Nashville Legend Solidbody Electric Guitar

I was not able to find any usable information on this gorgeous dual-humbucker Nashville Legend electric guitar on the web. It was sent to me by the owner for an electronics check, cleanup and polish, plus restring and setup; prior to being put on sale.

The guitar is a double cutaway solidbody featuring a quilted-maple veneer top. The bolt-on maple neck is comfortably chunky and boasts what appears to be a two-octave rosewood fretboard. The headstock features the same attractive veneer as the body; while the three-a-side tuners feel solid and turn smoothly. All hardware is gold, right down to the smallest screws.

The "Licensed under Floyd-Rose patents" double-locking tremolo is rather unique in that you don't have to cut the ball ends off the strings. Just feed them through individual brass tubes beneath the fine tuners. Nice idea indeed! The original tremolo arm is missing, but I've found that one from a Squier Strat fits quite nicely.

The control cavity is shielded with conductive paint, wiring is neat and tidy; and the pots are full-sized. Seriously, I was expecting to see some crappy dime-sized pots and iffy wiring. Sorry, but I forgot to take a pic of the control cavity -- my bad! Well, the overall quality of the workmanship and electronics tells me that this guitar was definitely not "fabrique au chine." I'm guessing Japan.

The two ballsy "Zebra" humbuckers have been paired with a three-way toggle switch and controls for neck pickup volume, bridge pickup volume; and master tone. This Nashville Legend Electric Guitar impresses me with its good looks, overall decent build quality, playability; and solid tones. The next person to own this guitar is certainly a lucky fellow!

Yamaha SG-2000

First introduced in July 1976, the Yamaha SG-2000 represents, in my humble opinion; the epitome of Japanese solidbody guitar craftsmanship. It's no wonder then, that in its 1978 catalog, Yamaha describes the SG-2000 as being targeted towards "those who demand the very finest in both feel and sound." That being said, let's take a look at some of this guitar's distinguishing features.

Body

• Five-ply binding
• Carved, "mildly figured" three-piece maple top
• "T-Cross maple and mahogany construction:" laminated maple and mahogany body, with the grain of the center section "set perpendicular" to the sides
• Contoured back, top waist "scoop"
• Deep double cutaways 

Neck
Three-piece mahogany/maple/mahogany laminated neck-through design

Fretboard
Bound black mahogany (not ebony), 22 frets, 24.75" scale length, 13" radius, mother-of-pearl "split-wing" inlays

Headstock
Five-ply binding, "double-dipped shape," block lettering logo, three-piece floral inlay.

Hardware

• Gold-plated 
• Fully adjustable bridge rests on two thumbwheels that screw into a recessed solid brass sustain block/plate
• Tailpiece features a "harp and scroll" motif
• "Precise torque" tuning machines (15:1 ratio) with "kidney shaped" knobs 

Electronics

• Two volume pots, two tone pots (no push-pull coil split function), 3-way toggle switch
• Pickup, switch and control cavities fully shielded with shielding paint
• Two "powerful open-type" Alnico V humbuckers with "individually adjustable polepieces." Three machine screws allow for pickup height and alignment adjustments ("tri-mounting")  

The tobacco brown SG-2000 featured today was in particularly bad shape when sent to me; most probably due to prolonged neglect and (I suspect) abuse. Grime, rust, crud, tarnish, dings and dents was the order of the day here. On the plus side, I noted that the guitar had been recently been refretted and fitted with a bone nut. The electronics were a tad noisy, but this was soon cured with a few squirts of electrical contact cleaner.

Perhaps the toughest task I had to deal with was removing as much rust, crud and grime from the gold-plated hardware without taking off too much metal. Thankfully, I managed to accomplish this via electrolysis. Then there was the black mahogany fretboard, suffering from years of solidified sweat and grime caking the wood in between the badly tarnished frets. It took lots of careful scraping, lighter fluid, lemon oil, 0000 steel wool and Autosol to get the job done; but the results were worth it.

After reinstalling the hardware, this baby was given an all-round wax and polish, strung up with 10s, and plugged into an amp for a final check. Boy, did it sing!

References
Premier Guitar
Yamaha Musicians Forum
Vintage Yamaha Guitars
Vintage Guitar Magazine

2010 PRS 25th Anniversary Santana Electric Guitar

Intro
This gorgeous fire red burst PRS belongs to bro Shafie of Kuantan's River Blues Band. He sent it to me for a string change, setup, de-gunking and polishing. Seems that nickel plating does not hold up against the salty sea air as well as chrome. In any case, since it was already in my hands, I decided to open her up and take some pics. But first, a few specs for your perusal.

Specifications
Finish: Fire Red Burst
Construction: Set-neck, double cutaway body
Back Wood: Mahogany
Top Wood: Carved figured maple with purfling
Headstock: mahogany overlay, eagle logo
Neck: Mahogany, Santana "wide fat" profile
Fretboard: bound rosewood, 24.5" scale, 10" radius, 24 frets, 25th Anniversary "shadow birds" inlays
Tuners: Three-per-side PRS 14:1 Phase II locking tuners
Bridge Pickup: Covered Santana 25th Anniversary Treble humbucker
Neck Pickup: Covered Santana 25th Anniversary Bass humbucker
Bridge: PRS-designed floating tremolo
Controls: 3-Way toggle pickup selector, master volume, master tone
Tone Cap: 0.033uF Mallory 150 Series
Hardware: Nickel

References
Ultimate Santana
Musician's Friend
DeadEye Guitars
Posh Guitars
Guitar Guitar Ltd

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