Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and this is my first post.

I have a question about an early 80's Yamaha SG1000 that I bought 16 years ago from someone I knew. For the longest time that guitar stayed in its case and wasn't being played. It doesn't help that the frets were in terrible shape. So I recently attempted to refret it and I was happy with the results. Since then, I've had a new found interest in this guitar.

When I first bought this guitar, I wasn't very familiar with Yamaha guitars so I didn't know exactly what it was supposed to look like originally. But I've recently realized that someone, a long time ago, had the terrible idea of sanding all the edges on the back of the peghead (see the attached photos). Now all the edges are rounded instead of being nice and square, like on a Les Paul for example. I've seen pictures online of what this guitar is supposed to look like and it's so much nicer in its original shape. This has been really bugging me and I'm wondering if there's any possible way to restore the edges on the peghead to the way they used to be?

Thanks so much, I appreciate any input you may have.

I'd leave it.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

As would I. You've got a much better chance of making it worse as there's no easy way to do it, unless you're up to making a new neck.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I'd leave it alone, too. It might not be to factory specs, but it doesn't look bad at all--just different. In fact, it looks kind of cool. Just curious: Do you think the whole guitar refinished at the time the head back was rounded off?

Impossible to reverse, and looks as good or better than the original IMO. Also it shouldn't affect tone, playability, or durability. The execution and finish look quite good to me... I wouldn't call it a terrible idea at all.

Thanks for your comments guys.

Ok I guess I'll just leave the guitar as it is. It does still play and sound nice.

Yes, definitely.

Whoever rounded the edges on the back of the peghead also stripped all the lacquer, removed all the binding from the body (not sure why anyone would do that), replaced the binding on the neck (also not sure why anyone would do that), and sanded/rounded other parts on the guitar like the neck joint.

Anyway, I only paid $200 for the guitar so it was still worth it for me even though estheticly the guitar is not in great shape. Plus, it came with an old pair (now almost 30 years old) of Seymour Duncan 59 pickups.

My guess is that it was plastic binding and they screwed it up stripping the finish off.

here's a picture of the body in case anyone's interested.

as you can see, someone also thought it was a good idea to hack a cavity for a middle pickup...it's a shame.