Tacoma clear coat spaying issues new to me ???

Rayk

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As title say I ran into person on a Blueridge forum that talked about how Fender killed Tacoma , there's a vid by some guy about it . Seems Tacoma techs had some issue with the gloss clear coating application and folks complained about the clear coat peeling off .

Anyway this the first I hearing about it , it mentioned that issue continued to some later date that would cover Guild production.

You folks heard if this ? I'm just curious ?
Also does anyone have a Tacoma guitar not Guild ? Never thought about it and didn't know Tacoma was making guitars before Guild lol

Over to Y'all 😊
 

dreadnut

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Don't know too much about Tacomas except the ones I played were fine.

I believe Tacoma made some of the finest Guilds.
 

Rayk

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Don't know too much about Tacomas except the ones I played were fine.

I believe Tacoma made some of the finest Guilds.

Did they have any issues with the clear coating ?

Maybe misheard the vid let me dig it up .I'm good at being thick sometimes lol
 

dreadnut

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Two of the finest dreads I've ever played were Tacoma made Guild D-50's at Elderly Instruments. Shoulda bought one then, they were about $1,500.00 new. But they were pretty much identical to my DV-52 so I couldn't justify it.
 

gjmalcyon

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My Guild Tacoma DV-6 is hand-rubbed satin varnish. The Tacoma-build F-47R is high-gloss and is flawless save for a few finish cracks.

Both are spectacular-sounding instruments.
 

wileypickett

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I suspect someone got their wires crossed. Tacoma BRAND guitars from a certain period are famous for their top coats peeling off (wood wasn't seasoned properly?), but I've never heard that Guild had that problem.
 

Cougar

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I suspect someone got their wires crossed. Tacoma BRAND guitars from a certain period are famous for their top coats peeling off....

Right. He's talking about Tacoma guitars, NOT Tacoma-built Guilds!

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davismanLV

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I also remember seeing some more modern Guilds (Tacoma or New Hartford) that had issues with finish lifting around the tuners on the headstock. Does anyone else remember that? They were way less than that Tacoma headstock but I do remember them coming up. I'm sure there's some photos somewhere for that. It's the surface that's being sprayed vs. the finish itself, I think. At least that's my experience telling me that..... :nightmare:
 

bobouz

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Yes, there are many Tacoma brand instruments with gloss finishes that have peeled (body and/or neck). Sometimes it's minimal, sometimes it's a lot - but it indeed was a common problem.

I don't believe their satin finished instruments suffered the same fate.

As for the Tacoma brand overall, they otherwise were well-built guitars, and many of them had a fine sound.
 

adorshki

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I also remember seeing some more modern Guilds (Tacoma or New Hartford) that had issues with finish lifting around the tuners on the headstock. Does anyone else remember that?
I remember it was a New Hartford build, and Twocorgiis lambasting Rocky at Streetsounds for not offering any compensation for what appeared to be a warranty issue, and one of 2 or maybe 3?
Appeared to be caused by pressure of post bezels, IIRC.
In that case probably mechanical force causing the separation: NCL was staying intact as the pressure caused it to flex and separate from the wood, as opposed to poor adhesion caused by inadequate surface prep like appears to be the case for Tacoma.
 
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Taylor Martin Guild

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My 2006 Tacoma built D-55 had a very soft finish on it.
It took over 5 years for it to dry and harden.
Even after 7 or 8 years, the finish was still soft enough that when I remover a John Pearse Arm Rest that I had installed about a year prier,
the finish had blistered and left a rough feel to the lacquer where the adhesive tape was in contact with the finish.

I also felt the finish on the neck getting soft as I played the guitar for the first 4 or 5 years.
I don't feel this any more as the finish has finally hardened more.
 

Rayk

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I'm not believing anything as I have no clue . It was a comment to me at another forum . I was defending the Guild name lol
Anyway as I said it's new to me as I never heard of the issue which not surprising lol
The guy in the vid I thought said that the spray issues carried over from Tocoma guitars into Guild .

I thought it interesting at least .I'm geeky that way .

So um.... Tell me about Tacoma guitars . 😁
 

adorshki

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I'm not believing anything as I have no clue . It was a comment to me at another forum . I was defending the Guild name lol
Anyway as I said it's new to me as I never heard of the issue which not surprising lol
The guy in the vid I thought said that the spray issues carried over from Tocoma guitars into Guild .
Wouldn't surprise me since Fender just moved Guild production right into the same workspace, if I'm remembering previous comments correctly.
I suspect there's more to the story than simple incompetence though, as finish issues also occurred when Fender began making 'em in Corona.
In Corona, where they'd never sprayed flattop acoustics before, they actually went to the expense of building a brand new spray booth for NCL; in fact it also had the ability to spray poly.
Since the finishes aren't compatible, switching would have required very thorough cleaning of the equipment each time.
One has to wonder if perhaps a less-than thorough cleaning after a poly-spraying session might have resulted in contaminated NCL?
But even more to the point is that during that era, NCL itself was undergoing a lot of evolution in formulas in pursuit of lower VOC emissions, spraying itself even became regulated by CARB and booths required certification against excessive emission of VOC's.
My educated guess is that Corona's problems were due to learning curve required for all 3 elements: Spray techs, equipment, and formula.
Eventually they got it down, my D40 has the best finish of all 3 and others have said the same about their "late" (post '02) Coronas.
OK, as for Tacoma, I don't recall ever hearing whether the existing Tacoma booth was retained or if Fender moved that brand new booth up there (which I kind of doubt because it would still have been extremely useful for Fender electric production).
Leading up to:
I suspect the existing Tacoma booth was used and the finish issues were the result of inexperience and possibly poor surface prep on the Tacoma branded guitars, and inexperience with new formulas when spraying Guilds.
I remember Taylor Martin Guild's story and didn't realize when I first heard it that NCL itself was undergoing rapid evolution during that period. (Heck, it still is)
I now wonder if they switched to a formula with too much plasticizer and maybe not enough VOC's, thus the extended time of "softness".
One even wonders if perhaps the unusually high and almost constant humidity in Tacoma might have affected the curing process itself?
There's a certain amount of drying time required between the multiple coats, it's one of the most time-consuming steps in production.
Maybe they miscalculated the drying time.

So um.... Tell me about Tacoma guitars . ��
There are some Tacoma models with a cult following, the Papoose and Thunderchief Bass come to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Guitars
 
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