1972 D25 Cherry Chocolatey Mahogany Ripples, and the wonders of hydration

Guildedagain

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May have to learn to upload audio, ideas?

Dropbox?

Back to possible movement, if the wood at the edge of the soundhole lines up perfectly, both halves, I'd say there was no movement.

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My little coffin cleat.
 

D30Man

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Yeah that top is choice.. Great example of a vintage cherry hog top..
 

adorshki

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Yes, Cracks from the fretboard extension to the soundhole are a tell tale sign that there has been some movement in the neck block over time.

TX

Right, but Chris Cozad also explained they can result simply from humidity expansion/contraction of the heelblock: Heel block swells, lifts up that section of the top because it's glued to it.
Yes that's movement of a sort, too, but not what we usually think of in terms of the block being pushed forward into the body from glue failure and neck pressure.

https://www.cozadguitars.com/articles/article-1975-guild-f-212-overhaul.html
"Diagonal bracing (viewed from inside)
F-212-Neck-Block-Grain.jpg

The fingerboard is made from a very dense hardwood (Brazilian Rosewood, in this case). The grain direction of the fingerboard runs lengthwise from the headstock, down the neck and out onto the soundboard. It will expand and contract from side-to-side when exposed to moisture variations. The fingerboard extension is glued down to the Spruce soundboard beneath it. The grain direction of the soundboard also runs lengthwise, and it will also expand and contract from side-to-side when exposed to moisture variations. The soundboard is glued down to the neck block. By contrast, the neck block's grain direction runs from side to side, rotated 90° to the soundboard and fingerboard (traditionally, the thinking being to expand and contract in the same direction of the sides; up and down). In this photo I have drawn a double-headed arrow indicating the direction the neck block will expand and contract due to moisture variations. Let your imagination be your guide, and consider what may occur should the neck block ever “swell”!"
And finally:
"No one asked, but I believe the primary culprit in the soundboard/soundhole shift is actually the soundhole itself! A 4 inch diameter hole has been cut into a plate supporting more than 200 pounds of pressure/tension. What could possibly go wrong? The fact that soundboards having no soundholes (or significantly offset soundholes) do *not* experience these splits is evidence enough for me. Of course, knowing that doesn't resolve the problem. Reinforcing the entire upper bout, with a focus on unifying the soundboard (above the waist), the back, the neck block, and the sides into one unmovable mass is what resolves the problem. But that is a topic for another article."
I give Mr. Cozad the most credence here, only because I appreciate his thorough rundown of all possible factors and known experience in luthiery and with Guilds.
Fixit is tied but edged out only because I haven't read anything as thorough from him but suspect he's every bit as good as Chris, possibly even better, and in this instance Frank Ford comes in 3rd only because he's addressing a wide range of guitars generically, without reference to the peculiarities of Guilds .
RL and 73, never thought of that, I'll have to look a it again. What about employee sigs on Guilds, is that mostly unheard of?
First mention of initials I can recall was about TR cavities, like the guy who did the final set-up signed 'em off, think I've seen reports about that both from the '70's and late Westerly, even New Hartford?
Never tried to conscientiously track those.
Pretty sure I recall more than one ref to initials on inside tops, and for sure, Chazmo had a '67 F50R that had been re-topped and signed by Carlo Greco himself, so there was certainly precedent.
It is a common practice for something as major as a re-top for the luthier to sign it, likely as a confirmation of the date and the work if nothing else.
After all that I think I've seen more reports of the date being written on the tops (in '70's and '80's) than anything else, which was why it occurred to me.
 
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kostask

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Guildedagain:

Before you go about gluing anything, you or somebody needs to inspect the neck block and popsicle brace to verify that the glue joints are intact. Those sound hole cracks are sometimes caused by humidity variations, but sometimes are an indication that the guitar has been overheated, and the glue joints in that area may have been compromised. It is the area of the guitar that is under the highest stress, and it is the function of the popsicle brace to prevent this exact type of crack (that is why it is there). Some call the popsicle brace the upper transverse brace, in either case, it is the brace above the sound hole that runs across the guitar from side to side.

