me at the right price. The cracking around the current input jack does look like some work is needed to stabilize it.
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Thanks that is insightful. I do not know much about these humbuckers, when I pull them I can post some more just seems kinda interesting. Will probably throw in some Seth Lover Seymour Duncan humbuckers.
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It looks like a guitar that was heavily gigged, but had some rather ham-fisted work done to it over the years. The thing that concerns me most is the discoloration at the base of the headstock where it joins the neck; is that just a reflection, or is there damage in that area?
The cosmetic stuff can be fixed to some extent; a luthier can patch in the old jack hole and camouflage it to some extent (Jim Hall's ES-175 had a 4x4 aluminum plate covering that area, with the new jack mounted into that; inelegant, but it solved the problem of mounting the jack in a thin, weak area). Since the knobs cover those extra holes by the potentiometers, I would just leave those be. They aren't going to cause any problems and, from the looks of things, have been there for years. No idea why anyone would do that.
Checking around the inter-webs, it looks like it originally had push-pull potentiometers for coil splitting; by any chance are the original potentiometers still in the guitar? Is it in split mode, which drops the output of the pick ups by half?
For some reason, the pickup ring was reversed 180° and new holes were drilled for the pickup adjustment screws; that makes no sense to me, but there must've been a reason to go through all that work.
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In 2013, I had Tony Dudzik at Home | Pickguardian create a replacement pick guard for my Yamaha AE1200S. The original was gassing out when I purchased it. Fortunately, I caught it before it damaged the hardware or finish. I did send Tony the original pickguard to use as a template. Good luck! They are very nice guitars.
Last edited by losaltosjoe; 12-19-2023 at 10:40 AM.
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Lower pickup ring looks like it might be a Carvin. The holes are in the wrong places compared to the original Yamaha ring. Finding an original might be difficult.
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This to me is easy. It is a nice guitar and used and as such not a collector's item but not a throw away for nothing. I would swap out the entire guts and put new pickups, pots, and wiring harness. This will be the most expensive but pay back with the best sound. Good 57 classic type pickups will work maybe someone knows a replacement that mirror a 57 classis for a lot less money. Then some creative covering of the top with knows or a rubberish type washer to hide the small holes in the top. They cannot really be fixed and plugging them really won't make any difference unless you can do the work yourself.
Finally, the side output by the jack looks bad but practically speaking can be fixed with a patch that will at least look better. No reason or need to be doing any finish work on this guitar not worth the expense and details. Ideally if you can put the pickups and pots in you just do this yourself and have a great gigging jazz box. You buy pre soldered wiring harnesses and you just drop them in look on youtube on how to pull the pots us in the holes. Not hard but tedious at times unless you get lucky.
In the end it is all about the pickups which even if they work an upgrade is better.
L5 Gibson ® or Epiphone ® Type Wiring Harness by JEL 525k CTS .022 Sprague Vitamin Q NOS | Reverb
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I have seen a few Yamaha guitars with humbuckers with phillips head pole screws and the 3 pickup height adjustment screws.
Originally Posted by 0x3a29
I bought a Yamaha AE1200S made in April of 1985 for around $1200 on Craigslist. It plays very nicely as far as action is concerned and it looks like it has had some recent fret work as they are in great shape and the feel of the guitar is great. But, the guitar has some issues I want to properly address.
It looks like there are some holes that have been drilled in it. There is an extra hole for the input jack that was plugged with some kind of filler and upon removal of the top hat knobs I found another set of holes had been drilled, which the seller neglected to mention, not super thrilled about that.
The second issue it has is that when I plug it in, I have to crank my amp way up to get decent volume.
It is a well crafted vintage guitar, but how much do holes like this in a guitar effect the value? Did I just buy a guitar in misrepresented condition?
Why would someone drill these extra holes, is it done often?
Can it be restored so that it doesn't look like a child spackled wood filler on its side?
Just trying to understand the logic here (seems like a bad idea to ever drill holes in your guitar)
If I replace the pickups and mess with wiring, is it harder to work on than a solid body guitar with a control cavity?
(I like how it looks but I can't get good volume out of it right now so I'd think that I have to start with the wiring)
Does the corrosion on these pickups have an appeal to anyone? I actually think it looks cool
Where can I find a pickguard for an AE1200S?
Appreciate any commentary I can get. I've been buying and selling guitars for a bit but this is my first hollow body pre 90s and I don't how to evaluate this kind of --- can I say..vintage -- instrument. Especially when its not something highly collectible like an ES-175
I reason this type of pickup has interested me is that I have two 335 type guitars by Vester which have similar looking pickups. I had never seen that style before buying the Vesters. Whether they are the same as in the Yamahas, I don't know.
All I know is the ones I have do look pretty budget but they sound really very good.
I would check the resistances with pickups detached from the controls and test them direct to your amp before changing them.
BTW I passed on a 1200 locally a few years ago. It was going for £1300 which at the time was a bit too much for me. Wish I'd bought it though.
