Suzuki Guitar Repair and Modification Info. (for the hacker like me) Questions.

1. Suzuki Acoustic Guitar Review
2. Washburn Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers
3. Silvertone Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers

'I have a Suzuki Guitar, but it doesn't sound as good as I had hoped for.' If you have a Suzuki guitar that doesn't sound so great. Not every Suzuki guitar is equal to an 'inheritance' guitar. But, some are.

Some may just require a setup to sound better; others may be too heavily built or have intonation problems (personal experience with some steel strings built by Kiso.see the W300D video. The frets are a bit off compared to a Martin fretboard, same scale length). (the information below is from R.M.

Mottola, a well-known and respected luthier, editor, and author. I posed the question to him in an email and he kindly responded and gave me permission to quote the following response.).check out his interesting web site - 'If you have read my site in any depth you will know that I am not one for simple answers, and there is no exception here. There are a number of variables here which should be considered. What exactly is meant by the term laminated top? Does it mean conventional wood laminates with the grain orientation of the middle ply at 90 deg.

To the outside plys? Could it mean a wood laminate where grain orientation was aligned for all plys? Could it include a center ply that is not wood at all, as in so called double top construction? And then there is the issue of what the term 'sound as good' means and implies.

What sounds good to folks most often is what sounds most familiar. And it is certainly true that the musical material played on any type of instrument evolved along with the instrument, and exploits the features and works around the shortcomings of that type.

These two factors conspire to make instruments with construction that deviates significantly from the norm for the type to be perceived as sounding not as good sometimes. My general observation of sonic differences between instruments with solid wood tops and wood laminated tops with center ply at 90 deg. Is that the laminated top instruments offer less overall sustain. In musical styles and applications where sustain is considered to be a good thing, then laminated top instruments are generally perceived as tonally inferior. Painting with a broad brush, this means classical and steel string acoustic guitars.

Less sustain generally provides more perceived separation of notes of chords and in applications where this is a desirable feature, such as in archtop jazz guitars and other applications where complex chords are a key tonal element, laminated top instruments are more well received. It is my observation that, if one judges acoustic bass guitars by how close they sound to pizz upright bass, that reduced sustain helps to move the tone in that direction. That said, I have heard nice sounding ABGs with laminated tops.

Let me briefly touch on less conventional types of laminated tops. In my observation the so called double top classical guitars (which make use of spruce laminated with a central core of honeycomb Kevlar) sound no worse but certainly no better as a class than instruments using solid wood tops. I have heard good sounding instruments that made use of laminated top where the grain orientation of the plys was the same, but not enough to come to any conclusions about this class of construction. Hope this helps; best of luck with your project.'

Mottola Liutaio Mottola Stringed Instrument Design Nonprofit Technical Design and Research for the Lutherie Community See the Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information Website at Technology editor and contributing editor for American Lutherie, the stringed instrument makers' journal of the Guild of American Luthiers. See the G.A.L. Editor of the Savart Journal, the online research journal of science and technology of stringed musical instruments. See the Savart Journal website.

Member, New England Luthiers. See the NEL website. Masakichi Suzuki (1859-1944)was Japan's first violin producer. His father was a samurai moonlighter who also made shamisens in Nagoya. Masakichi succeeded his father's craft business that soon failed.

In the push for westernization in Meiji, he naturally became interested in shamisen's western counterpart: violin. In the 1880s, he started to manually produce and sell violins. He founded the Suzuki Violin Factory in 1900. By 1910, his factory was producing 65,800 violins per year. Nagoya became the manufacturing center of string musical instruments. There was 'one' Suzuki company before the 2nd World War.

After the war, a entity created by the US and allies called GHQ (for General Headquarters) dismantled some parts of 'Imperial' Japan and some companies were closed or restructured. In Suzuki's case, the company was separated into - the Suzuki Violin Company, changing to the Kiso Suzuki Violin Company and the Suzuki Violin Manufacturing Company came to be called the Nagoya Suzuki Violin Company. Kiso Suzuki went bankrupt in 1987 and the machines and materials were sold to ESP. Nagoya Suzuki stopped making guitars in 1989.

