Starfire Bass case question

wproffitt

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Hello All!
This is a non-Guild question that you may be able to help me with, so thanks for your patience in advance:

I recently purchased a 1972 Yamaha sa70 bass. It’s fully hollow and awesome, but alas, the case is long gone. I’m trying to figure out if a Starfire Bass case could do the trick. What do you think?

Interior dimensions for the original would have been:

Length 1140mm. 44.88 inch

Lower Bout. 410mm. 16.142 inch

Upper Bout. 340mm. 13.386 in

Headstock width. 120mm. 4.724 inch

Interior height 110mm. 4.33 inch

For those who are SA-curious, here are a couple of pics:
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Minnesota Flats

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Beautiful bass you have there.

Here are the Starfire bass dimensions (taken from Guild's website):

Body Depth Upper Bout
1 3/4″ (44 mm)
Body Depth Lower Bout
1 3/4″ (44 mm)
Body Length
18 1/4″ (464 mm)
Body Width Lower Bout
16 3/8″ (416 mm)
Body Width Upper Bout
11 5/8″ (295 mm)
Overall Guitar Length
46″ (1168 mm)
 

wproffitt

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Thanks for the kind words, Minnesota Flats! Thanks also for putting those official measurements from Guild up here too. It seems like the starfire bass is far thinner than the Yamaha in question if the total body depth is 1 3/4 inches. Counting the bridge and mute (it is a fully hollow archtop with a floating bridge) the Yamaha is 4 inches deep (if that’s the right word?) even though the depth at the rim is probably pretty close to 1 3/4.
-Has anyone ever measured the depth of a Starfire case in the area that is where the bridge would be? This is where the Lakland hollowbody case I ordered was just a bit too shallow.
 

Minnesota Flats

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Measured on the outside, with the lid closed, the NS (MIK) Starfire cases are 4-3/4" tall. With the lid open, the outside of case (minus lid) is 3-1/8" and the lid is about 1-5/8". Subtract the interior padding and thickness of the case top and bottom from those measurements and that's about how much depth you'd be dealing with. I think it amounts to about 4" (2-3/4" + 1-1/4" which are rough, interior depth measurements).

Kind of hard to be exact, because the padding compresses some with the bass in there. Also be aware that the padding gets considerably thicker up under the heel of the neck, about even with the cutaway "ears". This may mean that the angle at which the neck is set into the body on the two basses may be an additional factor affecting case compatibility. The location of the "waist" separating the bouts and the length of the cutaway "ears" may or may not match up as well.

If you can wait, it would probably be best to go to a music store once they open back up from "sheltering in place". They generally have a lot of used HSCs laying around and test fitting would take the guess work out of the equation. I had an ancient Kay 6-string guitar in a battered, cheesy old cardboard case and found an Ibanez HSC that fit it like a glove using that method.
 

wproffitt

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Thanks again, Minnesota Flats!
This is pretty helpful information. I’ll look through the dimensions of the SF Bass itself again and see what I think, but this could be the ticket. As ridiculous as this sounds, it actually gives me a fun little project while we’re sheltering in place. Also, we just don’t have that many good music stores around here even when this is over.
 
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