New member - story of my T100D

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Hello all,

Great forum - my thanks to those administrating it.

I have a 1966 Hoboken T100D sunburst. I mostly play blues and eccentric rock music on an amateur basis. My day job is researching the physics and engineering properties of polymeric materials.

I bought the guitar at a pawnshop in Cambridge Mass back in 1982 - I was 17 and was leaning toward the purchase of a crappy Aria strat copy when the grizzled old dude behind the counter gently let me know he thought the Guild was a nicer guitar. He then sold it to me for $250 ($25 less than the strat clone).

This was my first electric guitar and is still my favorite. It plays, sounds and looks great. I also have a '76 strat and a nice '79 ibanez AR50, but the Guild sounds and feels the best by far. I really like the kinda narrow but flat frets and the warm sound of the pickups especially the neck position - more powerful and browner sounding than my strat, and less powerful but sweeter than the AR50. Also it balances well and is lightweight but quite ruggedly constructed.

The guitar was original and in excellent condition when I bought it save for a missing pickguard and a broken Guild/Bigsby vibrato tailpeice. It is still in good shape in spite of being my main guitar during my late teens and early 20's. Early on I did a couple of slight modifications in the name of playability: 1) I replaced the stripped open tuners with a modern higher ratio set - made the guitar actually stay in tune. 2) I found a bigsby vibrato tailpeice of identical dimensions to the broken Guild and have been using that ever since. After a few more years I learned what "in tune" was and found that the original carved bridge was not intonated well for the string gage and action I use and so I gave that the ol' heave-ho and replaced it with an old melita similar to those used on Gretsch's with bigsby vibrato. The individually adjustable saddles are made of plastic (polymer) and don't hang the strings up when the vibrato is in use.

I can hear the gasping of those of you more in tune with the vintage thing - sorry - bear in mind that I was in my teens when I did this and in my mind this was not exactly a collector's guitar, being a plywood archtop of uncertain age. I did keep the parts somewhere, however at this time finding them would be a miracle.

In 1995 I was doing a long term project in Westerly and asked at the factory about the age of my guitar - they dated it for me as a 1966 model, the original sale price of which was $250, same as I paid. Guess this guitar was a sort of low end starfire. The folks there were very helpful and I am sorry to hear it has been closed.

That is my guitar's story I have a question ot three for the forum also.

First, the pickups in my guitar are single coils, six pole peices, white with a chrome surround and black plastic trim, they are a bit narrower than the deArmonds I have seen mentioned elsewhere - anybody know what is the origin of these?

Second, the melita bridge has lost few parts over the years, anybody know of a source for a replacement or replacement parts?

Third, The headstock veneer is beginning to peel off at one corner - probably due to leaving it in some inappropriately damp place for too long. Anybody have some ideas about how to repair this. What kind of glue was used originally, and should I remove the veneer completely and reglue the whole thing or just reglue the corner?

Cheers,

Peter
 

hansmoust

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pjwalsh112 said:
I have a question ot three for the forum also.

First, the pickups in my guitar are single coils, six pole peices, white with a chrome surround and black plastic trim, they are a bit narrower than the deArmonds I have seen mentioned elsewhere - anybody know what is the origin of these?

Second, the melita bridge has lost few parts over the years, anybody know of a source for a replacement or replacement parts?

Third, The headstock veneer is beginning to peel off at one corner - probably due to leaving it in some inappropriately damp place for too long. Anybody have some ideas about how to repair this. What kind of glue was used originally, and should I remove the veneer completely and reglue the whole thing or just reglue the corner?

Should be able to help you with some of these questions:

* The parts for these pickups were manufactured elsewhere but the pickups themselves were put together by Guild.

* Can't help you with the Melita parts

* These headstock veneers have always been a problem. It's the shrinking of the material in combination with the adhesive they used. It's not always possible to get a clean result because after all this time the headstock overlay might have become smaller than the headtsock itself. I prefer to take 'm off because it's the only way to properly remove the 'gummy' residue under the overlay.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
 
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