West, Hans, with Guild it's a small world...

Cypress Knee

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2005
Messages
470
Reaction score
38
Location
Vista, CA
Hi West, you know that Greco I picked up some time ago? Well, it had really high action. I had brought it with me to a little jam session a few weeks ago and the host told me his brother could fix it up for me. I was a bit skeptical, but he volunteered that his brother built guitars and he couldn't afford one. He and his wife, practicing physicians, living in an old country manor and playing Martins and Taylors couldn't afford a guitar from his brother?

So I left the guitar up there and googled his name - Gary Flowers. Look what I found:

[img:403:590]http://www.flowersguitars.com/garyandbob.JPG[/img]
Bob Benedetto with Gary Flowers

and this:

[img:584:390]http://www.flowersguitars.com/johnnysmith.jpg[/img]
Johnny Smith playing a custom Flowers archtop









Is this Guild heritage or what?

He was puzzled by the fact that the action was so high right off the bat, but we came to the conclusion that if the other guy was in Carlo's shop all the time that Carlo might have just handed him the raw unfinished product to test the sound, and maybe the guy strummed a chord or two and said, "Great, I'll take it now." without having the final setup completed.

Anyway, the guitar is fantastic. Gary said not to worry about the all crackle, its there, and there would be no change in the voice of the instrument if he refinished it.

CK

PS- Oh, he also told me that "Sunburst" colorations were originally designed to hide minor defects in the guitar. Luthiers would find areas, usually around edges, that had minor grain flaws or just didn't fit together 100%, then would decide to color that area black in the finishing process to hide the flaw while working towards a traditional lighter color in the center. He showed me a guitar that he intends to finish with a sunburst, but on a quick inspection he couldn't remember where the flaws he once saw were and I couldn't see them at all.

Then the color process caught on.

Just an interesting aside.
 

West R Lee

Venerated Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
17,740
Reaction score
2,662
Location
East Texas
CK,

Some pretty upstanding company your keeping there. Maybe you can get a Cypress Knee Signature Model built :wink: .

That's some cool stuff CK, thanks for the post.

West
 

Jeff

Enlightened Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
5,990
Reaction score
4
Location
seattle
Sunburst" colorations were originally designed to hide minor defects in the guitar.

Thanks for posting this tidbit. Perhaps the same logic is used to choose which guitars are finished with opaque solid colors.
 

hideglue

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2005
Messages
1,019
Reaction score
38
Location
Connecticut
Cypress Knee said:
PS- Oh, he also told me that "Sunburst" colorations were originally designed to hide minor defects in the guitar.

And just as a side. There is a mid-nineties Artist Award, from the factory, with the back of its headstock painted black (for reasons mentioned above). Not so unusual in guitar history but highly so from Guild at that time.
 

teleharmonium

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
448
Reaction score
147
Location
midwest
Jeff said:
Sunburst" colorations were originally designed to hide minor defects in the guitar.

Thanks for posting this tidbit. Perhaps the same logic is used to choose which guitars are finished with opaque solid colors.

Yep. John Hall of Rickenbacker has explicitly stated this in the past.
 
Top