Orpheum Production in New Hartford

There were resonators in various stages of construction on the assembly line tour of LMG 4. Having pulled apart a Dobro brand resonator a month or two prior to the tour, I was knocked out at just how much more sophisticated the Guild construction was. Better everything -- quality parts, flawless construction, better fit and finish.

If there's any justice in the world -- and there ain't -- the reputation of Guild's brief foray into resonator guitars will have greater and greater cachet in the years to come.

Here is another conformation of the Hide Glue construction form Ren Ferguson himself, So much for the "Misinformation Campaign". While I haven't found the video yet where Ren was actually selecting individual pieces from there wood stock for the Red Spruce tops I will keep searching. I remember it well as there was an Older woman who was in charge of the top wood area and Ren was actually working with her as they both listened to the top wood pieces before selecting them for construction.

wileypickett said:

There were resonators in various stages of construction on the assembly line tour of LMG 4. Having pulled apart a Dobro brand resonator a month or two prior to the tour, I was knocked out at just how much more sophisticated the Guild construction was. Better everything -- quality parts, flawless construction, better fit and finish.

If there's any justice in the world -- and there ain't -- the reputation of Guild's brief foray into resonator guitars will have greater and greater cachet in the years to come.

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I sure hope so Glenn!

Cousin Woody Pines (who owns a National) played mine and proclaimed it the best (and prettiest) resonator guitar he's ever played. Also, Jason McIntyre (whose name is on virtually all the Orpheums) told default and I in a Facebook conversation that he enjoyed building the resonators more than any of the other guitars he made at New Hartford. that's not faint praise coming from either of them!

I also think that while there might not have bee a pure "Custom Shop" in New Hartford, there was something special about the guitars that bear their name. Why else would Jason's signature be under the tops of all those Orpheums? And with the extremely fast setting time of hot hide glue, they couldn't logistically have been mad alongside guitars using synthetic glue.

I also recall seeing that clip, Tx. Ren and the woman in the wood room at New Hartford, tapping slabs of spruce top wood, listening for how they rang.

I don't know to what extent that might have influenced which guitar model got which top material, not does it suggest that braces were shaved to suit the stiffness of each individual top, as is certainly the case with some custom builders (Bourgeois, for one).

Huss and Dalton take another approach altogether:

The tops are all thicknessed individually using a deflection system to measure the stiffness of each individual top. Every one is placed on a jig and suspended at four points. A weight is then placed on the top, near the center, and a dial indicator is used to measure the deflection. The top is then incrementally thinned on a thickness sander, and continually rechecked on the deflection jig, until it deflects within an optimum range. Huss & Dalton claim they can achieve more consistent results with this system than by tap tuning or simple flexing of the wood.

fronobulax said:

OK. Source for tite bond elsewhere?

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I have a distinct memory of someone (Chaz, I think, in one of the LMG feedback threads) mentioning the use of Titebond specifically with regard to neck setting: that it set up more quickly, improving production time but requiring the neckset guy to be a little quicker with the task.
It stuck in my memory because I was mildly disappointed, being a "hideglue purist":
It is a little harder to work with but because it crystallizes when dry it forms the strongest glue bond available, last I heard. Exhibits best "creep resistance" which is critical in guitar construction.
And makes vintage Guild necks that much much harder to reset. :biggrin-new:
I don't recall seeing that Titebond was in use throughout the entire construction of the guitars, I got the impression it was limited to the necks for the production time/ease of reset issue, but that may have been simply because that's what the post was focused on.
The old "imprecision of English" thing.

davismanLV said:

While this is true I think frono was trying to head off some "glamorization creep" regarding the building of the Orpheum line. References to a type of build that was more custom than what really happened. That's what I think he's saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I'm getting from this. Not that they aren't good guitars or worth the money. It's more technical correctness vs. glamorized mis-remembrance.

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That's how I get it too. A similar thing used to occur in speculation about how the Westerly DV's and D55's and D100's, et al, were built, but I don't remember ever seeing any concrete confirmation of a lot of it from Guild, about Westerly's methods on those models.
Example: '97 catalog says DV's were the product "research into how to tune the bodies and tops.." but didn't actually say tops were sanded a la "tap tuning" or simply to get a thinner more resonant top, but they did say it about the sides (!)
Still, with construction and materials standards already being so high for Guild in general and reportedly at a zenith in NH, any additional attention paid during construction as Frono mentioned, to "special" or "halo" models like Orpheums and GSR's, has to take them to a very high level indeed, and owner feedback does seem to confirm it.
"Glamorization creep".
I like it.
Hendrix was a victim of that for a while too, but he's actually more fascinating as a plain old everyday artistic and performing genius. But human.

Neal said:

I also recall seeing that clip, Tx. Ren and the woman in the wood room at New Hartford, tapping slabs of spruce top wood, listening for how they rang.

I don't know to what extent that might have influenced which guitar model got which top material, not does it suggest that braces were shaved to suit the stiffness of each individual top, as is certainly the case with some custom builders (Bourgeois, for one).

Huss and Dalton take another approach altogether:

The tops are all thicknessed individually using a deflection system to measure the stiffness of each individual top. Every one is placed on a jig and suspended at four points. A weight is then placed on the top, near the center, and a dial indicator is used to measure the deflection. The top is then incrementally thinned on a thickness sander, and continually rechecked on the deflection jig, until it deflects within an optimum range. Huss & Dalton claim they can achieve more consistent results with this system than by tap tuning or simple flexing of the wood.