Many guitar players own more than one guitar, yet a common story it seems is that the Suzuki guitar is the one played most often, or that stays with them when all others are sold. Re: the serial number: on many of the models the first one or two numbers in the serial number stands for the year in which it was manufactured; from the 60’s to the 80’s. I have never seen a definite 1950's guitar yet, mainly because I don't know enough about them yet.The other prefixes/suffixes.W, C, S, VS, D, G, A, T, R, O, J.may follow other common meanings.

W = Western model F= Folk Model FM = Flame Maple C= Cutaway E=Electronics K=? S=Spruce (top) VS= Violin Sunburst color D=Dreadnaught shape G=Grand Concert shape for classicals; some 'G' acoustics however had a large Gibson-type headstock A=? Takeharu sometimes R=? J=Jumbo shape (if you can help with understanding their system, please DO write me at suzukiguitars@gmail.com.Thanks!).

Kiso Suzuki is the name of a now-defunct guitar company from the Kisofukushima region of Japan. This region is well known for it's mountains and trees, and the lure of the region with it's valuable lumber brought craftsman to the area - one such interest was, of course, guitar-making.Kiso Suzuki and Nagoya Suzuki were one company before the war - a 3-factory company started by Masakichi Suzuki that produced the well-known 'Suzuki Violin' violins. But after the war the company was split up into the Suzuki Violin Company (now Kiso Suzuki Violin Company) and Suzuki Violin Manufacturing Company (now Nagoya Suzuki Violin Company). And there the relationship ended.).

Re: the serial number: on many of the models the first one or two numbers in the serial number stands for the year in which it was manufactured; from the 60’s to the 80’s. I have never seen a definite 1950's guitar yet, mainly because I don't know enough about them yet.The other prefixes/suffixes.W, C, S, VS, D, G, A, T, R, O, J.may follow other common meanings. W = Western model F= Folk Model C= Cutaway E=Electronics K=? S=Spruce (top) VS= Violin Sunburst color D=Dreadnaught shape G=Grand Concert shape for classicals; some 'G' acoustics however had a Gallagher type headstock A=? Takeharu sometimes R=?

J=Jumbo shape (if you can help with understanding their system, please DO write me at suzukiguitars@gmail.com.Thanks!). 'I have a Suzuki, but it doesn't sound as good as I had hoped for.' If you have a Suzuki that doesn't sound so great.

Not every Suzuki guitar is equal to an 'inheritance' guitar. But, some are.

Some may just require a setup to sound better; others may be too heavily built or have intonation problems (personal experience with some steel strings built by Kiso). BUT, it's possible to fix some of these problems and have your guitar sound a lot better.

Also, different years, different labels (jobbers?), and whether the guitar was intended for export or for Japan - seems to have made a difference. Some woods used were Linden, Rosewood, Maple, Ovangkol, and Nato. Spruce and Cedar were used for the tops – usually laminated for the overseas market, as laminates don’t readily crack, but some models are solid tops. There is a popular theory about solid tops sounding better, but there is disagreement on this matter by some well-respected people. See the website.

Suzuki laminates were generally very good quality, and many people feel their guitars, even though laminated, sound better than many solid tops. Suzuki craftsmanship surely played a role in the sound too. The numbering system is usually tied in with the price. An F100 would have been 10,000 yen, an F130 would have been 13,000 yen, an W250 would have been 25,000 yen and so on. But some models are lower numbers yet very ornamented, so it doesn’t seem like this always holds true.

Suzuki Acoustic Guitar Review

(see the F35 scrollwork on the fretboard). One interesting thing that stands out is the change in labels. If you’ll notice, there were a few different labels.

Washburn Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers

Were there different divisions or contract manufacturers? I don’t know at this time. There are thousands of players worldwide who would like to know more about their Kiso Suzuki guitar. It's a common story that when someone has G.A.S (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome) and needs to let a guitar or two go, the Suzuki is the one that stays behind and can't be replaced.

Silvertone Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers

If you own a Kiso Suzuki guitar - congratulations on what you probably already know - that you own a well-crafted and good sounding instrument. One that is still undervalued in the opinion of many players. Maybe you'll hang on to it and see that there is something special about many of their instruments. In any case, as Tetsu said.' Have a nice life with Suzuki guitar.”.