THE NUMBERS GAME
It’s over 30 years since Yamaha’s huge-selling Pacifica 112 changed the low-end guitar world and became a near-perfect modding platform. Dave Burrluck pays homage
Yamaha first released the Pacifica in 1990, designed in the company’s then-new R&D centre (Yamaha Guitar Development) in Hollywood. Named after a city above San Francisco, the Pacifica and its sibling the Weddington – the less-successful, more Les Paul-inspired model that was named after the street address of the facility –were the fledgling team’s attempt to show Yamaha HQ what they could do in the USA.
Ex-Ibanez designer Rich Lasner had joined Yamaha. “He was only with us for about two years,” said Ken Dapron, who managed the facility, back in 2003. “He was also the original designer of the Pacifica. I wouldn’t say [the model was] sole ‐designed; it was a group effort,” something that also included luthier Leo Knapp.
“The Pacifica and Weddington were designed alongside each other –the two mainstream sides of the guitar spectrum,” said Ken. “Our plan was to stoke up the market with these high-end prototypes and show them to artists, but they were such an instant hit.” And they quickly led to numerous production models: “The Pacifica 1412 set-neck, tone chambered with a retail of $1,999. Then the 912 was the next model down at $999, then the 712 at $699, then the 412 came later at $599. Then the 500 series –all in the early 90s with the 300 coming in 1994 in the US market.”
“The 112’s calling card was its solid body at a time when low-end bolt-ons favour ed plywood”
If these upper-level Pacificas aimed to push guitar development further forwards, the lowly 112 –which launched in 1993 – attacked the low-end mass market with considerable success. “It was really just price point,” said Ken, “to get down to where all the volume sales were. But while we knocked the spec down we wanted to keep quality as high as we could. [They were] always made in Taiwan until the last couple of years from Indonesia; some finishes are still made in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Over 10 years in the UK we’ve sold about 60,000. Worldwide, 25,000 to 30,000 per year. By far and away the biggest-selling Yamaha electric guitar… by quite a margin! Outside of the classics, it has to be one of the most popular electrics ever.” And that was 20 years ago.
A side from its place in the starter market, the 112 was a near-perfect guitar to make your own and modify and, hopefully, learn a bit about how guitars work. In fact, back in 2007, Yamaha donated four 112s to myself and then-Guitarist staff Mick Taylor, Neville Marten and Simon Bradley to modify.
Originally, the 112’s calling card (apart from the fact it was a stylish modern take on the Stratocaster, of course) was its solid body at a time when many (or even most) low-end bolt-ons favoured plywood. However, perhaps in an effort to engage younger players, the neck width was on the smaller side, too. Clearing out Guitarist’s gear-storage bat cave a while back we found a long-forgotten 112 needing ahome, an original from 2002 according to the stamped serial number on the back of the headstock. This was before the 2007-introduced 112V changed the scratchplate to the smaller version with rear-mounted controls.
A Closer Look
Okay, it’s not as if we’ve uncovered a vintage Fender from the 50s in the wardrobe, but even in its pared down form the 112 has a touch of class about it. The solid alder body is clearly visible in its light natural finish, which is far from over-glossed. You can see that it’s made from four pieces, and it has an overall weight of 3.18kg (7lb), far from a guitar-shaped boat anchor. Exactly what history this one has had, I have no idea… other than the previous user has added some stickers to the body, the bridge humbucker has lost its treble-side adjustment screw, the volume control is sailing in the wind, the output jack has lost its retaining nut and there are no strings attached [pics 1 & 2]. Stickers aside, there are afew dings and marks to the finish but no major bashes. Aquick glance down the darkly striped rosewood fingerboard and no alarm bells go off.
Now to the elephant in the room. The 112 has a pretty narrow neck; it always did and it still does. The nut width is spec’d by Yamaha at 41mm (with a 12th-fret width of 51.4mm). The same width is used by Yamaha on all of its Pacifica models, apart from the newly released Professional and Pacifica Standard Plus models, which up that width to 42mm (with a 52.4mm width at the 12th fret).
Of the past 300 or so guitars, old and new, that I’ve evaluated (and measured), not one has had exactly a 41mm nut width, but plenty lie between 41mm and 42mm: from a 1976 Guild S-90 (41.5mm), early 50s Fenders, a Broadcaster (41.6mm) and a Telecaster (41.5mm), and a 2006 Rickenbacker 620 (41.84mm), to the more modern Music Man Cutlass (41.3mm), EVH Wolfgang Special (41.5mm) and PRS’s Silver Sky (Maple) 2021 (41.63mm). Don’t forget, half a millimetre is just the equivalent of 0.0197 inches, call it 0.020 inches, slightly thicker than the diameter of your Gstring. But while Yamaha’s neck width is dimensionally unusual today, it certainly has historic precedence: around 1965 Gibson’s nut width changed from 1 11/16-inch (42.9mm) to 1 9/16-inch (39.7mm) and stayed that way until the end of the decade.
Depth-wise, the Yamaha spec quotes 20.9mm at the 1st fret and 22.9mm at the 12th; the new Pacifica models trim that subtly to 20mm at the 1st fret and 22.4mm by the 12th fret. Plenty of ‘thinner’ necks have similar 20mm to 23mm depths.
