This is all good to hear. A lot of you appear to have solved the conundrum by having more than one. Dunion was making an earlier comparison above to the F-512 with the JF30-12 (not the F-412), right?
I was going to call him on that but later in the post it seemed clear he was comparing maple-bodies (" It does sound a little bit different than a Rosewood jumbo 12-string F-512 of the same shape") so I just chalked it up to a typo (as Cougar thought) and didn't want to harass him about it.
On re-read though, I believe Dunion
is a bit mixed up about his guitars.
And Dunion with due respect because I don't want to alienate a new member, here's where I think your memory may have gone astray:
Hi
Fundamentally the JF-30 is the 'F-512' with less bling.
Is that a typo? JF30-12 is traditionally thought of as the blinged-down version of F-
412, also arched
maple back.
I also have a Rosewood 1980 F50 6-string. I had heard the Westerly Maple 12 string and always wanted that specifically for the specific sound which has a lot of great resonance and sound on the mid and high and is still clear enough in the Bass, but not too 'Bass-y'. It does sound a little bit different than a Rosewood jumbo 12-string F-512 of the same shape. It is 'brighter'. At the same time those also would have been arched back also. My F50 (Rosewood) is arched back.
So if you don't like the Maple tone, you can look for the Rosewood one, the model # F-512 on Ebay. They are both awesome sounding. The necks are not narrow so be prepared for that. Even the F-512 will not be 'really really Bass-y' but it may sound very slightly 'warmer'.
NOW you got me confused.
Sounds like the reason you think the JF30-12 is a blinged down version of F512 is that they both have arched backs but 512 is rosewood?
They
don't both have arched backs.
The JF30, the JF30-12 and the F412 are all derived from the F50, having arched maple back construction by definition, while the F512 is derived from the F50
R, flat rosewood back by definition.
In any case, although there
were a very few arched back F50Rs made in late '60's early '70's, I can't recall ever hearing of an 80's era F50R with arched back
or any era F512
with arched back.
Or is that 19
80 itself a typo?
In fairness, knowing Guild, if one was reported as a special order or build I wouldn't doubt it (in fact after all these years I'd even
expect it, LOL!), but you don't say that.
And in any case it would still not be a valid
generalization for either F50Rs or F512's.
They were flatbacks by definition, otherwise they were "specials".