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I wouldn't invest a penny in this aside from getting the pickups replaced so it's functional.
If you like playing it, and can get it sounding like you want, just leave it at that.
When you're ready too move on, just sell it for whatever you can get for it.
Don't over think it.
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Thanks for the advice, lots of insight in this thread.
That is what I would like to do.
It may cost me a bit, but I think it is worth it because I just want a hollow body and this one is appealing to me.
The pickups are covered in a green oxidation (verdigris?).
The four holes are placed precisely relative to each other, they also seem to be well made in that they haven't chipped lacquer.
To me this suggests that they were done in the factory. The little dials below the top hat knobs have divots in them, maybe to hold these in place?
Or maybe a mistake that they covered up? This is my first real hollow body so I have no idea.
I have been working on getting the input jack and the toggle switch loose, that seems like it will be a challenge as the nut seems frozen on the threads for both.
Where can I get a patch to cover up the sloppiness near the input jack?
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That is just a reflection, its transparent and you can see there's no work done
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I just replaced the pickups on an HH2 and that was an ordeal. Had to get rings that would work with my seymour duncan pickups. This was after ordering a set of replacement rings from carvin b/c the original were cracked.
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At the very least, get rid of the corrosion on the pickups. That will cause damage in the long run. With that much corrosion on the pickups, it's almost certain that the pots are corroded, probably both inside and out, although it does look as if the tone pots may have been replaced, the shafts are much newer looking than the volume pot shafts. I would replace the entire wiring harness, because the wiring is probably corroded as well. You won't easily find pickups with the two screw mounting, though, so new mounting rings will probably be required. In the end, it's your guitar, so do as you wish with it.
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Do you have a multimeter to check the DC resistance of the pickups? It's an overused metric for pickups that doesn't provide much if any useful information about tone*, but it can tell you something about the health of the pickups. If the DC resistance is very low (say, 4k Ohms) then there's a problem. It should be 7-8k Ohms, maybe a bit higher since the pickup was designed to be coil-split with a switch.
* pickups produce AC not DC. Measuring the real qualities that contribute to tone (i.e., inductance) requires equipment that most people don't have. But a multimeter is cheap and useful for many things if you're a homeowner with curiosity.
Fralin Pickups: What does “Resistance” mean for pickups?
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It still does - you can see the flanges on the shafts. They're well above the nut, so they're both in pull mode. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Which would result in the coils being split and a loss of volume and "heft." Might be why the OP reported the low output he did. I've never like split humbuckers for that reason; they sound like a really weak single coil. I use the "half-split" wiring using a resistor to send only about half of one coil to ground and keeping the full output of the other coil, which preserves some of the humbucking and maintains decent volume. There's a diagram at Lindy Fralin's site. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
I wonder if the original pickguard was decaying and outgassing, looking at the corrosion on those pickup covers.
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Yes I pulled those out and the push-pull w/ capacitors were recently replaced, the volume pots are old and gritty. Gonna replace those.
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Regarding the small holes near the pot holes, it might be that the intention of those holes could be to take the little nose which is on the upper side of every pot and prevent the pot house from unintended rotating. That would also be an explanation for the somehow 'irregular' placement of those holes: The position of the nose at the pot is always 90° to the solder lugs and is therefore defined by the layout of the entire harness.
Such small 'anti-rotating' holes are unusual for guitars, for shure, but might be...
BTW, it looks like that the holes for the tone pots have been enlarged in order to fit with replacement pots with a larger thread (japanese pots have smaller threads than US pots). There is no laquer inside the holes.
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The input jack and the spackled over hole could be covered by a piece of aluminium plate, brass plate or pickguard acrylic. That section needs to be strengthened, by the look of it. If you are skilled I would ream out the spackled hole and cut out a disc of maple, glue it in and paint it over with a nitrocellulose pen from Rerancher or Stewmac. Crude filler bothers me. And then screw in an acrylic or aluminium or brass plate over that section.
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I’ve owned 4 of these. The best was a 1980 Blonde model that I purchased in 2010. Here it is.
I hope you bring it back to life. The guitar deserves it. If it were me I’d put a set of Lollar Imperials in it. They’re only $200. Best of luck!
Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 12-19-2023 at 04:52 PM.
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Jabs incredible advice really the way to go easy too. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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My Blonde model came with both the original Ebony and Tom saddles which were issued with each of these guitars. The Ebony saddle was nearly twice the size of standard Ebony saddles. The guitars tone was extremely woody, warm, sounding.
If it were me I’d put an ebony saddle on. I also found that fretboard to rival some Gibson L5’s that I would later own. It’s smooth and nicely crafted.
As to pick guard you can easily have one made.
How is the finish? The majority of the sunbursts I’ve seen would later develop a milky white appearance. Probably due to Yamaha using a faulty chemical in the Poly.
But that doesn’t effect how it plays. I can’t wait to see this one finished!
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