What isn’t quoted is the important and overlooked string spacing at the nut, which on our mutt measures 34mm (like that Rickenbacker 620) [pic 3]. The industry standard is between 34mm and 36mm, so when people bemoan a narrow neck that they can’t possibly play, the actual string spacing might well be the same as, well, a guitar with a wider nut width that they can play. We’re a strange bunch.
String spacing at the bridge is spec’d at 10.5mm, which multiplied by five gives us the actual string spread of 52.5mm – pretty much the modern industry standard spacing as used by PRS, for example, and sitting between the original Gibson standard of 50mm and the wider Fender spacing of 55mm.
But a specification is just that. The actual guitar might well differ, which is why I personally measure every guitar that I evaluate on our review pages. For example, the actual nut width of this 112 is 40.9mm [pic 4]; 51.28mm wide at the 12th. In depth it’s 20.55mm at the 1st fret and 22.39mm by the 12th [pic 5] with what I’d call quite a full-shouldered ‘C’ profile. The fingerboard radius is spec’d at 350mm (13.78 inches), agood fit for my StewMac 14-inch radius gauge.
Restoration Time
Many of us mod guitars just for the hell of it, don’t we? I could certainly chuck out all the generic parts here and retool the 112, probably at a greater cost than I’d spend finding awhole fit-for-purpose 112 on eBay. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and that was pretty much what I did in that previous feature back in 2007; that modded guitar, by the way, is still in use with a guitarplaying neighbour. Another neighbour had asked if Ihad any recommendations for her early teenage daughter who’d been having acoustic guitar lessons, was doing well, but fancied putting a finger or two into the electric realm. Bingo! Ihad a plan: restore the 112 to good playing condition and put it back into good use.
So, maybe the first thing I should do is clean it up a bit, fix the volume control and output jack, string up and have a feel and listen? That said, removing the scratchplate I find an open ‘swimming pool’ rout [pic 6] with space for a neck humbucker (or a soapbar P-90), although I’d need another scratchplate –already I’m thinking of the modding potential. But, hang on, I’m sticking to plan Aand instead I tighten up the loose volume pot nut and add one to the output jack. To be fair, the simple circuit all looks okay, certainly good enough to check the sounds.
Removing the stickers requires a bit of patience. Acouple applied here were the vinyl types, which pull off easily. The others are the laminated paper, which require more effort to remove. I pull off as much of the top layer as I can then soak the area with methylated spirits and, using a fingernail and/or an old credit card as a ‘soft’ scraper, I’m able to get them off without doing any harm [pic 7].
Okay, we’re ready to string up, but before Ido that I plug in and test the pickups – just by lightly tapping or scraping a small screwdriver over the relevant pickup’s polepieces. Instead of finding everything ship-shape, the neck pickup isn’t working, the bridge humbucker seems very quiet, and the middle pickup is voiced only when the five-way pickup selector is in ‘neck’ position. Oh dear.
Using a multimeter set to 20kohms and checking that humbucker, only one coil is working. Both single coils read approximately 5.7k to 5.9k, and although they’re the cheapo types with a rearplaced ceramic magnet, they’ll do for now. Meanwhile, I have a root around the bitsbox and find a Sky/Kent Armstrong HRN-1 humbucker. At some point I’d cut off the cover, so it just pulls off revealing double cream bobbins –the first piece of luck I’ve had! Actually, even more like the Yamaha pickup, the bobbins are slightly different ‘cream’ colours [pic 8 & 9]. It’s the same magnet polarity as the Yamaha pickup, too, and after checking the colour codes online I wire that in and resolder the two single coils correctly on the moulded five-way switch. After another tap test plugged in hopefully we’re now good to go.
The bridge has pressed steel saddles and a tapered die-cast block that could easily be changed, but I have a set of Gotoh block steel saddles from a previous job so I fit those [pic 10]. As the guitar is going to a young student I decide to set the vibrato as a hardtail, flat to the body, so I just add another two springs and tighten the spring claw [pic 11], then she can get her whammy chops in place at a later stage.
On checking the neck for straightness with a straight edge, I find that it needs a slight truss rod tightening tweak. I then do a very basic clean up, much like our nylon-string last issue: remove afew sharp fret ends with a small file, 600-grit on a flat wood block across the fret tops, agood rub with the same grade paper along the edges, then a vigorous rub with 0000 wire wool across the frets and fingerboard face. It looks good, so I decide just to polish up the fret tops and give the nice-looking fingerboard a rub with fingerboard oil [pic 12]. Aquick check that the tuner nuts and buttons are tight [pic 13], then I string up and see what we’ve got.
“With only a little r estoration work, this 21-year-old 112 r eminds me what all the fuss was about”
With only a little restoration work, this 21-year-old 112 reminds me what all the fuss was about. It might be a lowly piece, but it’s extremely well made –from the tight ‐tolerance machining to the neck pocket, and the good medium jumbo fretwire with plenty of height on a real quality-looking piece of rosewood. The neck is as straight as the day it was made and, unusually for the style, can be set up without a neck shim. Even the neck screws push through the body, as they should, screwing only into the neck itself.
After dialling in the new saddles it plays really well. Not everyone will enjoy the narrow neck, but you do get used to it pretty quickly. I think I might reposition the string tree closer to the nut as the back angle is quite shallow, and I’d be tempted to add another to the Gand Dstring. Easily done. Hardly modding, this exercise in maintenance will mean there’s no reason this 112 can’t be used for afew more decades to come.
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