New poster, 1956 X-175 re-do

[eleventeen]

Hey, this is good, right next to the X-350 project thread.

I'm posting pix here of a 1956 X-175 that I had refinished..about 6-7 years ago. Let me state at the outset I am NOT in favor of refinishing guitars, and I'll be called a hypocrite because I have ANOTHER refin'ed Guild (a 1954 Guild X-150) but at some point, when they get too screwed up to play, then what is one supposed to do? I spent too much money having this done, but I'm very happy with the results.

First, I need a 25.5" scale length, so a Guild to my liking has to have a serial number under about 3000-3200. That is what we call "old". Somewhere in late to mid 1956, the scale lengths were changed to 24.75" and my hands don't like those. Nor do I like the short scale string tension. Sorry, me and my big hands. When I got this, the pickup selector switch had been removed....THROUGH THE TOP. Yes, whatever flaming genius who decided they knew about guitars and thus was qualified to remove the pu selector switch decided to do so by carving out wood around the nominal 1" hole this switch mounts in and pulled the switch out through the top. Bleh. The solution in this case was to buy a rubber "donut" from a Gibson L-5CES and mount the pu selector switch in it. It **barely** covers the enlarged hole. In the pix of the donut and switch, you can also detect some rebuilt wood. Originally, these guitars had I believe plastic disks with three screws around their perimeter to mount the switch in. Anyway, minor point in the overalll scheme of things.

Ever since I got my X-150 (in trade for a Gibson Melody Maker circa 1974) I had been impressed with the build quality of Guild archtops. That guitar is a tank, it's built far stronger than a Gibson. Pictures at a later date.

So here's what else I had done (by Kamimoto, on the South Bay peninsula in CA)

Refin the body blonde. Was originally uglyish SB, with lots and lots of body wear, binding halfway missing and halfway unglued. Seriously, there was almost more scratches and dings than finish left. A contributing factor to the blonde decision was, well, blonde. But, I could also see the back was highly flamed even though it was submerged in brownishness. I also had Kamimoto install 5-ply binding white-black-white-black-white around the top....like an L-5 or ES-355, instead of a single strip. That required him to set up a router and make the groove for the binding a little deeper. Not trivial.

Replace the harp tailpiece with a Gibson "Victory" type. Easier to change strings, and better proprtioned to the guitar, IMHO. I think this one is a repro, not a genuine Gibson part. Some chrome corrosion is showing up on the tailpiece as it is on the Grover pegs. I also used one of these bridges on the X-150, THAT one is genuine, nickel, not chrome plated.

Stain the back of the neck cherry red, like a Gibson SG. Pretty cool, IMO. And Guildish.

Grover pegs. Tune-o-matic bridge.

Reshape the neck to '64 Strat style by flattening out the point of the "V" it had. How many times have you picked up a neat old archtop and neck was a baseball bat sawn down the middle? Or a boat? I decided if I was going to pay stupid money to get all this done, I wanted to get what I wanted to get. Refret and rebind.

Finally, replace bass (neck) pickup with a split coil humbucker. I had to make a racetrack-shaped cover to hide the footprint of the original Franz pickup. This pickup is the only part of the thing that has gone undone all these years. This pickup was salvaged out of my junkbox and is a metal screamer, exactly the wrong thing to have here. One day I will get a Bartolini or something similar. This pickup, as you might imagine, somewhat overpowers the treble (bridge) pickup. The switching is set up: HB, SC bass, HB + treble. Like many jazz players, I almost never use the treble pickup.
I hope I don't offend anyone with the refin. As I said, it's not what I usually do, but the guitar was so beat up, and I wanted a blonde and I saw that flame. With the blond refin, the thicker binding, and the neck reshape, this whole operation cost probably around $1000 more than it would have had I only done the "necessary" work of refret and rebind body and neck with the stock body binding, but I also had a lot more more money to throw around at the time I did this than I do now. IMO, the "1964 Strat" neck profile is vastly superior to the original neck profile from the playing standpoint.

Let's see if some pix links will post.

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD007.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD002.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD004.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD001.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD006.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD005.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w32/ ... ILD003.jpg

Hope y'all enjoy!

Al

 

[motopsyche]

Al,

Welcome! That is a great story, and the guitar looks terrific. You know, some Brunettes just look better as Blonde's. That's all there is to it.

I'm with you; I hate to refin a guitar, and I love them better stock than modified. But when you get a beater or a project that begs to be salvaged, it can be soooo much fun. Nice job!

The important thing is that you got the player you want. That means a guitar that will be played and loved. Score. Having said that, there is no question that the neck pickup is just plain butt ugly, but that means you'll love it all the more (or change it all the sooner).

