NGD - Thunderbird/Polara?

BradHK

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Sometimes I question my sanity. I can’t seem to control myself when I find a vintage Guild in need of rescuing in which somebody has either neglected, made modifications or installed non-guild components. I also have a soft spot for rare Guilds such as my 1954 Aristocrat, Emerald Star, etc. that I have rescued. I just purchased the guitar in this discussion from a few years ago to rescue:


To summarize for those who do not want to go through the details of that prior post, it is a 1965 Guild that is a mix of a Thunderbird body with a Polara neck. The neck has dot inlays, no binding, and a chesterfield rather than a Bird inlay. However, it has the early pointy headstock shape of the Thunderbirds and Polaras. I received the guitar yesterday and have the advantage of comparing it directly side by side to my 1963 Thunderbird and 1964 Polara. There is no evidence that the neck was replaced and all body routing under the pickguard looks original and matches my Thunderbird. The pickguard looks like an original Thunderbird part with the correct material and recessed step for the selector switch plates. The neck is that nice chunky early Thunderbird and Polara neck and has a 1 11/16” nut. I love these necks. It also has a great neck angle and plenty of room to lower the bridge. I have no idea how this guitar actually left the Guild factory in 1965 but it is kinda cool and interesting.

The bad news is that it has been refinished (pretty good nitro job but needs a cut and polish), the pickguard has been hacked to add (on top!) a pickguard ”ring“ for aftermarket pickups and the same happened at the rhythm selector switch. Needless to say, unfortunately this pickguard is not useable. Tuners have also been swapped but with no new holes so I can easily put back in original tuners. There was also a TOM bridge installed but they just put it on top of the original Hagstrom post so that’s an easy fix. The metal stand has also been lost unfortunately. Other than the pickguard and metal kickstand I have all parts in my “spare parts” box to include anti-hum pickups and the hinge for the stand.

I plan to rescue with vintage anti-hum pickups, new pickguard, Guild knobs, etc as this is too unique to leave it the way it was. I will post finished pics but here is a before picture (the bridge has already been swapped out with a correct Hagstrom in this photo):

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GGJaguar

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Looking forward to reading about and seeing the transformation!
 

BradHK

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I started bringing this guitar back to life by completely stripping everything down. The Hagstrom tremar was glued to the body? Who would do that? I was able to get it off without damaging anything. The glue just pulled up the lacquer in a couple spots under the tremar but this will not show when it is mounted.

I tried to take the easy way out and buy a pickguard for a new T-bird to see if it would fit. I ordered one without any mounting screw holes and such as I figured those would not match. They are a different shape than the vintage guards! The bottom curve is slightly different and the bottom horn by the three selector plate is not as pronounced on the new one and the screw hole at that point would be visible. Oh well, it was worth a try. I created a template from the original and I will send off to get copied.

The guitar has been refinished in nitro at some point in its life. Not a bad job but not great. They did not appear to use grain filler so there are low spots where the finish sunk into the grain. That would drive me crazy and it just looks like you took a nice vintage automobile and painted it with a brush! I debated if I wanted to strip it and refinish myself but decided to first see if I could rescue this finish. This is a close up photo of the finish with the grain visible:

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Well this morning was a day of elbow grease. I wet sanded (using naphtha rather than water) starting with 800 grit and finished with 3000. Then hand rubbed with rubbing compound and polish. Long morning! I am really happy with the result. It still has the little marks of many years of use, is nice and smooth and feels more like a vintage finish that has been taken care of. No need to refinish!

photos after the wet sand and polish. The original guard is also visible showing the hack job done to fit the other pickups on top of the original guard. I am willing to bet it was the same person who glued down the tremar! The body has a really nice one piece of mahogany.

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Close up:

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Boneman

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I love that translucent red finish! What a stunning look. (y)
 

SFIV1967

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There were a few more made of the kind you have, they had single coils. The pickup Guild made with the Todd wound coils. Hans book page 32 the middle picture. As you notice, it is yet different from your one as it has no big 3 switch plate and a normal Guild toggle switch knob.
Below is one which was available in Germany at Guitarpoint in 2017, I had some communication with the owner and Hans. Hans actually knows at least two more of them, one in cherry and one in sunburst. They are like the below one without the big 3 switch plate.
Hans told me that he would like to keep the info what those are for a future update of Part 1 of The Guild Guitar Book. (which I hope comes out soomer rather than later...)

The below is the one from Germany with S/N 29669. The current owner is not known to me.