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There was also a video where Ren Talked about taking some of the Adirondack Spruce for the bracing in the Orpheums home to Montana with him and Hand cutting them on his home Saw that did not have a guard so he could get them the way he wanted them. There was something about the safety features on the New Hartford equipment that would not allow him to accomplish what he wanted to. I remember it because he said he and his son I believe spent all weekend cutting Braces so he could bring them back with him to New Hartford the following week. The other reason I remember it was because some one on the forum commented that this was total BS and how internet rumors got started. LOL I watched a lot of videos and did a lot of research on the Orpheum line before I purchased my First one including playing a 14 fret Hog that I wasn't too fond of. Glad I did as it led me to the 3 I have now, My Traditional series guitars stay in the case nowadays. The only guitars I keep out on a stand to play regularly anymore are my Orpheums, Resonator, and the F47 BRZ I was lucky enough to find before Christmas, Everything else is in the cases.:smile:

txbumper57 said:

There was something about the safety features on the New Hartford equipment that would not allow him to accomplish what he wanted to.

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OSHA regs no doubt.
My company has limitations on how small we can cut custom paper sizes on a 4 foot long hydraulic guillotine for that reason: Mandatory installation and location of safety guard per OSHA.
Our veteran guillotine operator 3 Finger Mike jumped for joy when that came in.

txbumper57 said:

I remember it because he said he and his son I believe spent all weekend cutting Braces so he could bring them back with him to New Hartford the following week. The other reason I remember it was because some one on the forum commented that this was total BS and how internet rumors got started.

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I'd say that qualifies as the kind of "special attention" we're trying to confirm and verify.

At 23:06 in the factory tour video, Jason is using Tite Bond to glue up the guitar (or, is it not an Orpheum?)

Yup, it was Tite Bond (as I recall) that I remember discussing with the crew there during our visits. IIRC, it was used for the necks, and probably for the binding application (butu I'm not as sure about that). And, yes, I'm 99-44/100% sure that they used hot hide glue for Orpheum builds, which (as far as I know) was unique. I.e., I don't think hide glue was used in the construction of other Guild models.

As for the "Custom shop..." It really was more of a concept than a reality. There were clearly some people who spent more of their time with the Orpheums than others. But, it really does refer more to the product design than the execution. Some day we'll have to hit up Ren to ask him his perspective on that. It certainly was *not* like the R. Taylor shop where 5 or 6 luthiers inside Taylor were building R. Taylors full-time in a separate space. But, even in that case, I think they used some standard side-benders. Maybe...?

All of this is really noise. What'll be really interesting is whether Guild can ever get to a Build-to-order program (like Taylor). Orpheums were definitely not that. That will be really something.

Jackpot! I found it. It is "Guilds Introduction to the Custom Shop" video narrated by Ren and others. The video is almost ten minutes long and discusses what they are trying to accomplish with the Custom Shop. Throughout the video are a lot of things that have been discussed in this thread. For reference, Ren discusses "Tap Tuning" the woods at around 3:30 mark. Also at the 6:40 mark you can see them applying Hide glue with a brush to the neck of an Orpheum. They also discuss wood selections as well as hand bending some of the Custom shop Archtops. There is a very nice section regarding the Orpheums as well. I knew I wasn't going crazy! Here it is and Have a Nice Day!:smile:

But in that factory tour video on page 1 of this thread, were they not talking about Orpheums? When Jason signed tops, was that just for Orpheums? So, it looks like Tite Bond was used. May be that hide glue was used in a few but not ALL areas. I guess they were not using hide glue that day the video was shot?? Solved that issue.

Max5 said:

But in that factory tour video on page 1 of this thread, were they not talking about Orpheums? When Jason signed tops, was that just for Orpheums? So, it looks like Tite Bond was used. May be that hide glue was used in a few but not ALL areas. I guess they were not using hide glue that day the video was shot?? Solved that issue.

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Are we sure that was an Orpheum and not a Standard series guitar? Anywho, in the video I just posted you can see them using Hide Glue on an Orpheum neck at around 6:40 mark. Guess it is still up for debate.

That was a great vid, Tx. I don't think I ever saw that! So, there you go.... tap-tuning!!!

From looking at the video, the guitar Jason signed just before this was an Orph (or did he sign all of them?), the guitar just after the Tite Bond shot is an Orph. And the video started out talking about the Orphs, with a few of them sitting around the G Manager.

chazmo said:

That was a great vid, Tx. I don't think I ever saw that! So, there you go.... tap-tuning!!!

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Thanks Chaz, I knew I wasn't loosing it! I'll let my minion do the talking! LOL.

Max5 said:

From looking at the video, the guitar Jason signed just before this was an Orph (or did he sign all of them?), the guitar just after the Tite Bond shot is an Orph. And the video started out talking about the Orphs, with a few of them sitting around the G Manager.

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Maybe it's just me, but the guitar getting the TiteBond treatment appears to be a square-shouldered dread, and the Orpheum dreads are slope-shouldered.

Also, I believe Orpheum's use synthetic cloth side strapping internally rather than wood.

Neal said:

Maybe it's just me, but the guitar getting the TiteBond treatment appears to be a square-shouldered dread, and the Orpheum dreads are slope-shouldered.

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I knew we weren't crazy Neal, Did you see the video in post #30? That is the one where they are tapping the wood!

Aristera said:

Also, I believe Orpheum's use synthetic cloth side strapping internally rather than wood.

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I just looked inside of all three of my Orpheums and they all have the cloth side strapping with no wood. 2 are from early to mid 2013 and one is from March 2014. Nice catch Aristera!

Having been to all four visits...and being fair, each group did not see all the same things...never saw hide glue cooking in a pot. I did see a lot of Titebond II being used; some may remember Sirkku doing top body binding on an F47 cutaway? Could it be that Ren took stock home to get the prototype bracing the way he wanted, to return to program that into the CNC machines?

I have in fact seen the jig at H & D being used while they measure a prospective top; and they too do their bracing and all the other fiddly bits on CNC...horrors!:shocked: