Man, it sounds great. Just like a Westerly F-412, I'd speculate. I'll have to A/B it with my Corona JF30-12, which is gold standard in my book. I am loving this new one more and more. Just plugged her in. These electronics are great, too!
State of the art for the era!
Oh yeah, first 2 years ('87-88) show scalloped bracing for JF30-12 in price lists.
Don't know if that was consistent throughout production or not, only that '98 Guild Gallery shows "12-string bracing" for all the 12ers.
Unfortunately, I can't see the end block because it's covered by the 9V battery....
Dang. But that comment about a bridge re-glue makes me still think '87, since my buddy's had the same problem at like only 2 or 3 years in.
(Just a standard Blonde, not a Limited Edition or anything.)
What is the deal?? I thought I saw it yesterday, now I don't! Is it the light? It's cloudy today so I don't have direct sunlight coming in the window. Still.... Weird!
Yes sometimes only visible at just the right angle under strong light, but don't confuse actual temperature shock checking with normal lacquer shrink which always runs along the grain lines.
Temp shock checking almost invariably gives long curved and/or "lightning bolt" patterns just like glass, goes right across the grain.
Like what you can see across the lower bout of this DCE-3:
Finish shrinking which is a natural aging process with NCL does sometimes result in fine cracks but normally only in the soft (lighter) parts of the grain it shrank into.
Can see some silking at the edge of the lower bout in the "big" cased pic, and if you thought those lines extending down below the bridge were checking, they look more like finish shrink to me.
Yes, curious to hear how you rate it against the Corona.
And btw can't remember where I found it but it stuck because it was surprise to me:
Those were originally shipped with silk'n'steels. (!)
