I recently was gifted a '64 guild M-30 that spent the last 50+ years sleeping in a closet.
It looks and sounds great and is undamaged, but needs some restoration due to it's age. Not surprisingly, the plastic on the headstock and pick guard has shrunk - separating from the head stock and squeezing a slight depression under the sound hole. The bridge is lifting from the back enough that the edge of a business card will slip under it. Also the action is so high at the upper frets that I believe it will need a neck reset.
I've been calling around to every repair shop that works on acoustic guitars in house within a 2 hour drive from Philadelphia and I get "I can't take your call now, please leave a message" or "I don't like working on Guilds, but call back next week if you can't find anybody else". How about "I got a conference call in few minutes, I'll call you back" (really? I thought Luthiers went into business for themselves so they didn't have to do Zoom meetings and conference calls.)
I did get an enlightening conversation from the "best" repair shop just outside of Nazareth, PA owned by former Martin Guitar techs "I stopped working on Guilds. I got a years worth of backlog repairs, and I can repair two or three Martins in the time it would take to do one Guild-I'd have to charge you a thousand bucks".
Jeesh...I'm ready to give up and do it myself. I work my own guitars and have a pretty good idea of how an acoustic guitar is put together having built one myself, but was hoping to turn this project over to a more experienced person.
Still looking for recommendations for a person within a couple hours drive who knows and likes older Guilds.
I don't really need another project, but on the other hand... I would get to buy some more tools....hmmm
It looks and sounds great and is undamaged, but needs some restoration due to it's age. Not surprisingly, the plastic on the headstock and pick guard has shrunk - separating from the head stock and squeezing a slight depression under the sound hole. The bridge is lifting from the back enough that the edge of a business card will slip under it. Also the action is so high at the upper frets that I believe it will need a neck reset.
I've been calling around to every repair shop that works on acoustic guitars in house within a 2 hour drive from Philadelphia and I get "I can't take your call now, please leave a message" or "I don't like working on Guilds, but call back next week if you can't find anybody else". How about "I got a conference call in few minutes, I'll call you back" (really? I thought Luthiers went into business for themselves so they didn't have to do Zoom meetings and conference calls.)
I did get an enlightening conversation from the "best" repair shop just outside of Nazareth, PA owned by former Martin Guitar techs "I stopped working on Guilds. I got a years worth of backlog repairs, and I can repair two or three Martins in the time it would take to do one Guild-I'd have to charge you a thousand bucks".
Jeesh...I'm ready to give up and do it myself. I work my own guitars and have a pretty good idea of how an acoustic guitar is put together having built one myself, but was hoping to turn this project over to a more experienced person.
Still looking for recommendations for a person within a couple hours drive who knows and likes older Guilds.
I don't really need another project, but on the other hand... I would get to buy some more tools....hmmm