Guild Electrics with wide necks?

HeyMikey

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So as not to pollute his FS thread, Neal mentions his ‘53 X-150 proto has a 1-3/4 nut (neck?) width. I was under the impression that many early models have thin necks often around 1-5/8, and typically 1-11/16. Are there others with 1-3/4?
 

GAD

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So as not to pollute his FS thread, Neal mentions his ‘53 X-150 proto has a 1-3/4 nut (neck?) width. I was under the impression that many early models have thin necks often around 1-5/8, and typically 1-11/16. Are there others with 1-3/4?

Many of the Hoboken electrics have 1 11/16" or wider necks. It seems to be the '70s when the 1 5/8" necks came into favor, where they mostly stayed until the '90s.
 

richardp69

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Never really measured my Blues 90's but they have a great chunky neck. Neck width size doesn't matter all that much to me but I do love the feel of that chunky neck. I really wish they'd come up with a modified V profile. I truly love that feel. Maybe they have and I just don't know about it. Wouldn't be the 1st time.
 

HeyMikey

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Many of the Hoboken electrics have 1 11/16" or wider necks. It seems to be the '70s when the 1 5/8" necks came into favor, where they mostly stayed until the '90s.

Ok thanks. So in the 90’s they start going back to 1-11/16? I guess finding one with a 1-3/4 nut is quite a rarity then.
 

adorshki

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Ok thanks. So in the 90’s they start going back to 1-11/16? I guess finding one with a 1-3/4 nut is quite a rarity then.
Even on the acoustic side.
Top it off with the paucity of published spec info at all; Most of the catalogs and price lists I've seen don't even show that spec. The notable exception seemed to be the Guild Galleries of the late '90's.
(No 1-3/4 electrics in there)
Assuming you haven't seen this yet, GAD's won site has the most comprehensive on-line assortment of catalogs and price lists I've ever seen:
https://www.gad.net/Blog/2019/08/28/gads-guild-catalogs-price-lists-ads-flyers/

Other things to bear in mind are that we've seen many examples of "off-spec" nut widths over the years, some seemed to have been built just for the sake of "making some", but I'm pretty sure it was also pretty easy to order a special width if desired, since they were very flexible about accepting custom orders for long periods of their history.
For instance, my "grail" currently is to find on of their 24-3/4 scale full 24 fret necks with a 1-11/16 nut (on an "Fce" model)
I've never seen anything but the 1-5/8 nut spec'd for those, but I'd be willing to bet somewhere there's at least a few of 'em out there, just because we've seen so many off spec pieces over the years.
If anything I'd expect the 1-3/4 to be found on the "jazz guitars" (like the early builds primarily were), seem to recall somebody recently saying some of those players prefer a wider width much like bluegrass fingerpickers are reputed to like it.
 

Mark WW

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There is and always has been such a paucity of specifications from guitar manufacturers in reference to their neck designs. In today's market where many have zero availability of quality instruments to try much of the ordering is sight unseen from the web. Not having those dimensions like nut width and neck thickness up and down the neck makes it a real crap shoot. Plus I see people posting that a particular model has a baseball bat neck when I have owned that same model and talked with other owners and their response is no way. There is a lot of subjective anecdotal guessing out (Not referring to this Forum) there. I have lost thousands of dollars blindly attempting to find me a nice fat wide (PRS - that description is inaccurate but I do like your necks on some models) guitar that I don't cramp up when playing. Oh well...
 

adorshki

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. Plus I see people posting that a particular model has a baseball bat neck when I have owned that same model and talked with other owners and their response is no way. There is a lot of subjective anecdotal guessing out (Not referring to this Forum) there. ...
I used to say also that since hands themselves vary in size:
"Chunky is in the hand of the holder".
Also, gripping characteristics/preferences of the hands themselves change over the years, or at least they have in my case:
My D40 always felt like the action was a little high, strings felt like they required a little more pressure to fret cleanly when it was new.
"Aha!" I said to myself, recalling an early '80's MIK Fender F210 acoustic I'd had: "It must be the Fender set-up" (the box for that guitar proudly proclaimed "Set up by Fender in USA")
And yet the strings were the same as the D25, and the action height was virtually identical at the factory spec of 5.5/64ths and I couldn't measure any difference in nut slot clearance from fretboard.
One night a couple of years in, while bonding with it, I was looking closely at the neck and it jumped out at me: the neck actually had a slight "bulge", a visible increase in thickness at about the 7th fret (possibly an actual shaping flaw for all I know), and I also realized the neck profile was quite a different shape than my 2 Westerlys.
Those 2 were modern Flat ovals or very close while the D40 was a D verging on a C, what I'd genuinely define as "baseball bat".
It was also not as comfortable to play scales higher up the neck at that time.
But over the last 5 or 6 years it's become very comfortable to me and it's the D25 that feels a bit too thin (shallow depth) to me now in certain situations.
Go figure.
And while I still love my F65ce to death, I started realizing what I think I really want in that body size is the 24-3/4" scale with a 1-11/16 nut with a little more "beef" than the modern flat oval.
I also played a 1-3/4 nut Larrivee a buddy brought over once and while it would have taken some getting used to, at least the string spacing at the bridge kept the strings from being altogether too far apart for my relatively small hands, high up the neck where I do go a lot. Don't remember what scale length was and neck profile didn't make an immediate impression.
Take-away for Mikey is that sometimes a less-than ideal nut width can be compensated by other details like the neck profile, so don't despair.
:smile:
 

walrus

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My '11 NH F-30RCE has a 1 11/16 nut width, and combined with it's neck profile, feels perfect to me. My '58 ES-225T has the same neck width and profile as a '58 Les Paul - very very nice (for me)!

I always liked the "chunky" BB necks, and had a PRS "wide fat" neck that was also very comfortable.

I've tried some vintage Guilds - when I was looking for a '58 "birth year" guitar, I tried a few vintage Guilds - but most all I was able to try had a 1 5/8 nut, which really was not comfortable for me. I wanted a thin body, too, so I limited myself in that search, but simply love the feel of the ES-225T neck.

Weird how such a small thing can make such a big difference.

walrus
 
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