Runout

[fronobulax]

Perhaps Guild did not have someone as dedicated as Collings does hand picking through the spruce.

Alternatively perhaps Guild did not buy into the claim that runout was "bad" and thus reserved for non-natural finishes? There are enough anecdotes about Guild buying wood and employees choosing it that I'm not comfortable with the suggestion that Guild did not do that well.

 

[davismanLV]

I think a thing to think about is the way guitars have been made since the beginning of time. Bookmatched is a huge thing. And if the grain is special and varied and irregular then the results are very symmetrical. But with very tight grained and straight grained spruce, there's no reason you couldn't slide the split piece over and bond like that. It doesn't have to be opened like a book. And then there's not going to be any significant runout. But guitar builders are creatures of habit. And old habits die hard.

 

[West R Lee]

Yea, guess my D46 has a bit of runout as well. Perhaps Guild did not have someone as dedicated as Collings does hand picking through the spruce.

You know Bone, I am curious as to how other manufactures select wood? I watched a video with Bill Collings a while back and asked about it, all he really said was that Collings puts about 60 man hours into a guitar, but that Martin averages 11 man hours. He went on to say that it definitely was NOT the best business model, but that it was the best way to build near perfect guitars that he knew of. It's one reason Collings guitars are so damned expensive.

West

 

[fronobulax]

I am curious as to how other manufactures select wood?

All of this is from memory and only applies to Guild, New Hartford. My source is what I heard at the Let's Meet Guild tours. The first step was telling a supplier what Guild wanted and seeing what they had. The Guild person would select or reject what was offered. Usually the Guild person travelled to the supplier to choose, but not always. A key issue was that suppliers didn't have agreed upon definitions of grades so the supplier's AAAA might have been Guild's AAA. Guild's wood was stored under temperature and humidity control.

Since the wood had been selected, sorted and internally graded, an employee would just go select pieces to be used for an instrument. There was definitely a suggestion that the employee selecting 20 pieces of spruce for F30 tops did not spend as much time doing so as the employee who was tasked with fetching wood for 20 tops for a GSR run. The employee would pick what was in their opinion the best wood available within parameters but the F30 might be restricted to Guild graded AAA while the GSR was allowed to select AAAA.

Some older comments noteworthy because Collings and Guild both used tone tapping:

Random comments

Collings Guitars used "tone tapping"while selecting and shaping the tops for all their guitars, at least several years ago when I took the tour.

New Hartford occasionally used tone tapping but not for every instrument.

New Hartford would go into the stockroom to look for the "best wood" when making expensive and/or limited editions. I understood "best" to mean potential tone and visuals.

Based upon various definitions of bling and the idea that sometimes "less is more" I would expect the target MSRP to correlate better with wood "quality" than "bling".

Guild also changed bracing at various price points so to say that two Guild models are the same except one has more bling requires some elaboration on which models and when they were made because the generalization is not always true.

 

[AcornHouse]

Fun fact. There is NO industry standard for AA, AAA, AAAA, etc. wood grading. Each supplier has their own interpretation, as does each buyer, as Frono mentioned with Guild.

 

[West R Lee]

All of this is from memory and only applies to Guild, New Hartford. My source is what I heard at the Let's Meet Guild tours. The first step was telling a supplier what Guild wanted and seeing what they had. The Guild person would select or reject what was offered. Usually the Guild person travelled to the supplier to choose, but not always. A key issue was that suppliers didn't have agreed upon definitions of grades so the supplier's AAAA might have been Guild's AAA. Guild's wood was stored under temperature and humidity control.

Since the wood had been selected, sorted and internally graded, an employee would just go select pieces to be used for an instrument. There was definitely a suggestion that the employee selecting 20 pieces of spruce for F30 tops did not spend as much time doing so as the employee who was tasked with fetching wood for 20 tops for a GSR run. The employee would pick what was in their opinion the best wood available within parameters but the F30 might be restricted to Guild graded AAA while the GSR was allowed to select AAAA.

Some older comments noteworthy because Collings and Guild both used tone tapping:

Interesting about the different manufacturer's procedures. Collings is just so very basic, almost like a bunch of us got together to build guitars. Bruce Van Wart (the man in the video) retired a couple of months ago, but for 30 years, this is the way it worked. Bruce came in on Saturdays and hand selected 7 tops, backs and sides. He mated them through tap testing and aesthetics, and obviously selecting woods to comply with existing orders, putting each set to the side as he sorted. Then, the shop opened on Monday and each set began it's journey to completion, completing 7 guitars each day and 35 guitars a week. The following Saturday, Bruce began the process all over again. He did that, and that alone for 30 years.

West

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[wileypickett]

Comparing mass manufacturers of guitars with boutique guitar makers is unfair to both.

One maker is trying to supply guitars to a large number of people at competitive prices. Doing that means they neccessarily must weigh such factors as time, materials, and quality control.

The other is making their appeal to a limited audience who can afford the prices necessitated by the purchase of the best selection of woods, and the greater time they can allot to the making of each guitar.

While both are in the business of making guitars, their business models are way different.

This is not to slight the quality of the guitars of mass manufacturers, nor to slight the boutique makers for charging prices that are beyond the means of most players. Luckily the market can support both kinds of buiilders.

For most of us here, the appeal of Guild -- past and present -- is that they offer quality guitars that are within the range of what we of modest means can readily afford.