I found a terrific CA-100 a few years ago that just spoke to me. So loudly, in fact, that I shipped it off to Joe Vinikow in Seattle to plane the fretboard, replace the frets, replace the shrunken position markers, flatten the pickguard, install a DeArmond 1100 with pots in a replacement pickguard he made, and run the wires to an endpin jack. Crazy money, but it was for a guitar I loved, and I'm diggin' it every day.

Thanks for sharing the pix. Looks great!

Bill

 

[zulu]

I love it! You were very thoughtful in your decision process throughout.
Welcome and thanks for sharing!

 

[Default]

!

Al

 

[Walter Broes]

Hm...not crazy about your mods, but it's your guitar, and we all have different taste - I like big necks, especially V-shaped ones, and I don't like humbuckers. But at least the work you had done is nicely done, and like I said, we all like different things.

 

[Guildmark]

No argument that you need to do what's necessary to make it play and sound like you want. And since it was so unsightly in the first place, you're to be congratulated for saving it. Truth is, though, if it didn't say Guild on the headstock, I wouldn't have guessed from the pictures that it was one! Kinda like a Detroit heap that's been NASCAR'd.
Beautiful back, with great flame, though!

Welcome aboard!

Post well. Post often.

 

[john_kidder]

I like the big neck too, and Franz's, but you've sure made me think about refinishing my beat-up '53 X350. We're talking on another thread about having various members suggest ideas and mods for the electronics. This makes me think again a full refinishing job on the body.

 

[kydog]

eleventeen, look's very nice do you have any before pic's ?

 

[AlohaJoe]

That looks like a nice guitar... the finish job looks to have been well done and the binding job looks great. The figure in the back really shows up now and the spruce front is beautiful.

I'm also in favor of making the neck fit your hand when necessary... if all else is working and you can have the neck shaved to fit you, go for it. I also give you credit for recognizing that the neck pup needs to be replaced. A Bartolini would be great, but the Guild HB2s are actually pretty good sounding for jazz too. Ted Greene loved them... I once read that when he found Guilds he said he no longer had to hot-rod his guitars to get the jazz sound he wanted.

Not so crazy about the tailpiece... It's just my own prejudice of course, but it's just too common for me unless you're trying to make it look like a Gibson. if I wanted a Gibson, I'd go get a Gibson. Part of the beauty of Guilds is a very distinctive and rare tailpiece, so It's like changing the medallion on the front of your car to make it look like something it's not. That makes some sense I guess if you think Gibsons are better, but I have both and they're not.

You have a wonderful guitar with a distinguished history that you put a lot of time and effort into... be proud of what it is.

 

[alpep]

nice guitar
enjoy

 

[eleventeen]

As I said or perhaps implied, the *only* reason I considered refin'ing the body was that I was going to be sending it in for minimally: refret, re-neck bind, re-body bind. Add to that the cost of the Grovers, and there were extra holes for wrong-type tuners and wrong bridge. When I bought the guitar, I was just about ready to send it back to the seller because it was so rough. No, I don't have any *before* pix, perhaps if I did I could make a stronger case for the refin. It really looked abused with long scratches, really a "dragged behind a truck" look to it. It was a wreck. Had I just rebound the body, the brightness of the new binding would have also looked weird against the badly scratched-up body. Then, some time after my approval period was over, I removed the plastic disk for the selector switch and saw the enlarged, jagged hole and freaked.

I was basically in a situation where for about $500 cost I could have something where (other than a refretted/rebound neck that I didn't hate but I sure didn't like that much) each and every aspect of the guitar would bother me forever, every time I looked at it, or, for about a grand more, I could have something pretty neat that was quite cool every time I looked at it.

At the time, I also had a '69 L-5 CES which was a sweet guitar but I knew I'd have to sell it, a 1961 Epi Broadway electric which was a cool looking blond but glunky sounding guitar (and thus on the block to sell) my 1954 X-150 (not for sale) a '53 Epi Zephyr Regent in the archtop dep't. All plywood mid-range archtops except the L-5. Subtract the L-5, obviously the "#1" among all those, and which one would become #1? The X-175 had the potential, but only if it were seriously refurbed.

The lesson here is this, and maybe it's an obvious one: When you buy a used guitar (or anything else) you not only buy the axe, you buy all its' defects.

 

[eleventeen]

john_kidder, I could not find any pix of your X-350. Got a link?

btw: Just in at Archtops.com a nice looking X-150 $2450. VG++ condition. Reminds me of mine.

 

[cc_mac]

Not all guitars that survive 50 or 60 years are in great shape and may not even be playable. To bring an unusable instrument back into the realm of its original purpose, to be played and enjoyed, is a noble task. Not everyone has the resources to do a 100 point resto on an instrument. There are serious hack jobs out there. This isn't one of them. I like what you've done and hope you enjoy it for many years to come.

Chris