Starfire III restoration

[HeyMikey]

Outstanding job Smeigal ! Quite a transformation from the broken husk you started with. Good on you for bringing it back to life so that it can make music for decades to come.

 

[LeFinPepere]

Bang up job on the neck repair, looks great.

This route is probably the only way I could ever afford one of these.

Now if I could only get this song out of my head...

Ouch! It's in my head again now, thank you! A little gem of a song, ain't it? We used to do a French-cover of this 35 years ago, smartly entitled "7000 frites". Fonetik für "set me freeee.." It was an ode to French Fries. We should have been tared and feathered. I would'nt mind singing it again, but nobody seems to want to be associated with that.The Kinks are allright!!.(Who said that?) Absolutely under-rated in France....Now and then...We did You really got me and Sunny Afternoon, in the same phonetic garbage-style.Love the Kinks!

 

[Guildedagain]

Reading this thread in its entirety has me somewhat bummed out....

I'm lost here.

In it's entirety? It's just one page.

There may be a touch of sensitivity from one member about whether the OP used to the forum to capitalize on the work/parts rather than to appreciate what was done to the guitar but I wouldn't let it bother me.

I don't need to know what's behind this grouching, nor do I even want to know. Maybe some underlying history between the OP and this member, I didn't feel it was that important to be bummed by it.

It's best to just ignore negativity. Don't respond, don't let it get to you. On other forums much less civilized than this one, pretty much all threads degrade into bickering after three pages, and a deplorable number of posts are just personal attacks that feel great to ignore - do not respond! - when directed at oneself. Petty personal grievances - personal insults and responses - are far from informative.

Back to the guitar. Here it's the guitar that counts, especially as some people are now routinely gutting any and all guitars in misguided attempts to capitalize on the parts, or alternatively altruistically parting them out for people looking for a piece of this or that for better examples which just also happen to be missing parts.

If I was mad enough to buy a husk of a Guild, I would be looking for parts and advice here as well, and showing the work off.

And if I sold it afterwards, so be it. At least the guitar would have been restored and that's all that really counts in my mind.

Over the years, I've bought piles of orphan guitars, restored them because it's a great escape for me, and in many/most cases sold them afterwards because the thrill of the restoration is more enthralling than actual ownership and I don't play enough to warrant keeping as many guitars as I do, as well as funding new endeavors.

The value isn't high on restorations like this, as I notice evermore how delusionally picky and critical people are. You'd be lucky to sell something nice for decent money and not have it come back on you because it didn't make the grade on some forum or Facebook page where people routinely pick any and all things apart just because that's where we're at with human nature or always have been. It just wasn't in your face as much before the internet.

Now we've made it to two pages ;]

 

[Default]

Yeah, well, if you bought an empty husk and loaded it with replacement/no stock parts, I wouldn't expect to make much on resale. The neck break wouldn't bother me too much, but that would ruin value too. I have some orphans, myself, and I don't expect to break even when I sell them because I'm a full disclosure kinda guy.
It's the way of the world.

 

[powerwagonjohn]

Nice job Smeigel, I agree with Guilded, you did a great job rescuing that guitar. I used to do the same thing with Dodge Power Wagons and ended up with 50 trucks. Luckily guitars are much easer to store.
Thanks John

 

[cupric]

Nice job Smeigel, I agree with Guilded, you did a great job rescuing that guitar. I used to do the same thing with Dodge Power Wagons and ended up with 50 trucks. Luckily guitars are much easer to store.
Thanks John

I love Power Wagons! Best 4x4 ever made!

 

[Guildedagain]

I learned to drive in an ex Navy yard '41 WC "Weapons Carrier", and then went on to be lifelong Mopar fanatic.

 

[Smeigel_12000]

Wow, this thread went a different way then I was expecting , and that all because of one disagreeing member. Happy to see most of you don't have a problem with my way of acting. Thanks for your great reply by the way @Guildedagain. You describe exactly my feelings about this topic.

To be honest I haven't sold the guitar yet. Despite some offers I couldn't pull the trigger yet. It's hard to part from it and actually I use it as my main guitar now instead of my Newark Street Starfire III (which also is an absolutely great guitar by the way). The old one plays lighter, which I like. funny enough it seems to have a slightly shorter scale (about half an inch or so), and the neck angle is much more so there's more string tension on the bridge. The pickups are pretty hot so I have to dim my Amp more compared to my NS Starfire. All in All I'm thinking about selling my NS Starfire and find myself a new old Guild to restore. An Aristocrat would be great .

 

[chazmo]

I like your plan, Smeigel. I think the issue that I see most folks going through doing what you're doing is getting the components they want to do the rebuilds.

I don't know if this makes any sense at all, but you could look for an old Aristocrat husk and trade your NS Starfire for an NS Aristocrat and then maybe transplant the gear into the revived, one putting most of the NS gear into it. I know they're not perfect reissues, but the cost would be just the elbow grease that you like to do anyway. Just a thought.

 

[Walter Broes]

There may be a touch of sensitivity from one member about whether the OP used to the forum to capitalize on the work/parts rather than to appreciate what was done to the guitar but I wouldn't let it bother me.

I don't need to know what's behind this grouching, nor do I even want to know. Maybe some underlying history between the OP and this member, I didn't feel it was that important to be bummed by it.

You know this "one member"'s name, I've been on here since day one, Walter, as you know very well?

Negativity? Newb comes on here telling us how cheap he got his husk and how he lucked out, is all over the forum asking for advice and parts, and as soon as the guitar is done, lists it for sale for €2750.

I've given parts to Guild forum brothers, have received them too, "bro deals" too. Don't see a hint of a hair of nuance or difference there?

