Yamaha AES620: Part Two

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It had been a while since I'd last seen this Yamaha AES620. Seven years, in fact. In all this time, quite a few things had changed. For one, owner Izzat had put on a trio of rather ill-fitting set screw dome knobs. They'd have to go, of course. I was also told that the original bridge-position Seymour Duncan JB had died somewhere along the way; and another tech had replaced it with a nondescript "Zebra" humbucker.

Izzat requested, among other things, that the electronics be upgraded. He'd also brought a used Gibson humbucker with him, and wanted it installed. Only thing was, he wasn't sure if it would replace the stock Yamaha Alnico 5 or the Zebra. After being told the DCR values of all three pickups, he decided on the Gibson for the neck position; and the Yamaha for the bridge.

The Zebra was desoldered and removed without much difficulty, but the Yamaha was another story. The bottom two pickup ring screws were frozen in place, and the heads were so rusty that there was no way to remove them with a screwdriver. Thank goodness I was able to remove the pickup itself, leaving the ring in place. 

Then, using careful taps with my smallest chisel, I was able to dig into the wood and pry out the two screws from the side. This, however, left two gaping holes. The obvious solution was to plug them with dowels, wood dust and super glue; and recoat any bare areas with conductive shielding paint.

Another point of interest was that while installing the Zebra, the tech responsible had modified the stock control configuration of Neck Volume/Bridge Volume/Master Tone to Master Volume/Neck Tone/Bridge Tone. Izzat preferred this new configuration; and requested that it be retained. "Okey dokey," said I.

And so, the AES620 was rewired as per Izzat's specs using three Alpha A500K Long Shaft pots, an Epiphone three-way toggle switch; and new barrel jack. Caps of differing values were installed, 0.015uF for the neck and 0.022uF for the bridge.

Besides an electronics upgrade, the AES620 was stripped of all its hardware so that everything could be cleaned, derusted and serviced. Parts too far gone to be saved were simply replaced. The fretboard was cleaned with naphtha and reconditioned with lemon oil; while the frets were degrimed and polished. Finally, the metal dome knobs were replaced with white transparent speed knobs.

That's all for this post. Thanks for dropping by. Till we meet again, God bless and take care :)