Hey, thanks for all the great input on the history of Fender Guilds at Corona, Westerly and Tacoma plants. FYI, I used to work in a music store that had a lot of 1995-1996 Guilds and 90% of these were overbuilt and very stiff sounding (for whatever reasons). They just didn’t have any magic to the ones I mostly saw and played myself in person.
Duly noted and thanks for the explanation. Always nice to know a guy's background. I'm just a fanboy with a pretty good memory for stuff that's come up over the years, especially some of the "recurring themes"
Fender's acquisition wasn't actually final until November of '95. I've seen reports both ways on early '90's builds, but for sure they started lightening up from the late '70's-mid '80's seriously heavy era. I think George Gruhn's influence and the new models he introduced in '84 started that trend. Many of Gruhn's ideas were put into production by Kim Walker after he left. But it took a while for things to "filter down", I think. The narrow "snakehead" headstock is Gruhn legacy, for example.
My D25 (see my sig) is the lightest flattop I've ever owned, was a revelation. (And not that I've owned or played that many. )
I realize that Tacoma was just building them to older Guild specifications.
Corona was where they actually implemented a "Vintage defensible" design philosophy which I think was at least part of the reason they're heavier again than the late Westerlys.
Former member Jay Pilzer wrote an article for Vintage Guitar:
https://www.vintageguitar.com/21567/guild-in-the-post-fender-era/
In that article he has this to say about Tacoma:
"The move to Tacoma brought more changes to the Guild line. Some guitars changed cosmetically, with different binding or rosettes. The most significant was the switch from Sitka to Adirondack (a.k.a. “red”) spruce for the tops of F-30, F-40, D-40, and D-50 guitars. Adirondack spruce is a premium wood and makes a significant tonal difference in guitars (pre-World-War-II “golden era” flat-tops from Martin and Gibson had Adirondack spruce tops). These changes were made while Donny Wade was the marketing director for Guild.
This was clearly not an effort to copy what had been done in the past. Rather, designers and builders were trying to create an instrument that, while still sounding and looking like a Guild, was something that had never existed – a pre-WWII Guild.
Top bracing was changed yet again with the pattern, size, and radius of the braces being reworked, while the dovetail neck joint was modified to improve neck pitch and stability. Shortly after moving to Tacoma, the factory started to make its own bracing and other parts that had been made in Mexico during the Corona era.
I never said that Tacoma made them differently than Guild’s already established engineered parameters. I simply like the Tacoma produced Guilds very much, that’s all.
Oh I didn't get that at all, but in fact Tacoma did do some tweaking as shown, and they have a rep for being light resonant builds like '60's-early '70's Guilds.
They also introduced a lot of innovations besides the adi tops and bracing, such as a dual action truss rod, a single truss rod with flanking graphite stabilizing rods for 12-string necks, (a truly radical change from Guild's famous and exclusive dual rods in 12-er necks) and a completely new bolt-on neck system for a new line called the Contemporary series.
Tacoma was a veritable hotbed of innovation in their short time, all driven by
Guild designers being given their freedom by Fender.
So your love of 'em has a real basis.
Many thanks again for your input!!!!!!! Knowledgeable folks hang around these parts as I found out very quickly (which is always nothing short of great).
You're so welcome!
And thanks for the pics! We
love pics.
