# New used guitar day - Yamaha FS-310



## OldGuitarPlayer (Feb 25, 2013)

I just picked this up today from a seller on Kijiji. A mid 80's Yamaha FS-310.










I had to meet the seller in the parking lot of a strip mall near my apartment. It was in quite good but in very neglected condition. Typical crusty old out of tune strings. Lots of DNA on the fret board. One of the tuning pegs was missing one of the screws where it screws to the back of the headstock so I had to fix that. Two screws in another tuning peg were also stripped so those got repaired too. The good things are no holes or cracks just a few dings and scratches from 35 years of use. The top is actually darker in person with a nice honey colour aged look to it. 








The neck is nice and straight and the angle is good. No neck reset needed. Pretty narrow at the nut with a 42mm width but the neck is pretty chunky as you play up it. Short scale at 24.5" Plastic black & white bound body both back and front. Nice flat top with no belly bulge and the bridge is solid. I had to spend about 90 mins fixing the tuning pegs and cleaning the gunk off the fret board and neck. It's strung up with extra light gauge strings (that's all I had) and the action is perfect although I had to shim the saddle. Next string change I am going to put on a set of regular light gauge strings. The short scale makes the extra lights very easy to bend. Might get a bone saddle made for it one day.

After getting it all setup and the strings settled in it's a fine little guitar and a perfect little blues box! Plenty of sustain and very sweet mid range tone. It's not a "cannon" but that's not what it's for. Can't wait to try heavier strings and try alternate tunings!


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## Acoustic Tom (Apr 6, 2020)

You have to love the feeling you get when you bring one back from neglect or a closet dont you? Nice looking guitar btw. Those yamaha's were made quite solid. To get one that old that doesn't have incredibly high action, is amazing. Good score buddy!


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## OldGuitarPlayer (Feb 25, 2013)

Acoustic Tom said:


> You have to love the feeling you get when you bring one back from neglect or a closet dont you? Nice looking guitar btw. Those yamaha's were made quite solid. To get one that old that doesn't have incredibly high action, is amazing. Good score buddy!


Thanks it's a pretty cool little guitar. I have been playing it all day since cleaning it up. It is a very solid guitar and I too was pleasantly surprised that the action was not 1/4 inch off the fret board. It's actually perfect. So much so that I can easily play jazz chords up and down the neck if I want without any discomfort. Great for a little finger picking. 

I remeasured the nut width and it is in fact 43mm but I think the shorter scale took me a bit to get used to. Now that I have had a chance to play it awhile it's not an issue and in fact I really like the short scale. My other two acoustics are 25.5" scale so this is a nice change up now and again.


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