Nagoya Suzuki Acoustic Guitars: AD225s front

Monday, April 21, 2014

AD225s front

2 comments:

Unknown said...: Yeah...Just bought one , AD225s,
Glad to find another person with one.The web seams empty of this little parlor... almost never played , not a scratch ,no dust in the body ,like new ...wonderful powder blue padded Gig Bag , like 80s style...no idea how old the guitar is...not sure of the code of the serial # either...LOVE the bright tone and the base resonates in my ribs...Any info appreciated or where to look for info ...Thanks RSK; May 25, 2014 at 11:22 AM
Jim said...: I love these little guitars. 14 frets, but all the charm of a 12 fretter. They were common around the turn of the century (Late 1900s/early 2000s); June 5, 2017 at 5:56 AM

Older Nagoya Suzuki acoustics...

Many people have posed this question to me about their older Nagoya Suzuki...Am I supposed to have steel strings or nylon strings on this guitar?

On some of the older models: the #6,7,9,12, and 18, the answer is not immediately obvious, since all these models have slotted headstocks like a classical, and the saddle in the bridge is like a classical...not angled (compensated) like an acoustic steel-string. But they have truss rods like an acoustic.

The answer is: steel!

I have an old Suzuki brochure that describes these guitars and it says they were steel stringed-guitars. Although some people put nylon strings on them, they were made for steel. So don't be afraid to put steel strings on them.

A couple of observations: I took apart a #18 (lost pictures when hard-drive crashed)...removed the top and found out it was ladder-braced, and I assume so are the other older models mentioned. Ladder bracing was an old way of internal bracing steel-string guitars. All these too are laminate tops.
Also, the fret-board on the #18 was flat, not radiused like most other steel strings (same with the other models I'm assuming).
The rosette was faux-MOP or nylon, which also goes with an acoustic model.
The headstock rollers are thinner than classical rollers.

I changed the bracing to a fan-braced top and put in tone bars ala Overholtzer book on classical guitar-making.

I didn't have any purling so I replaced the top binding with pieces of straight inlay pieces and glued them in.

The end result was nice and jangly. I liked it, but being new to the setup work I didn't put in enough relief so the strings buzzed a bit, though the saddle was very high and action was low.