Guild F-50 Neck Set and Restoration Complete

To paraphrase John Lennon in "A Hard Day's Night," I now declare this guitar finished!

Here we have the Guild F-50 (or is it F50?) in the garden.  I polished it with Virtuoso polish and it's super glossy.

This particular guitar is a 1977.  You may recall the earlier post with the neck off where we saw the "June 22 1977" stamp on the male part of the dovetail.  Based on that, I'd guess it was finished sometime in July or August of that year.

I've written the model number both with and without a hyphen in posts about the neck set and restoration process.  I believe the hyphen "F-50" is the official model designation, but this guitar has "F50bld" written on the inside label.

So there you have it.

Closer shot of the body.  The "F" indicates a jumbo body size.  It's big (17'' lower bout) and it's deep (over 4").  The "50" is the trim level - this is the most deluxe level and has body, neck and headstock binding, gold tuners, and those beautiful pearl-and-abalone fret markers.  Really spectacular, but not so over-the-top as a Gibson J-200.  (Nothing against the J-200 - I love them).

The body is all solid woods - the top is spruce and the sides and back are flamed maple.  The back has a pressed arch in the Guild tradition.  The guitar was made in the third Guild factory, where the vast majority of Guilds were made, in Westerly, Rhode Island.  (Short history: Guilds were made in Manhattan, New York from 1952-56; Hoboken, New Jersey 1956-1966; and Westerly 1966-2001).

Here's the beautiful maple back.  (The ground was a bit wet hence the cloth under the guitar).

You like flame?  Bwahahaha!  I love it.

I got the guitar from the original owner who bought it in 1977 from a store in southern California.  He took great care of it - there are very few nicks, dents or chips.

The maple F-50 was one of four deluxe jumbos Guild offered.  All had solid spruce tops. The four models were F-50 (6-string, maple back and sides); F-55  (6-string, rosewood back and sides); F-412 (12-string, maple); and F-512 (12-string, rosewood).

Gold Grover tuners, binding and the stylized pearl  Guild 'G' logo.

As you might guess, the guitar is super powerful and loud.  But it is also very responsive to picking dynamics.  The tone is on the bright side due to the maple, but it has a nice balance.  The bass is solid and not overpowering.

I would guess the rosewood model has more midrange and bass.

Closeup of the fret markers.  The main block is pearl, and the "V" inlay is abalone. 

The white stripes down the sides are strips of white-black-white plastic binding.  The neck is actually laminated ebony and binding.  There is a center section of solid ebony (the middle where the inlays are), then the binding strips, then strips of ebony.  Very fine craftsmanship.  It looks stunning.









Shot of the reset neck joint and the strap button.  I decided to go with an ebony one to contrast with the blond finish.

The neck is pretty big in depth - it comfortably fits my hand down near the nut, but it's a baseball bat (cricket bat?) size near the body.  I'd describe it as a Fender "D" shape.  But it's surprisingly fast.

I am fortunate to also own a 1970 F-412.  It too needs a neck reset - I'll be working on that later this year.  This one was a lot of work, so I need to recharge my Guild guitar skills before I tackle another one.