TonyFlyingSquirrel
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I'm been fortunate since launching "The Guitar Whisperer" that I have a fairly large clientele of folks just from where I work at my day job at World Vision U.S. in Federal Way, Wa.
At the U.S. Headquarters campus, we have about 1100 employees, with about 200 of them being guitar/bass/ukulele players of some sort or another.
I have enough work from here alone to keep me reasonably busy after the day gig is over, and I still have time to do my own recording and other projects.
This recent job was from my good friend Stefan.
He has what he thought was a 1970 Guild F50 that had very deep pitting in the frets 1-through-5. The nut was horribly slotted, and he had been using electrical tape in a couple of the fret slots. Despite having a Fishman preamp installed some years prior to his acquisition of this instrument, the guitar does indeed sound great, but play-ability is an issue because of the nuts and frets. It's got a neck profile akin to Gibson 59 that's been sanded back slightly, shooting for a 60's slim taper, but left right in between there. It's beefy, but not a baseball bat. It's slim, but no Taylor or Ibanez. Nut Width was 1 11/16". Nice to have this after working on Martins with 1 5/8" nut widths here & there.
One of the first things I did was observe the serial number, as well as the rosewood sides/back, and my curiosity lead me to Guild's website. I rarely see a guitar from the seventies with rosewood sides and back unless it's a higher ended on-off custom. Spruce top & Back, and maybe maple or mahogany sides are common, but not rosewood.
Guild's online .pdf had some insight, but since I felt like I may have been misreading it, I called them, and spoke with a young man who was most helpful.
He confirmed, according to the serial number, in conjunction with the Rosewood appointments, that this was an F50R, not just an F50, which placed it's construction dates squarely in 1975.
Anyway, I know I should have taken pics before hand, and after seeing the "after" pics, my wife insists that I do "before and after" pics to include with each invoice.
Not the best pics, old LG phone, but anyway... Enjoy.
At the U.S. Headquarters campus, we have about 1100 employees, with about 200 of them being guitar/bass/ukulele players of some sort or another.
I have enough work from here alone to keep me reasonably busy after the day gig is over, and I still have time to do my own recording and other projects.
This recent job was from my good friend Stefan.
He has what he thought was a 1970 Guild F50 that had very deep pitting in the frets 1-through-5. The nut was horribly slotted, and he had been using electrical tape in a couple of the fret slots. Despite having a Fishman preamp installed some years prior to his acquisition of this instrument, the guitar does indeed sound great, but play-ability is an issue because of the nuts and frets. It's got a neck profile akin to Gibson 59 that's been sanded back slightly, shooting for a 60's slim taper, but left right in between there. It's beefy, but not a baseball bat. It's slim, but no Taylor or Ibanez. Nut Width was 1 11/16". Nice to have this after working on Martins with 1 5/8" nut widths here & there.
One of the first things I did was observe the serial number, as well as the rosewood sides/back, and my curiosity lead me to Guild's website. I rarely see a guitar from the seventies with rosewood sides and back unless it's a higher ended on-off custom. Spruce top & Back, and maybe maple or mahogany sides are common, but not rosewood.
Guild's online .pdf had some insight, but since I felt like I may have been misreading it, I called them, and spoke with a young man who was most helpful.
He confirmed, according to the serial number, in conjunction with the Rosewood appointments, that this was an F50R, not just an F50, which placed it's construction dates squarely in 1975.
Anyway, I know I should have taken pics before hand, and after seeing the "after" pics, my wife insists that I do "before and after" pics to include with each invoice.
Not the best pics, old LG phone, but anyway... Enjoy.