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Ralf
 
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BradHK

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There were a few more made of the kind you have, they had single coils. The pickup Guild made with the Todd wound coils. Hans book page 32 the middle picture. As you notice, it is yet different from your one as it has no big 3 switch plate and a normal Guild toggle switch knob.
Thanks for those photos. I have seen that guitar on YouTube from when that shop had it for sale but had not seen those photos. Mine has the factory body routes for the full Thunderbird control switches and has an original Thunderbird pickguard. However, there was another pickguard installed at some point in time as the holes near the output jack have shadow holes as if the other pickguard installed was slightly longer. It could have come from the factory with the Polara style controls and single coils and then swapped over. Only Hans (and the original owner) would know.

Since I have a Polara and a Thunderbird, I was going to rebuild this half way in between. It will be inspired by the guitar you posted above as it will have that control layout like a Polara but will have anti-hum pickups like the early Thunderbirds rather than the single coils. Since all of that is just pickguard mounted it will be fully reversible if I ever want to fix the original pickguard and reinstall. Here is the template I will use to make a pickguard with that layout.

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SFIV1967

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...but had not seen those photos.
Here are 20 large pictures (once you klick on them they open in a big window):

Seems to have a replacement truss rod cover.

Just for others, that is the mentioned video:




Ralf
 

GGJaguar

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The Hagstrom tremar was glued to the body?
Whoa, that's crazy! I'd go ballistic if I found the tailpiece plate of a Jaguar or Jazzmaster glued to the top. That's just nuts!
 
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The Guilds of Grot

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Whoa, that's crazy! I'd go ballistic if I found the tailpiece plate of a Jaguar or Jazzmaster glued to the top. That's just nuts!
I would have to wonder if it was really glued or stuck to a re-finished top before it was completely hard/dry?

I had a cheap mandolin that the bridge was located incorrectly and would not intonate. When I tried to move the bridge I found it was glued! Seeing as I had nothing to loose. I really leaned on the bridge and it popped loose. Surprise, it wasn't "glued", it was stuck to the finish!
 

BradHK

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I would have to wonder if it was really glued or stuck to a re-finished top before it was completely hard/dry?

I had a cheap mandolin that the bridge was located incorrectly and would not intonate. When I tried to move the bridge I found it was glued! Seeing as I had nothing to loose. I really leaned on the bridge and it popped loose. Surprise, it wasn't "glued", it was stuck to the finish!
I also thought it had just stuck to the finish until I got it off. It had two gobs of clear glue under it. It even filled in the screw holes in the tremar in those spots around the screws. Some of the glue stuck to the tremar plate, and pulled off the nitro finish in those areas, and the other parts that stuck to the guitar sat much taller than the finish not allowing the plate to sit flush. I sanded those areas flush to the finish when I did the wet sand and polish so the tremar plate now sits flat and solid.

I have run into some bad ”repairs” on other vintage guitars but this one made me scratch my head. The screw holes were not even stripped so what was the point? When I work on my older cars and find similar issues they are called SPOTs (Stupid Previous Owner Tricks).
 

BradHK

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Just passing along some knowledge I discovered while working on this guitar. The Hagstrom Tremar was missing the screw that holds the arm in place. This is the screw that is knurled on the edge to use your finger and has a flat head slot across the top. I see these missing a lot on both guitars without the arm and on used Tremars without the arm. Mine had the arm but somebody lost the screw and used a random machine screw to hold the arm in place. Unfortunately, the screw they used was not the same thread as the original and they messed up the threads in the tremar. I tried to use a screw from another tremar I have and it would not thread in. I measured one of my Hagstrom screws and also verified the thread size with Hagstromparts. The thread size for this screw is M5 0.5mm. I chased the threads with a tap and now it works perfect. I was also able to order a NOS screw from Hagstromparts@hagstromparts.se. I have used them successfully a few times for small hard to find Hagstrom parts. If you don’t want to spend the money on a NOS part you can just use a M5 0.5mm machine screw to hold the arm.

Hope this helps somebody that is missing this screw and does not have another Hagstrom screw laying around to measure
 

BradHK

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While I am waiting on the pickguard I figured I would tackle another issue. The metal “kickstand“ on the back was missing. I had a NOS hinge but no luck finding the metal kickstand. While I keep my eyes open for an original kickstand I decided to make one I used the one on my other Thunderbird to as a template. I never use the kickstand on these but it just looks wrong with an empty hole in the back. Much better now:

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GGJaguar

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The kickstand looks great! No one would know. :)
 

BradHK

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The kickstand looks great! No one would know. :)
Thanks! It definitely helps to have an original one in your hand to replicate! Without an original I definitely would have missed (or messed up) the half moon shaped cutout on the underside to help get your finger under it to lift it off the body. The only thing it’s missing is the PAT PEND. I thought about adding that then decided that would feel like I was trying to “fake” a real kickstand rather than make a reproduction.

Another thing I learned while doing this is that the Thunderbird kickstand is so much longer than the ones on the Polara. It’s obvious now that I think about it as the Thunderbird body is longer but I always assumed they just used the same kickstand!
 
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