'61 M65 Freshman Rebuild - Bridge Help!

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Hello all.

First time posting to a forum of any kind.. very exciting !

Well, i recently acquired the neck and body of my (attainable) dream guitar - a blond Guild m65 circa 1961. Got a pickup made by local legend Lindy Frailin, spent an enjoyable afternoon grinding the cowl down to fit the smaller Franz socket.. however, I'm having a hell of a time locating an appropriate bridge. My only desire is for this guitar to play... and not look ugly. Don't have the dough or passion for a historically appropriate re-build. For a time, I was considering having the top drilled for a pinned bridge, but a well intentioned and wise friend talked me out of this.

So - what do I do ? I can't seem to find 3/4 bridges anywhere on-line. The original was for sale next to the guitar and like an idiot i did not buy it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

yrs,
m

"even a blind hen will get some corn if he keeps on peckin'" . L. Helm
 

Bernie

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I bet you checked out the place where you got your guitar from (?)...

A good luthier could make an appropriate bridge easily : I hear they are wooden ones...

Supro and Nashville guitars from the same era use same bridges...

Some details here : maybe they could help, if you haven't tried yet
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD1HpoZUw6o
 

dapmdave

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Bernie is right... find a good luthier and have one fabricated.
 

matsickma

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I may be wrong but I thought the Guild 3/4 guitars are not rescaled but simply reduced by two frets. So intonation isn't affected and a bridge change wasn't required.
Another simple option might to add a tune tuneomatic.
M
 

DThomasC

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The saddle would have been rosewood. And, I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same saddle used on other Guild Archtops from the era. The problem is with the base. The M-65 and M-75 have a smaller neck angle which means that the base for most bridges is too tall. Instead of a rosewood base they use a pair of metal feet.

This one on ebay didn't come from a Guild, but it gives you the idea and would probably work: https://www.ebay.com/itm/EXTREMELY-RARE-ORIGINAL-VINTAGE-USA-BRIDGE-FOR-SUPRO-VALCO-AND-GUILD-GUITARS/153316164795?hash=item23b25b04bb:g:a7IAAOSwXzFb-aQX:rk:23:pf:0

Otherwise, you might be able to buy a new tune-o-matic style bridge assembly for a Newark St M-75 from an authorized Guild dealer, or maybe directly from Guild. If you don't like the tune-o-matic you can still use the feet with a rosewood saddle of your choice. Perhaps this one for a plain G string: https://www.ebay.com/itm/GUILD-Rosewood-Compensated-Saddle-Plain-G-3rd-7702321049/202225003487?epid=18009430377&hash=item2f158cabdf:g:~XkAAOSwa3BaCcRU:sc:USPSFirstClass!14616!US!-1:rk:5:pf:0 or this one for a wound G: https://www.ebay.com/itm/GUILD-Rosewood-Compensated-Saddle-Wound-G-7702322049/202057973759?epid=586901381&hash=item2f0b97ffff:g:nhsAAOSw0IJZvsU8:sc:USPSFirstClass!14616!US!-1:rk:13:pf:0

EDIT: after cruising ebay a little more I found these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPRO-AIRLINE-NATIONAL-GUITAR-COMPLETE-ROSEWOOD-BRIDGE-REPRO/192763493404?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20160323102634%26meid%3Dc2ac60d81356443b8af6bd3534fd6a18%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D3%26sd%3D153316164795%26itm%3D192763493404&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1 Evidently, there were some Supro / Valco / Airline guitars with similar bridges.
 
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SFIV1967

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Welcome to LTG. The original version is hard to find. Allparts and StewMac sell various archtop bridges, you would have to file them down to the radius of the body and the radius of the fretboard. As DTC said, you might need to lower it quite a bit. Also you need to choose if you want a compensated version depending if you want to use a wound G-string or a plain G-string.
https://hazeguitars.com/blog/an-old-g-and-a-new-g


They look pretty cool but to me the metal feet also look a bit too tall for a M-65.

Ralf
 
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swiveltung

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There are a ton of rosewood bridges on Ebay. Look at the pics of M65's there and buy something close. It's wood, readily modded for your needs! Have fun. You should have the two holes for the bridge posts in the top of your guitar... right? Measure the distance and find a bridge with that spacing.
 
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swiveltung

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I may be wrong but I thought the Guild 3/4 guitars are not rescaled but simply reduced by two frets. So intonation isn't affected and a bridge change wasn't required.
Another simple option might to add a tune tuneomatic.
M

I would like to know if this is true also! Also, I have seen M65's advertised as full scale... I thought they were shorter by definition than an M75? Were there actually M65's that were full scale?
 

