Repair Question

[richopp]

I was thinking of selling my 12-string Guild and took it to our local "guitar doctor" to make sure it was perfect for the next owner.

Evidently, due to the humidity down here (South Florida), the glue holding the bridge has deteriorated and the bridge is lifting a bit at the back end.

He wants to remove it and re-glue it, which I guess I am fine with, but wanted to know if it will change the value of the instrument and if I should let the next (possible) owner manage that themselves (subtracting the cost from the selling price, of course)?

Next, the "doctor" made a huge deal of the label. It shows that the guitar (F-412 blonde maple) was made in Westerly, RI. His point was that this was an "original" Guild guitar and should command a bit higher price than a newer model. I am confused, as there are still plenty of new Guild guitars being sold from what I saw on their website.

Finally, I also noticed on the Guild website that this same guitar is now labeled an F-512 blonde, but it now has a mahogany neck rather than the maple neck on mine. Is there a reason for this change, or just a change in the way they decided to make these today?

Sorry for being so uninformed about all this. I am not a musician and just play for fun (by myself, mostly!) and have been doing so since 1964 without much improvement...but I enjoy it nonetheless!

Thanks for any insight and advice you all can provide!

Cheers,

Richard

 

[chazmo]

Welcome aboard, Richard. Good luck with your forthcoming sale.

It's an F-412 (blonde). Don't worry about the current name.

Well, the price is a matter of opinion. You won't get too far arguing that one location is better than another here because we have fans of each. Especially with this model because the F-412/F-512 (king of the 12s) are great everywhere. Westerly is, of course, the most well know.

 

[GardMan]

How much is the bridge lifting? At the Westerly factory, Guild glued bridges on AFTER the finish was applied, with the finish extending under the bridge. This resulted in an area where the bridge was poorly adhered to the top. It is not uncommon to be able to slip a sheet of paper or business card 1/8" or more under the back edges or wings of the bridge. If that is the limit of "lifting," it is more a "watch and wait" situation... with no immediate repair needed. If it goes much beyond that, the bridge may need to be removed and reglued. Don't know how prices for such a repair have changed, but 10 years ago it was <$100 to have my tech remove and reglue a bridge.

 

[Neal]

$100 for bridge removal and re-glue sounds about right to me. If indeed the bridge is lifting, I think it would be better to invest the money in getting it squared away than to invite any doubt into the sales process. Prospective buyers will pick you to pieces over something that is easily repaired.

A cleanly re-glued bridge should have negligible impact on resale value. Can you show us a photo of the bridge from the back side where it is lifting?

 

[richopp]

First, thank-you @chazmo, for the kind welcome and the clarification on the tag and location of manufacture. I have heard so many "stories" about companies that have changed hands over the years that I wanted to know what was what with Guild.

@GardMan, thank-you for the clarification on the lifting. After reading my post, I realized that one of the main questions I had and forgot to post was, will "fixing" the bridge change the SOUND of the instrument? From what you have posted, I see that I need to do a better inspection on the amount of "lifting" that I see there. My concern is that this will go to an actual musician who will want it to "sound"like it is supposed to, so I wanted to make sure the buyer gets what he or she is expecting regarding sound. As I have not played it that much in the last few years, it definitely needs to be taken out and PLAYED like it should be.

I will check the amount of lifting and see what I have. Kind of surprising that they glued the bridge over the finish for an instrument that has so much tension on the bridge all the time, but what do I know? I can barely play, so I leave those decisions to the factory. Having typed that, one of my other hobbies is playing with old cars, and you can scratch your head for hours wondering why some decisions were made on some of them, but then again, as we remind ourselves often, they were not building "classic cars," just trying to get the day's required builds out the door on schedule. Still...

Thank-you again to both posters!

Cheers,

Richard

 

[GardMan]

Kind of surprising that they glued the bridge over the finish for an instrument that has so much tension on the bridge all the time,

I should clarify... the finish extended under just the edge of the area where the bridge would be glued. So MOST of the bridge was glued to bare wood of the top, but there was a variable region under the edges/wings of the bridge where the top was finished and the glue may not be well adhered.

 

[Neal]

Richoop, just to make sure you understand, the F-412 is arguably the best 12-string guitar ever made (with all due respect to its sibling, the rosewood F-512). They are highly-coveted, professional-grade instruments.

 

[GAD]

There are plenty of people out there who consider Westerly Guilds to be the last of the “real” Guilds.

I don’t think they’re necessarily right, but perception often wins, and a Westerly Guild is a wonderful thing.

 

[Brad Little]

....@GardMan, thank-you for the clarification on the lifting. After reading my post, I realized that one of the main questions I had and forgot to post was, will "fixing" the bridge change the SOUND of the instrument? ....
Richard

Just a semi informed opinion, but I think if the bridge does need to be removed and reglued, it may actually improve the sound with better contact between the bridge and the top.
As to "Westerly" being THE Guild era. I have guitars from Hoboken, Westerly and New Hartford (and used to have one from Tacoma), and don't think any one is "better" than another.

 

[wileypickett]

I agree with Brad.