 

[fronobulax]

Definitely some apples to oranges.

35 Collings guitars over 52 weeks is 1,820 instruments.

New Hartford Guild production has been estimated at 1000 in the first year and close to 5000 at the close.

Westerly had one year in the 60's when they issued over 20,000 serial numbers.

New Hartford also made guitars sold under other brand names.

These numbers almost certainly include instruments besides six string acoustic guitars.

I remember having so much fun on the Collings tour that I wanted an instrument as a souvenir, but I decided I was not prepared to learn ukulele or mandolin and Mrs. Fro. rolled her eyes when I asked if she wanted one. The guitar prices were prohibitive.

 

[West R Lee]

Oh gosh, most definitely. They are very different ends of the spectrum as to what each wishes to accomplish. It just fascinates me how the different processes work from wood selection to various finishes. In actuality, almost all guitars built by Collings could be considered "custom" builds, whether it's an order from an individual or a dealer. The shop I ordered my new guitar from had 42 Collings guitars on order at the time, all of them ordered to the shop's specifications. In fact, the reason I got mine so fast was because I persuaded the dealer to bump her very next order, and replace it with mine. It takes them 5 months to build a guitar from order date to shipping. The other thing that was interesting is that once ordered, you can call and speak with Collings at any point during construction, but if you request a change, it must be done through the dealer. It's just a completely different experience.

West

 

[Boneman]

Sorry Frono, didn’t mean to sound like I was denigrating Guild, just more tongue in cheek as a response to the Collings video. I see runout on lots of brands so it’s certainly not unique to one or the other, and sonically there is no difference so its merely aesthetics. That bothers some, others maybe not so much. Kinda depends how much you spend and what your criteria is. But I can definitively say I love the brand Guild, I especially love my Guilds, with runout “warts” and all

 

[fronobulax]

Sorry Frono, didn’t mean to sound like I was denigrating Guild, just more tongue in cheek as a response to the Collings video. I see runout on lots of brands so it’s certainly not unique to one or the other, and sonically there is no difference so its merely aesthetics. That bothers some, others maybe not so much. Kinda depends how much you spend and what your criteria is. But I can definitively say I love the brand Guild, I especially love my Guilds, with runout “warts” and all

No problem, just the curse of having to infer "tone" from text.

 

[mavuser]

i like run out. makes it sound better. why have only one angle of grain, when u can have 2?
CHANGE MY MIND

 

[West R Lee]

All of this is from memory and only applies to Guild, New Hartford. My source is what I heard at the Let's Meet Guild tours. The first step was telling a supplier what Guild wanted and seeing what they had. The Guild person would select or reject what was offered. Usually the Guild person travelled to the supplier to choose, but not always. A key issue was that suppliers didn't have agreed upon definitions of grades so the supplier's AAAA might have been Guild's AAA. Guild's wood was stored under temperature and humidity control.

Since the wood had been selected, sorted and internally graded, an employee would just go select pieces to be used for an instrument. There was definitely a suggestion that the employee selecting 20 pieces of spruce for F30 tops did not spend as much time doing so as the employee who was tasked with fetching wood for 20 tops for a GSR run. The employee would pick what was in their opinion the best wood available within parameters but the F30 might be restricted to Guild graded AAA while the GSR was allowed to select AAAA.

Some older comments noteworthy because Collings and Guild both used tone tapping:

And the thing that I found most interesting about tapping is that they aren't looking for any particular tone or note, they're merely looking for excitability (cool word ha?), response from the top.

West

 

[chazmo]

What makes the best figuring for the world's best soundboards is certainly not a universally agreed-upon formula.

I remember seeing a pre-war Martin with Adirondack spruce that was not even quarter-sawn (not even close). You could see the growth ring grain lines angled severely at the bookmatch seam at the soundhole. I don't remember the details, but that guitar was considered highly desirable and valued somewhere in the stratosphere.

Then there's bear-claw which we were having a discussion about recently. I don't recall if it was Segovia or someone else who had some very wild bear-claw (possibly mixed in with cigarette burns) on his soundboard... Didn't stop it from being a lifetime guitar for him (wish I could remember for sure who it was).

And then there's Willy's "Trigger" ... Well, that's not a figuring discussion now, is it?

 

[West R Lee]

What makes the best figuring for the world's best soundboards is certainly not a universally agreed-upon formula.

I remember seeing a pre-war Martin with Adirondack spruce that was not even quarter-sawn (not even close). You could see the growth ring grain lines angled severely at the bookmatch seam at the soundhole. I don't remember the details, but that guitar was considered highly desirable and valued somewhere in the stratosphere.

Then there's bear-claw which we were having a discussion about recently. I don't recall if it was Segovia or someone else who had some very wild bear-claw (possibly mixed in with cigarette burns) on his soundboard... Didn't stop it from being a lifetime guitar for him (wish I could remember for sure who it was).

And then there's Willy's "Trigger" ... Well, that's not a figuring discussion now, is it?

Great points Charlie. And no doubt there are guitars out there all over the place that have "runout" that ran away a long time ago and sound fantastic. From the Collings video, I gather runout, and trying to avoid it, is more a function of top strength than sonic quality, though he did say it could sound a bit "muddy". At least that's the opinion I took away from it.

West