Nuuska

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I may be wrong but I thought the Guild 3/4 guitars are not rescaled but simply reduced by two frets. So intonation isn't affected and a bridge change wasn't required.
Another simple option might to add a tune tuneomatic.
M


Hello

Reducing by two frets vs rescaling - what really is the difference?
 

swiveltung

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Hello

Reducing by two frets vs rescaling - what really is the difference?

Reducing by two frets is like using a capo. Rescaling changes the spacing formula for distance between frets at locations along the fretboard. ......I think I got that right! ?

But one wonders: if the shorter scale is set up exactly the same as the scale starting at say fret 1 or 2.. then I guess it would be the same distances right?
Good question.
 
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DThomasC

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Many (most?) M-65's are short scale, but some are a 'full' 24.75". FWIW, the locations of the bridges of my 3/4 scale 1964 M-64 and my 2014 NS M-75 are different. Neither are pinned to the top, but when adjusted for good intonation the bridge on the M-65 ends up about 1/2" closer to the tailpiece.
 

swiveltung

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Many (most?) M-65's are short scale, but some are a 'full' 24.75". FWIW, the locations of the bridges of my 3/4 scale 1964 M-64 and my 2014 NS M-75 are different. Neither are pinned to the top, but when adjusted for good intonation the bridge on the M-65 ends up about 1/2" closer to the tailpiece.

Fret spacing the same or not... if you align those 2 at the 12th fret?
 

DThomasC

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Fret spacing the same or not... if you align those 2 at the 12th fret?

If I understand your question:

M-65
Nut to 12th fret: 11.375" (22.75 scale length)
high E nut to saddle: 23.00"
Low E nut to saddle: 23.13"

M-75
Nut to 12th fret: 12.375" (24.75 scale length)
High E nut to saddle: 24.80"
Low E nut to saddle: 24.94"

So it appears that my M-65 requires a little more compensation than my M-75, but not 0.5" worth. I probably put heavier strings on it to make the string tension more familiar. I suppose I could tune it a couple half-steps higher instead, but that seems even more unfamiliar.
 

matsickma

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If the nut to 12 fret distance E to e (i e., Octave) are different between the 3/4 and standard M65 then my assumption is incorrect and the guitars scaled. When I look at a M65 3/4 the neck has two less frets than the standard length guitar so I assumed that was the only difference. Under that scenerio the nominal distance from nut to bridge would be around 24 5/8".
So if scaled down to 3/4 then my mistake. If just a reduction in frets than the the nut to bridge distance doesn't change.

Sorry for confusion.
M
 

Nuuska

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One more spoon stirring the soup.

Scaling the nut-bridge distance without scaling the body or moving bridge location is like using capo - thus resulting two frets less in total scale. if the guitar is available both full & 3/4 scales, then it should have two different bodies & pickguards to be optimal.
 

swiveltung

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If I understand your question:

M-65
Nut to 12th fret: 11.375" (22.75 scale length)
high E nut to saddle: 23.00"
Low E nut to saddle: 23.13"

M-75
Nut to 12th fret: 12.375" (24.75 scale length)
High E nut to saddle: 24.80"
Low E nut to saddle: 24.94"

So it appears that my M-65 requires a little more compensation than my M-75, but not 0.5" worth. I probably put heavier strings on it to make the string tension more familiar. I suppose I could tune it a couple half-steps higher instead, but that seems even more unfamiliar.

I was just wondering if the M65 just had shorter length = to one less fret. ie: spacing of the frets from 12th fret on down to the nut was the same, but the M65 had one less fret!
 

DThomasC

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Here's my take on the M-65 3/4. Imagine taking a normal scale M-65 and shortening the neck and fingerboard 2". When you go to layout the positions of the frets you'll find that there's room for only 19 of them instead of 22. No problem; 19 is enough.

The other thing you'll notice is that the neck/body joint falls somewhere between the 14th and 15th frets. For some reason, guitar makers don't like it when the joint falls between frets. They want it to line up exactly at one fret or another. So to fix this on the M-65 3/4, they shortened the neck but not the fingerboard a tiny bit more so that the neck joint fell exactly at the 14th fret. This last step essentially slides the fingerboard and the bridge a tiny bit towards the tailpin relative to the normal scale version, but it maintains the 22.75" scale* they were targeting and lines up the neck joint with a fret, which we know is terribly important.

This is all wild guessing on my part. :playful:

*Hans writes in his book that the scale length is 22 2/3", not 22 3/4" as I measured. Call it whatever you want. I won't argue one way or the other.
 

The Guilds of Grot

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Just to add some visuals to all the verbiage.


M-65-3/4:

rt013.jpg




M-65:

100_6403.jpg
 
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