Had this a few years, got it with a 70s Gibson pickup in which luckily sold for the price of a replacement hb1. Pretty sure the neck is refinished. Frets are very low but nicely dressed and playable. Had to remove the threaded washers on the bridge to get the action low enough. So nothing ideal but sounding and playing pretty good. Don't have the pick guard either...
64 starfire ii
- Thread starter Mikep
- Start date
Shakeylee
Member
congratulations!!
GGJaguar
Reverential Member
If you need incentive, just think about all the dust mites on that headstock.
Very cool guitar!
walrus
walrus
jp
Senior Member
Very nice Starfire! I used to have a '65 SFIII that was so fun to play.
Thanks for sharing pics, and welcome to LTG!
Thanks for sharing pics, and welcome to LTG!
matsickma
Senior Member
That is a early Hagstrom bridge so you need to keep an eye out for those parts on eBay. You may need to buy the entire bridge but you may get lucky and get a single part.
M
M
BradHK
Senior Member
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The saddles and other misc components can be purchased from hagstromparts@hagstromparts.se. I have purchased a handful of bridge and tremar parts from them and the price is fair and the shipping has been very fast from Sweden to the US.
jp
Senior Member
Not really sure what you mean by "not good"? Are they not functioning properly, or do you just not like how they function?
If it's the first case, you may want to try a simple cleaning first with some DeOxit or other electronics cleaner to see if they improve.
If you want to change how they function, I think that may be hard to answer because it's a somewhat subjective matter. I would guess that you probably want to mod the controls specific to your liking. There are a lot of informative sites and vids explaining how potentiometer tapers and resistance values affect your sound. You may want to start there.
As far as quality replacements are concerned, CTS, Alpha, and Bourns are all solid choices.
Thanks sorry for being vague. I can't get low clear volume at all, v muddy when turned down. I leave tone on full and mostly play with both pickups roughly equal volume, turn the bridge down a bit at full tilt and up a bit when the volume is down to compensate for the mud! I was hoping for a response like
Yeah they don't work well but with a treble bleed cap they work much better.
Or
The pots on 60s starfires never sound good. Replace with your preferred wiring scheme
Etc.
I want to be able to run my valve amp close to full volume and do everything from the guitar. I replaced all the electrics on my cheap strat years ago and they function great.
Yeah they don't work well but with a treble bleed cap they work much better.
Or
The pots on 60s starfires never sound good. Replace with your preferred wiring scheme
Etc.
I want to be able to run my valve amp close to full volume and do everything from the guitar. I replaced all the electrics on my cheap strat years ago and they function great.
jp
Senior Member
Hmmm. . . if this is going to be a true player for you, you might want to just pull the entire harness and build a new one using new quality parts and specific to your liking. It's always dicey when you have electronics that are close to 60 years old, and you have no idea what they've endured. I did this with my '59 T-100D. If I need to restore it to original, I can always do that, but I'm more concerned with it being a solid player vs original vintage.
Guild commonly used a 200k tone pot on the neck PU with a 0.047uF cap to tame the high-end bite of the mini-humbuckers. The rest of the pots are usually 500k, with a 0.022uF cap on the bridge PU. For the schematic of an original mid-60s SF with minis, check GAD's site here:
https://www.gad.net/Blog/2019/03/13/1966-guild-starfire-iii/
The 200k tone pot is commonly swapped out for a 500k, and the 0.047uF cap lowered to a .022uF, or sometimes even a 0.1uF or 0.15uF cap. Guild did this with the updated Newark Street Guild Starfire IIIs from the mid-2010s, and Fender did this with the late 90s-early 2000s reissue Starfires. (Schematics also posted on GADs site.)
If you also do a search on this site, you'll find others who have encountered this issue with multiple suggestions and solutions.
Hope this helps!
Guild commonly used a 200k tone pot on the neck PU with a 0.047uF cap to tame the high-end bite of the mini-humbuckers. The rest of the pots are usually 500k, with a 0.022uF cap on the bridge PU. For the schematic of an original mid-60s SF with minis, check GAD's site here:
https://www.gad.net/Blog/2019/03/13/1966-guild-starfire-iii/
The 200k tone pot is commonly swapped out for a 500k, and the 0.047uF cap lowered to a .022uF, or sometimes even a 0.1uF or 0.15uF cap. Guild did this with the updated Newark Street Guild Starfire IIIs from the mid-2010s, and Fender did this with the late 90s-early 2000s reissue Starfires. (Schematics also posted on GADs site.)
If you also do a search on this site, you'll find others who have encountered this issue with multiple suggestions and solutions.
Hope this helps!