Sorry to disagree with Mr. Cozad, but 200 lbs is a lot of string tension. Most Lights strings are approximately 150-160 lbs tension, in all, and strung up in a guitar, there is even less, as the string tension is not a direct pull (is it string tension X cosine of the string angle, approximately). Even mediums are in the 180 lbs range. I would like to know how he derived the "...more than 200 lbs of tension". He may be talking about heavy strings, but I don't recall ever seeing any people that used them strung to standard pitch.

As for the use of Silk & Steel strings, you can try them, always a good idea. However, in my experience, Mahogany topped guitars always benefit from increased string tension, and Silk & Steels may not provide that.
 
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adorshki

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Sorry to disagree with Mr. Cozad, but 200 lbs is a lot of string tension. Most Lights strings are approximately 150-160 lbs tension, in all, and strung up in a guitar, there is even less, as the string tension is not a direct pull (is it string tension X cosine of the string angle, approximately). Even mediums are in the 180 lbs range. I would like to know how he derived the "...more than 200 lbs of tension". He may be talking about heavy strings, but I don't recall ever seeing any people that used them strung to standard pitch.
That was about the F512 he was working on in that article, but the concept was germane so I quoted it.
:friendly_wink:

As for the use of Silk & Steel strings, you can try them, always a good idea. However, in my experience, Mahogany topped guitars always benefit from increased string tension, and Silk & Steels may not provide that.
Think he's going for the Silks to get a true apples-to-apples comparison between this and his D35; I might be the party guilty of seducing him into trying 'em out back when he got his rescue dog F30 and I was in the last stages of my taming the maple shrew F65ce" project earlier this year.
:friendly_wink:
EDIT: Oops, oh yeah, note he mentioned the use of the JP Silks with reference to the goal of maintaining the already-ideal neckset angle as determined by the alignment test, ie, low-tension strings for low stress on the neck join.
And it looks like his glue job is already successfully completed, post #21.
The boy keeps surprising me, but he's got his share of experience under the belt now.
:biggrin-new:
 
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Guildedagain

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I had a good look at the braces before even thinking about gluing, and I (even used dental picks) decided that it was all as it should be.

Now I'm feeling guilty about the job myself, but I live 100 mile round trip from any kind of a guitar shop, and my experiences with luthiers/techs has always been dismal at best, and lately hasn't gotten any better, the last two jobs I had professionally done both turned out badly one had to be redone and is still not right, in both cases I'm still upset and it's been around three years.

It would have been nice to take it to somebody who could put it on the rack and pull it back if there was a shift because of summer heat/shipping, but some of the same repair people scare the crap out of me, like my luthier neighbor who's really a violin builder by trade, when he says stuff like "the top needs to come off", I usually run the other way...

I just hope I haven't harmed it, now just need to string and play it.
 

adorshki

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I had a good look at the braces before even thinking about gluing, and I (even used dental picks) decided that it was all as it should be.
Now I'm feeling guilty about the job myself, but I live 100 mile round trip from any kind of a guitar shop, and my experiences with luthiers/techs has always been dismal at best, and lately hasn't gotten any better, the last two jobs I had professionally done both turned out badly one had to be redone and is still not right, in both cases I'm still upset and it's been around three years.
You sir have every justification for trying to accomplish these tasks yourself and are to be lauded for your efforts as well as the accompanying photo essays, that's some of the most valuable stuff we get around here, I think.
Knowing Kostas over the years I suspect he'd agree when acquainted with your specific situation, and hope I'm not putting words in his mouth.
Especially the bit about sub-par techs/luthiers, let alone the issue of the trip time and expense.
Reminds me of the guy who got the first bone nut wrong on my D25, incredibly enough Mark Brown the Doobie Bros. equipment tech, even has a gold record on his wall.

He had his apprentice do it, and it was re-done with no pushback, but I felt he represented that he was going to be doing the work himself.
Got its first re-fret done at the same time, and years later after its second re-fret at Keith Holland's Guitar Hospital I discovered THAT job was also sub-par but never realized it, thought it me that was getting old and sloppy.
When it came back from Keith all of a sudden little tricks I'd been able to pull off cleanly when the guitar was new were clean again.
It wasn't me after all.
So I'll name names where it's justified in cases like that.

It would have been nice to take it to somebody who could put it on the rack and pull it back if there was a shift because of summer heat/shipping, but some of the same repair people scare the crap out of me, like my luthier neighbor who's really a violin builder by trade, when he says stuff like "the top needs to come off", I usually run the other way...
:glee:
I just hope I haven't harmed it, now just need to string and play it.
I think you did your homework and got a whole lot of insight about just how resilient tops can be with the rescue dog F30.
Now kinda curious about the sound comparison between this and the D35.
:friendly_wink:
 

kostask

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Guildedagain:

There is nothing an experienced luthier would have done better than you. Your cleat is fine, you didn't leave any glue drips. I have no issue with your repair in any way.

I just find it a little weird that, if this were due to humidity issues, that it only cracked on one side of the sound hole. It may be just cracked one side, but it may be that the popsicle stick brace glue has only been compromised in that area of the glue joint, and not on the other side. All I wanted to point out is that you need to be careful when simply assuming that your issue is humidity related. Humidity does create all sorts of cracking, over all the different areas of the guitar, without any doubt. However, the neck block is a pretty substantial chunk of mahogany, and mahogany is pretty stable, and the sheer volume of the neck block itself will tend to keep expansion/contraction to a minimum amount. No, not impossible.

Adorshiki, thanks for the claification of the 200 lbs. of tension. I can definitely see 200 lbs of tension on a 12 string (with a 25.XX" scale length).

The luthiers I know don't put their names on a repair unless they have done it. There are bad luthiers around here, but most of the guitar community knows who they are, and they don't get a lot of business bexause there are 3 very good luthiers locally. Only thing is, they are backed up most of the time.
 

Guildedagain

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Thx Kostask, this would be the summertime lack of humidity, we don't actually have humidity issues on this side of the mountains, although that's starting to change... and this spring we had a lightning/thunderstorm while we still piles of snow melting, never seen that before...

I'm still leery of it as well, I understand things can shift with old glues if the ambient temp is high enough. I still also want to think that it was an edge crack only, and have since prodded the large transverse brace any any of the popsicle braces this time with the finest of palette knives (an amazing tool) and I cannot find a place where it would go in. However, that doesn't mean that it didn't get too hot under tension, shift and cool, leaving everything still tight but moved.

There is the most imperceptible shift in the rosette rings, seen under magnification. However, because it was so slight, I'll have to go with that I made an executive decision to "just glue it", rather than the time and expense of putting it in someone else's hands.

Something else that reassured me greatly was sighting down the fingerboard from the nut to the bridge and seeing squareness so true, it could not be improved on.

Right now, it is strung, and I'm slowly getting the cobwebs out of it.

At one point yesterday, it somehow completely blew away the D35 for tone, but then of course I had to stop playing because someone was trying to have a conversation.

It sounds a little like a classical, just a flavor of it. Where the D35 lack a little bass and really rings out the D/G chords, this one has bass and lacks that same ring.

It sounds so different it's throwing me off my game a little.

It's got massive relief right now, I found that out yesterday, too much for me. I will slacken the strings today and access the truss rod. I usually start out with very little, depending on how loose 1/8" of a turn, as needed. You can always loosen it under string tension if it's a little too tight after several days.

The nut slot height is high also, so very common. I'm probably not going to do anything about that until the relief is right, I want to see what it plays like then.

It can only improve from here ;)
 