The fact that this a 12-string, with all those pounds of string pull exerted on the bridge, you don't want to risk the bridge pulling off, as it's likely to take part of the top with it. (I know!)

Oftentimes the gap under the bridge becomes more pronounced over time, especially with a 12-string, because that string pull may also have caused some bellying behind the bridge, and the bridge (flat) doesnt want to adhere to a curved top.

Your luthier can best advise you.

Welcome!

 

[Neal]

Depending on how much of a gap there is between the back of the bridge and the soundboard, it might be prudent to loosen the string tension until a luthier can get a look at it.

 

[Neal]

By the way, if you are interested, your guitar was made in 1984.

 

[richopp]

Wow! What great posts and advice and answers! Thanks to everyone for all this "inside" information. I only wish I had gotten the "musician" gene, but I have enjoyed my "messing around" with music all my life (trumpet, 3rd grade on) and I have tremendous respect for those who did get it. (OK, I am a little jealous, as well...)

On this instrument, and @Neal, yes, I am well aware that this is truly a serious instrument that desperately needs a professional musician to own it! My concern for the sound after a repair was on those lines. While I realize every guitar like this has a somewhat different "sound," I am sure a professional who was interested in purchasing one (from 1984, thank-you--that is when I bought it down in Miami from a large music store--they ordered it for me at Christmas time, 1983, as I remember.) Also, the Luther I took it to for evaluation immediately loosened the strings, so that has been done. He was in favor of fixing the bridge, but his shop is backed up a few months, so I will take it to him in March. And thanks for the clarification on where the glue and finish met under the edges of the bridge. Now that I think about it, one would want a bit of the finish under the bridge to ensure an even top finish.

Regarding the various "place of manufacture" posts and opinions: anyone looking at this seriously once it is 100% perfect again would probably have their own opinion of it once they played it. I do plan to have it repaired; I would want to offer any potential buyer a perfect instrument to judge, not one that needs as relatively simple repair as this one does. As @Brad mentioned, he has Guild products from various locations and he is happy with all of them. Once again, a professional will know what he or she wants to hear from this type of instrument and if this one has it, they will express interest. If not, then I would expect them to look for one that had the sound, etc., they were looking for.

Finally, @wileypickett , YIKES! Sorry to hear about that for any instrument. I am glad I took it in when I did. I am still kind of afraid to look at it, but will over the week-end and see how much the bridge has lifted. Once I see that, I will either post a measurement here or a picture--I am VERY bad at taking pictures, so we shall see.

Thank-you again for all the help. Now that it will be going, I am kind of sad I ignored such a fine instrument for the last few years.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[twocorgis]

Welcome to LTG Richard, you've come to the right place! If your luthier is that backed up, how far are you from our go to guy Tom Jacobs in Merritt Island? Tom is a member here, and has worked on many of our guitars, including some of mine, and I can't recommend him highly enough. He worked at the Westerly plant around the time your guitar was built, too. http://www.jacobscustomguitars.com/about/

 

[davismanLV]

^^^ what @twocorgis said!! Tom Jacobs (Jacobs Custom Guitars) is the best!! I shipped across the country to have him work on my guitar!!

 

[richopp]

I have looked up Mr. Jacob's shop and he is about 2 hours from me, which is about an hour longer than the person I have been consulting with, so no big deal.

I will try to contact him this week to discuss the repairs and see what he says. I will let you all know when I have some information.

THANK-YOU all for this great information.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[twocorgis]

I have looked up Mr. Jacob's shop and he is about 2 hours from me, which is about an hour longer than the person I have been consulting with, so no big deal.

I will try to contact him this week to discuss the repairs and see what he says. I will let you all know when I have some information.

THANK-YOU all for this great information.

Cheers,

Richard

You won't regret it Richard. If Tom lived two hours away from me, I'd go too. He's the best!

 

[richopp]

OK, I did it!

I called and spoke to both Tom (and his wife, who answered the phone) today. There is no more polite, accommodating, and knowledgeable person around, that is for certain!

I want to thank everyone on the Forum who suggested him to me.

The result is that I am going to drive up to his shop--probably next week--with the instrument and we will go from there. He did ask me how much I was going to ask for it once it was perfect, and I told him I had not given it much thought since finding out it needed repair. My take was once it was perfect, I would see what everyone thought it was worth and go from there.

Since I did not play it much, it has no marks on it, so "looks" like new, but of course it is @38 years old now, so not really a new item.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone. I will let you know more when I have met with Tom and dropped off the instrument so he can repair the bridge and set it up correctly.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[hideglue]

I will check the amount of lifting and see what I have. Kind of surprising that they glued the bridge over the finish for an instrument that has so much tension on the bridge all the time, but what do I know? I can barely play, so I leave those decisions to the factory.

Hi Richard,
Just to clarify: Westerly did not install bridges directly over finish--at least not in the sense discussed-- but certainly did leave a lot to be desired with keeping strict protocol for doing this properly. The finished area was first scraped to bare top, then the bridge was applied. Unfortunately the scraped footprint was all-too-often smaller than it should have been.

 

[geoguy]

@hideglue - So the bare wood was not masked before finish was sprayed?