cjd-player
Senior Member
For quite a while I've been interested in the now-defunct Guild Contemporary series (CO and CV guitars) because of their body sizes, cutaways, and 1-3/4" nuts.
Back in February I purchased a CO-1C (cedar top on a mahogany body) from a fellow on the Acoustic Guitar Forum.
He had purchased it used, and for a low price, from a music local music store, but it was not one of the "reconditioned stamped USED" models that are all over e-bay. It was originally a fully-warranted guitar. I purchased it for a low price from him.
It's a good sounding guitar, but it was not in great shape. Lots of dings in the cedar top, and deep scratches all over the back. It also had a fair amount of lacquer checking on the top, but that may have happened when it was shipped to me during the cold days of February.
I also did not like the pluged-in sound from the D'tar system at all. I can't stand under-saddle piezo pickups any more. I guess I'm just spoiled by the Taylor expression system and the soundboard transducers like K&K and the LR Baggs I-beam.
On the plus side, the neck was flat and straight, and the angle was spot on. Not a "trainwreck neck".
I decided to make this a project guitar.
So I:
Removed the pick guard
Removed the bridge
Removed the bolt-on neck
Removed all of the finish and stain. (I prefer mahogany unstained.)
Sanded, sanded, and sanded
Removed the D'tar pickup system.
Shaved the neck down to a slimmer size (to match a Taylor slim-carve neck profile)
Replaced the abalone fret board side markers (too hard to see) with white ones (much easier to see).
Replaced the silver open-back tuners (can't stand those) with gold Grovers, filling some screw holes in the process.
Made a cherry plug to fill the huge hole in the end from the D'tar endpin jack.
Applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, etc, etc, etc ............
everything with polyurethane, then polished and power buffed (no checking issues in the future with that).
Reattached the neck
Reattached the bridge.
Put on a clear pick guard.
Made a custom truss rod cover (cherry) with a Coastie sticky thing.
Installed K&K soundboard transducers and endpin jack.
Installed a new bone saddle (had to be taller to account for the missing undersaddle pickup).
After this little bit of tweeking, I'm quite happy with it now.
Did it loose what little resale value it had left?
Probably.
But it's a Guild; Made to be Played.
Some pics:
Back in February I purchased a CO-1C (cedar top on a mahogany body) from a fellow on the Acoustic Guitar Forum.
He had purchased it used, and for a low price, from a music local music store, but it was not one of the "reconditioned stamped USED" models that are all over e-bay. It was originally a fully-warranted guitar. I purchased it for a low price from him.
It's a good sounding guitar, but it was not in great shape. Lots of dings in the cedar top, and deep scratches all over the back. It also had a fair amount of lacquer checking on the top, but that may have happened when it was shipped to me during the cold days of February.
I also did not like the pluged-in sound from the D'tar system at all. I can't stand under-saddle piezo pickups any more. I guess I'm just spoiled by the Taylor expression system and the soundboard transducers like K&K and the LR Baggs I-beam.
On the plus side, the neck was flat and straight, and the angle was spot on. Not a "trainwreck neck".
I decided to make this a project guitar.
So I:
Removed the pick guard
Removed the bridge
Removed the bolt-on neck
Removed all of the finish and stain. (I prefer mahogany unstained.)
Sanded, sanded, and sanded
Removed the D'tar pickup system.
Shaved the neck down to a slimmer size (to match a Taylor slim-carve neck profile)
Replaced the abalone fret board side markers (too hard to see) with white ones (much easier to see).
Replaced the silver open-back tuners (can't stand those) with gold Grovers, filling some screw holes in the process.
Made a cherry plug to fill the huge hole in the end from the D'tar endpin jack.
Applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, applied varnish and sanded, etc, etc, etc ............
everything with polyurethane, then polished and power buffed (no checking issues in the future with that).
Reattached the neck
Reattached the bridge.
Put on a clear pick guard.
Made a custom truss rod cover (cherry) with a Coastie sticky thing.
Installed K&K soundboard transducers and endpin jack.
Installed a new bone saddle (had to be taller to account for the missing undersaddle pickup).
After this little bit of tweeking, I'm quite happy with it now.
Did it loose what little resale value it had left?
Probably.
But it's a Guild; Made to be Played.
Some pics:
