NZGuitars.com

The Yamaha SA-15 I bought recently (I'll post a different pic when I take one).

This is a guitar from 1968. It's great and I'd like to do some work on it. I believe it could be way better.
Forget it's price for a moment and think of its age. There was a time when Strats and Jazzmasters were so cheap that people bought half a dozen, harvested the parts they liked the most and did god knows what with the rest.

'Yes,' you say, 'but it's just a cheap Yammie.'

Granted, but it's a very good guitar; and as we all know, a good guitar is only one superstar away from shifting from obscurity to unobtainability.
And if that happened, I'd hate to be That Guy who routed a '62 Strat for Humbucker and Floyd.... if you see what I mean.

So: Assuming they fit, I'd like to replace the pots with something like CTS. Most of the unacceptable issues revolve around wiring, switches and pots.

After this is the tiny fret issue. Do I refret it? Opinions.......

Do it, play it, enjoy it....

I don't have any problem modding old guitars for playability. I'd say changing pots and frets only makes the guitar better and if it was an old Fender or Gibson I'd still say the same thing. There's no real point in keeping it original if that means it won't get played. Personally, I go as far as changing pickups and hardware if necessary. Some of my guitars have parts that are near impossible to find so I'll use something else to make it functional. Ever tried finding a single vintage Supro pickup? Fuck it, bung a P90 in there!

The answer is yes

Always yes. I’ll refret anything if it will play better. Vintage guitars need to be played. I know those little Yamaha frets. They really are tiny, in every dimension.

Pots and wiring are easily swapped back. Refretting if it's a bit fecked is surely an upgrade. If it's a guitar I really like, I go to town with the mods.

Do it.

I think of guitar molestation being more like when I sold a vintage Ibanez hollowbody to a guy who didn't like the volute, so he cut it off with a hacksaw.

Do it.

Pots and wiring seems like a no brainer, as do frets.
However routing a swimming pool size hole for a new set of pickups or drilling holes all around the edge for weight relief? Sit back down, pass the guitar over to a trusted safe friend.

I say do whatever the f*#k you want. Who are you saving it for? If they have half a brain, first thing they’ll do is go out and do the work anyway.

Replacing pots and frets seem like maintenance issues more than modding.

Pots and wiring is reversible if you do it carefully, a re-fret is just maintenance, I would do it. I wouldn't route it out for a Flyod though.

None of that sounds like molestation to me.

Its funny, I felt bad about routing out a bridge humbucker route in my strat, but at the end of the day I figured I'd rather have something that was going to be more useful and more likely to get picked up to play, and I have not looked back at all.

jeremyb wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:39 am Its funny, I felt bad about routing out a bridge humbucker route in my strat, but at the end of the day I figured I'd rather have something that was going to be more useful and more likely to get picked up to play, and I have not looked back at all.

I've been looking for a vintage strat with a HB in the bridge, and big neck, forever. I've come to the conclusion that it'll never happen....

murky wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:43 am

jeremyb wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:39 am Its funny, I felt bad about routing out a bridge humbucker route in my strat, but at the end of the day I figured I'd rather have something that was going to be more useful and more likely to get picked up to play, and I have not looked back at all.

I've been looking for a vintage strat with a HB in the bridge, and big neck, forever. I've come to the conclusion that it'll never happen....

I couldn't get what I wanted here, 60s style strat with nitro body and reliced, so I bought a mexi roadworn body and neck from Stratosphere and set about modding it to my needs, Mr Glyns integrity bucker in the bridge, bellbird singles in the middle and neck, obsidian wire HSS harness, it just feels so perfect to me... they used to have a website but now its all done thru ebay, worth keeping an eye out for some bits that might suit you, I did mine in two separate orders to avoid GST at the border