 

[chazmo]

Wait, Walter, is that what happened here? Where is that listing? Now I'm getting the undercurrent here...

 

[Walter Broes]

Listing was on facebook and a dutch craigslist-alike.

 

[chazmo]

Ugh, this is frustrating. Thanks, Walter. Sigh.

 

[Guildedagain]

You know this "one member"'s name

No slight intended, didn't want to use anybody's name. As usual, two sides, and both valid. As a sometimes inveterate flipper myself I didn't want to take a side but could guess the reason for the tension.

Apologies for seeming dismissive of your feelings as a long time - original - member here.

 

[Smeigel_12000]

You know this "one member"'s name, I've been on here since day one, Walter, as you know very well?

Negativity? Newb comes on here telling us how cheap he got his husk and how he lucked out, is all over the forum asking for advice and parts, and as soon as the guitar is done, lists it for sale for €2750.

I've given parts to Guild forum brothers, have received them too, "bro deals" too. Don't see a hint of a hair of nuance or difference there?

I should not react to this negativity anymore, and this will be my last post on this thread, but can't help reacting to mr. Broes latest post. In the first place I thought it would be nice to show you guys my progress on a pretty Starfire husk, with a bit of a risk not having seen the neck brake in real life. Almost everybody is very positive about the project so that's great. Unfortunately one (??maybe a little frustrated??) person found something to complain about. I never actively asked here for parts, I did ask for some advice about parts and found 1 part thanks to that. Should I first post a whole background story next time, before I'm about to ask advice? I guess this was my first and last restoration job posted on this forum.

I tried to make peace with mr. Broes via a private conversation and clean the air. I explained that I understand his frustration, considering in the past there has been some miss abuse of the good faith of forum members giving/selling parts for low prices and finding them for much more on Craigslist a couple days later. Like mr. Broes said in one of his posts, I'm a fairly new member, and was not aware of any of those actions from the past. I never had any bad intentions with this project. Mr. Broes talks about respectful, I find his own reactions are far from respectful and to my opinion respect begins with yourself. I'm sad and disappointed in his reactions, especially considering he is a highly respected senior member.

I've payed a fair price for the Dearmond pickup (the only part I got thru this forum by the way). My intentions for this guitar were and still are, to compare it with my NS Starfire and see which one I liked more, giving a beautiful old guitar a new life in the process, and sell the one I like the least. At this point they are on par, switching back and forth every band practice has not made me decide yet. Maybe I should have told, maybe I didn't find it necessary for the question asked at that point. I'm sorry if somebody felt misinformed by my threads, again I never had any bad intentions whatsoever.

I wish everybody a nice positive day and enjoy your beautiful Guild instruments, like i'm doing !!

Cheers
Michiel

 

[Guildedagain]

Thx for taking the time to post.

It is still a fee free world, and we all reserve the right to make mistakes.

Forum life can get you up, or down, but remember it's not real. You can walk away, usually for the better personally.

Typing away on a forum is like cheating on your partner, ignoring life right in front of you for imaginary friends you know nothing about.

A great way to not cook when you should, burn food when you are, it's an escape. Dishes, lawnmowing, laundry - which I need to do right now - don't seem as easy or fun.

A Dopamine driven search for "likes" and acceptance, sometimes when your home life suffers, which could be suffering from "forum marriage". It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing.

Then there's the "buying guitars to be cool" factor that has probably brought many a forum member to near ruin, though to be honest, this same type of acceptance driven consumer behavior is prevalent on all forums where any tangible good can be shown off.

In military collector circles where I hung out in the past, it was not unusual for someone to buy dozens if not hundreds of absolutely the same award, albeit from different makers with slight variances, but all a sign of really advanced mental illness, like buying hundreds of copies of the same album, although an album is more useful and pleasurable than a WWII combat badge.

Each posting of a new items gets a few likes from the usual suspects, and you'll find that you will never measure up to the "big boys" in terms of popularity or wealth to endlessly buy to impress strangers, many times from across the globe.

I luckily found myself banned from there by taking part in humor allowed for some, but apparently not others.

I banned my own self from another guitar forum during the pandemic, the users were dull, mean, highly opinionated and also very ignorant so quite often wrong, and chances to help someone with an actual question was drowned in a sea of terrible advice and attitude. I could see posters struggling to get any decent advice, even three days after the original post, they were still looking for a reliable answer.

By page 3 of most topics, lots of snark/personal attacks where we used to have healthy veers, just a lot of negativity devolving into name calling and usually a mod popping up to say that warnings had been sent.

Not all forums are civilized as this one by a long shot.

On perhaps the biggest guitar forum of the all I found myself "banned for a week" but actually "banned for life" for taking part in a political discussion I never started, and apparently committed suicide by standing up for what is right, which can be a misnomer.

It was a great place to leave, the everyday sexism and racism was too much for me anyway.

I made it through the "week ban" only to find out it was "lifetime" but I could still go there to read posts - by not attempting a log in - and not being able to partake - the interactive Dopamine boost - I quickly realized how monstrously boring the posts were "Best song ever?" Best solo ever? "Beat Beatle song ever", "Why Blues suck", "Are tubes amps dead?", "Show us your collection", "Look at my new Strat (or PRS)" all garnering the usual comments and likes from fans or snark from internet personality conflict victims. Edit here for forgetting the biggest question of all time "Should I buy this guitar?" as if you needed the validation from total strangers to make a potentially costly and life altering decision.

In time I realized even the titles to the threads were boring, I couldn't even click on any and left the place forever.

Ultimately in life you can't please everyone, so just be yourself.

And try to "opt outside" more often.