My poor old, late-70s/early-80s Yamaha L-25A dreadnought-esque (it weighs about the same as a WW1 battleship too) acoustic rarely gets played these days, which is sad.
Also sad is the appearance of some grey patches on the guitar's upper side. No idea when they started appearing and they are very difficult to get pictures of, due to the gloss finish.
Any ideas what's going on here and why? I first thought it was the wood discolouring. The wood is something called Jacaranda and is a kind of rosewood or rosewood-like timber. Not sure if Jacaranda is prone to such fading? The guitar is stored in the case and is never left in the sun, although it might have been exposed to UV when I first bought it around 1985.
Looking again, I'm worried that it could be something to do with the finish. There's no disturbance or unevenness to the gloss surface but it looks similar to how it might if the lacquer was lifting in some way.
It might just be that this is what happens when such instruments are around 40 years old. I started going grey about then too!
Here's the best picture I can get. Not great but shows the biggest patch (some smaller ones to the left). This is not a reflection - the patch is definitely discoloured.
Comments
I can't help much with the grey patches. It is very clearly wood getting exposed to the air without protection, but as to why I am out of clues.
I can help with the "jacaranda", two different ways. Actual jacaranda is a spectacular flowering tree widely planted in many parts of the world. So far as I know, it's not used to make musical instruments. (It may not get big enough to be usable. As a rule, though the flowers are amazing, it's only a small tree.)
But "jacaranda" was, for some weird reason, used as a pseudonym for Brazilian Rosewood by Japanese guitar makers in the 70s and 80s. Probably also for other rosewoods. Now that side doesn't immediately strike me as Brazilian Rosewood and I'd like to see the back of the guitar before forming an opinion as to what it is. But I'm no expert. The other thing to consider is that it might be laminated, in which case it doesn't matter what the timbers are.
I've been told it was a high level model at the time and made in some facility in Taiwan with the top luthiers. No idea if this is true but Yamaha did support this in an email I got from them while trying to establish the age of the thing.
Here's the back:
I have played just one Taiwanese-made Yamaha. It was glorious! I reckon the Taiwanese workers were hell-bent on showing the Japanese that they were the real deal. The one I played was not expensive (AUD $1200, $1500? I forget now but not much) and superb in every respect ... except the nut width which was maybe 42mm. (I didn't measure it, but it was way too small for my Western-sized hands.) Reluctantly I let it go, but it was a magnificent instrument, and on sale for half what the same guitar would have commanded had it been made in Australia or Japan or the USA.
@Tannin yes, the Taiwan-built guitars are nice. I just Googled the following:
Handy as, if true, it confirms that it must have been built between '78 and '84. Given that I think I bought it in '85 it ties in.
Source link has some pictures: https://yamahaguitars.nl/facts-figures/the-l-series/
Mine's been bashed about a bit over the years but still sounds wonderful. Nut width is 44mm or thereabouts so a nice size and a perfect all-rounder for both picking and strumming IMO. Quite a chunky profile though. It'd probably need something like .013s to really drive it but I'm not manly enough for that!
The other one they plant a lot up that way is Southern Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta) which is native to NSW but planted in many places around the world. The two often flower at the same time - masses of purple and masses of gold, it's quite a sight. (As a matter of detail, Silky Oak makes an excellent back and sides timber, and is also used for tops sometimes. Some makers incorrectly call it "silver oak" or even "Indian silver oak".)
I dunno, I reckon those ^ trees are getting on towards a size where you could get guitar-sized boards out of them. As you say though, I doubt that the wood is much use for instruments, otherwise someone would have tried it by now.
A top class luthier would probably be able to refinish it for you as it is obviously a keeper.