Friday 4 October 2013

Yamaha SA700....Beautiful Nonetheless....

The pick ups in my 35 year old SA700 were acceptable at best....But the pole pieces were not adjustable....so I could never set them up for the neck radius....


I don't beleave Yamaha would have done this to their pickups....

 

After I had decided to re-use the Yamaha MSG pickups for replacements in the SA700....I would need to make up some new mounting rings....because of the body contours this was going to be a challenge....luckily the MSG pickups have 3 mounting holes per side so I could use the original black mounting rings without filling any mounting holes....


 

Again luckily for me Yamaha had used identical rated pickups in the MSG....The Bridge....I'm assuming....may have lost some power over their 25 year life...but as the wiring in the SA700 calls for a longer cable in the routing of the Bridge pickup....The original Neck pickup was now perfect for the Bridge position in the SA700...

 

The hook up wires on the MSG pickups do not adhere to the standard configuration but work in the same way as 4 hook up wires....confusing if your expecting 4 wires....



The red wire is the Hot Signal...."both coils"....The white wire is the Tap...."single coil"....The bare wire...."as always"....goes to Ground...."earth"....


Cover up the white wire....it's not needed for the simple humbucker wiring in this guitar that I had replaced a few months earlier....I could have put in coil taps for both pick ups....but....maybe next time....


Remember to cover all of the guitars body when your soldering....Solder can spit....One drop of hot solder will make a mess of a guitars finish in a moment...."and you will cry"....


Simple....and now comes the nightmare of putting all the controls back through the F Hole....


All done....


I love the woods grain on this guitar....It's not as pretty as a flame top....But there is a beauty in the curves of the grain....showing it for what it is....nothing exotic....just a plain piece of wood....Beautiful nonetheless....k.j.

"and again I did mean to do a video for this post....but I spent all day playing the SA700 and forgot to do one....as soon as I get chance to do one in the next few days....I will....and post it here...."


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