Westerly Guild F50...Need Help Quickly

[L20A]

Over on Let's Talk Guild, there is a member that goes by Fixit.
He has been recommended by several of the members for his fine work.

[sixx]

" I would resist the temptation to play a guitar with a lifting bridge at full string tension, until the bridge has been solidly reglued. You run the risk of having the bridge tear off, taking some of the top with it."

Arrgh. You're absolutely right. Tks for slapping some sense into me. I just detuned and will wait until the bridge is fixed. That mental picture you provided of the top coming up with the bridge made me sick to think about.

[BoneDigger]

These are great guitars. Congrats on your purchase. Enjoy playing it and good luck on the repairs!

[BoneDigger]

Here's mine! Let's see yours.

[KenL]

"Btw, I'll bet that D18VS in your sig sounds glorious. Would love one."




Thanks, it does. The day it arrived it became my favorite guitar.

[sixx]

"Here's mine! Let's see yours."

That's a sexy beast!

Mine's sitting at a local luthier right now, awaiting the bridge to be removed and reglued. I didn't waste any time.

Once it gets a solid bridge and a once over I'll bring that girl home and proudly snap some pics for a NGD post.

[docwatsonfan]

nice guitar

I live in the Phoenix area too, not sure about local work...but..

I've heard good things aout Rainbow Guitars in Tucson....

a friend of mine drives down there for touch up , refin stuff on his
really high end stuff ( Baraniks,etc. )

I wonder if Bryan Kimsey works on Guilds
might be a nice road trip to NM too

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by 1Charlie

Two things:

1. I would resist the temptation to play a guitar with a lifting bridge at full string tension, until the bridge has been solidly reglued. You run the risk of having the bridge tear off, taking some of the top with it.

2. Guild never used "nautical" glue for setting a neck. Hot hide glue was used. Any guitar tech with the appropriate tools and skills should be able to steam one off.

What makes Guilds a little different when performing a neck reset is that the neck and body were assembled before finishing, and the lacquer has to be scored on the neck joint and fretboard extension in order to cleanly remove the neck. After the neck reset, the neck joint often requires careful touch-up with lacquer.

Hi 1Charlie...

Guild Westerly did not use hide glue...by the early/mid 70's they...like Martin and Gibson, had switched to some form of synthetic glue. Guild may have used some hide glue in Hoboken, but even there by the late 60's they were also using synthetic glues, which were sooooooo much easier to work with in the factory setting...much quicker...no needing to have a "hot" room for glue work.

Guild necks are known to be hard to re-set because of the fact that they did use a lot of synthetic glue down into the dovetail joint, so you can not easily steam them out, and because they did finish the neck onto the body, so it is not uncommon to get either or both the heel break off from the glue issue, and the finish chip off from the finish over the combined neck/body joint issue.

To the OP...congrats on the guitar...with all the work done, you will have a fabulous guitar! Those old guild F-50/F-50R guitars are just stellar singer songwriter guitars, and they work great for fingerstyle play too, as Alex DeGrassi used one quite extensively in the early part of his career.

duff

[Christopher Cozad]

Originally Posted by KenL

...The guitar tech I use told me that it is difficult to reset the neck on older Guilds because they used nautical glue instead of hide glue, and the nautical glue doesn't soften up as easily when steamed...

I always said, were I ever lost at sea, I could float home on my venerable Guild F-50R. But I was wrong, as my '76 has Rosewood back and sides and was assembled with hide and AR glues, whereas the very limited edition Nautical model, assembled completely using Nautical glue, came only in Oak recovered from old battleships. If only I had known...



By the way, congratulations, sixx, on your acquisition!

[For any who may be wondering: the above is entirely fictitious. No such model ever existed.]