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adorshki

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I just find it a little weird that, if this were due to humidity issues, that it only cracked on one side of the sound hole. It may be just cracked one side, but it may be that the popsicle stick brace glue has only been compromised in that area of the glue joint, and not on the other side.
Purely academic at this point but I recalled reading that the "popsicle" stick was originally a Martin technique intended to counter "dive" of the board extension, not displacement the block.
But that was just an assertion I never saw contradicted and trusted the source (possibly it was in one of Gardman's reviews of the bracing changes in early '80's Guilds? And sorry but not enough time to read all 4 of the threads in this search return, at the moment):
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/search.php?searchid=1748591
And it could be that both functions were intended, one doesn't rule out the other.
When it was discovered the popsicle stick didn't really do what it was intended to do all that well, they (Guild) went to the extra piece glued right into the heelblock and the wing braces.
I'm a little screwed up trying to orient myself to Guildedagain's pics but it looks in fact like this D25 may have the heelblock extension/wing braces construction and probably should, as a '73.
All I wanted to point out is that you need to be careful when simply assuming that your issue is humidity related. Humidity does create all sorts of cracking, over all the different areas of the guitar, without any doubt. However, the neck block is a pretty substantial chunk of mahogany, and mahogany is pretty stable, and the sheer volume of the neck block itself will tend to keep expansion/contraction to a minimum amount. No, not impossible.
A very good point about 'hog which I forgot and overlooked, and made me realize maybe it's not so much the expansion of the heelblock as the expansion contraction of the top itself which could also explain the "one-sided" nature of so many of 'em.
The grain gets mirrored in the bookmatching process so it may actually be more resistant to the cracking on one side than the other since the sides of the top are glued to the neck block which is "gripping" the top halves, preventing 'em from moving in the glued area. The expansion/contraction occurring along the edge of the heelblock is the where the cracks get started.
That's my hypothesis and I'm stickin' to it.
:smile:
 
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Guildedagain

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Might be a story worth stickin to ;)

I did readjust the truss rod, which was virtually stuck from age, a little naptha and turbine oil, got it loose and wiped off any excess oil (Scott Shop Towels are your friend ;). It was a 1/2 turn CW from slack/starting to drag. I went back to the 1/2, + 1/8 slowly, let it sit there without any string tension all day, then retuned in the evening. By golly if it isn't just perfect. Shamefully, I never use feeler gauges to be scientific about this. I just know when there's too much or not enough, and I always eyeball, actual real life measurement should be about .008/.010", not much...

It responded amazingly, flattened the neck out, even in the cowboy chord area, I can feel the difference, ease of playing and intonation are both better now, plays like my D35.

But is sure doesn't sound like a D35.

It's sweeter, maybe a little quieter, but if you dig in to the trebles possibly even louder than the D35 at the same attack level. And man, the bass thump on the low E when fingerpicking is actually impressive enough for me to notice in a most happy way.

Tried to record some, but it was really inspirational... translation some pretty wild playing, too hard. Can you play too hard? And too fast?

I don't remember my '72 D28 ever sending me into headbanging lalalland like these Guilds do, it sounded great but I don't remember ever having a moment like that with it.

Maybe it's me and I'm just more receptive now. I'm not even thinking about playing electric anymore.

If I'd just worked on technique all these years instead of chasing electric tone with pickups, pedals and amps... And in that time I was changing anyway, going from the sound of an SG through a 50 Watt Plexi with a ProCo RAT that had just come out, to eventually in the last year realizing that a Telecaster is like no other, the fundamental tone is so much stronger, even makes a Strat which was my gateway drug to the Telecaster sound wimpy by comparison...

Now I realize the tone I was chasing was the purity of an acoustic, real soundwaves penetrating a room, not the approximation that comes back out of a speaker, tainted by all of those variables like speaker cone material, ground loops, line loss...

large.jpg
 
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beecee

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wowzeee!

Great story...great guitar.

So glad it worked out
 

adorshki

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Can you play too hard? And too fast?
Ahahhahahhaha!!!!!
No.
(Well, maybe with scales, if you wind up muting off notes)
If you get it just right with chords you'll hear a drone resonance as a function of the rhythm of the attack on the strings, swirling around inside the body.
I used to think it was specific to archbacks but my D40 can do it too.
You can pace your tempo to elicit the effect.
But archbacks do it better.
:devilish:
 
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Grassdog

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Ohh man that thing is sweet . . . your efforts and patience have been rewarded . . . something tells me this won't be your last Guild.
 

Guildedagain

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The whole time I've been buying these dreads (last three guitars) I really wanted an F20, Hoboken shortscale preferably, but I'm doomed to take dreads home. My how they have multiplied... but I still have 2 F guitars.

Luckily the right Guilds don't come along that often ;)
 

D30Man

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Yeah that thing is gorgeous.. Glad you put in a little elbow grease and brought her up to code!!!
 

HeyMikey

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Awesome thread, what a fun read. That guitar really looks amazing now and the fretboard is over the top. All set for another 40+ years of making music.
 
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