Dave gonzales model

Century Bob

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Has anyone ever seen one of the X500 Dave gonzales sig guitars? I know they had a very high price and were near the end of Guild production. I just have never seen one available
 

dklsplace

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Seems that someone here actually had one on order. John was that you? Not sure any ever made it to the public. Have a few pictures somewhere from a guitar show, but I'm thinking it was still the prototype.
 

dklsplace

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Hey CB, here's a thread where this was touched on. Still, I remember someone on the old forum having one on order.

'nother thread
 

Charlie Vegas

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There were 2 Gonzales models. The early model (X500T) was based on the X500 with added P-90's and a Bigsby. The later model (X550P) was made pretty close to Dave's guitar. I've seen a few actual pictures of the X500T, but I think they only made two X550P's and one of these was Dave's.
 

Century Bob

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Wow I really want that guitar. The price was 1800. I thought those had a crazy price like 4500 or more? Did Guild put p90s on any of its x series guitars? I know the Starfires had them
I just cant get over the looks of that guitar. It makes no sense that they could not sell those
 

northbayj

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You're preaching to the choir, Bob! But yeah, I agree completely. Who else is selling 17" full body electrics with p90s and a bigsby? Maybe a special order Gibson at four grand, or a Korean Epiphone. Seems to me that Fender is ignoring a significant market for these things. A reissue x375 would be completely cool.

John
 

Century Bob

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I would buy that thing right now. I have been looking at vintage 175s with Franz pickups but I am not someone who should have vintage. first off Im not a pro player. Second I want fresh reliable stock that I can pick up and enjoy as well as gig and not worry about.
 

jazzman

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I might be scratchin' that itch for you guys

Hey guys,
It's been a while since I"ve been on the forum but I thought I'd swing by. I like what you guys are saying about wishin' there was a quality guitar that was what you are dreamin' about. Let me know what you think of this....
I am planning on opening my own shop in Minneapolis this spring to repair and build instruments. Here are some models that I am going to "recreate" (with any necessary updates as I see fit)
I will build the Guild Aristocrat, the X series with the 50's style body (however since the switch systems are not available as far as I can see I don't forsee me doing an X-350 unless i get really creative with a switching system of my own design)
I will also be doing the old epiphone instruments like the zephyr deluxe regent.
They will be hand made by me, one at a time. They will feature nitro finishes, and the best part is that I'm going to be recreating the old franz pickups for the guild models and the old epi new york pickups for the epi models....however I'd put either of those on a guitar for anyone that wanted a different look or sound (I have an aristocrat carcass that I set two old epi pickups on and it looked pretty sexy)
The best part is that I plan on selling my guitars for $1500 which I think is pretty fair for a hand crafted instrument.
Thoughts?
-Bobby Nelson
 

jazzman

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dhdfoster said:
"I'm going to be recreating the old franz pickups for the guild models"

:shock: :shock:

How?

Quite simple my boy! I have a few old franz pickups that I"ve bought off of ebay. I have the covers and there is a place I've found in the twin cities that does injection molding of plastic. I'm going to have them make the covers for me. I have a friend with a metal shop that is going to teach me to do brass work, so that will cover the brass base of the pickups (also the rare guild kluson tailpiece that I have one of and will be making more of those too)
I know where I can get the magnets, poles etc etc etc. I might do a few things to make them a little more sturdy as far as construction goes, but they will look right and sound right. I'm thinking about changing the placement of the pole pieces though to sit under the strings better. For some strange reason it bothers me when the pole pieces are no where near the same spacing as the strings.
Is it gonna be cheap to do? Not terribly, but it's one of those things that if you want it done right, there's only one way to do it!
Thoughts?
 

matsickma

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Hi Jazzman,

What your planning to do sounds pretty wild! Aristocrats and X-series. Good selection.

My personnel recommendation on the X350/X375 model is the following: Forget about the push-button switching system-it was kind of clugy anyway. I never cared for it on the X375 I owned. I recommend you use the triple pickup switching scheme as used at the old Guild Custom Shop for the 3-P90 Starfire 4 series. It provides all the possible combinations with two three position pickup selector switches. Another pet-peeve of mine with the X350/X375 controls was the use of a single master vol and master tone. That configuration limited tonal combinations quite a bit. The Custom shop 3-P90 SF4 had 3 volume controls and 1 master Tone control. That would be an improvement. (My ideal configuration would be a Master Vol, Individual PUP volume with Tone on the Neck and Middle Pup.)

Additionally, I think you will find a pretty good demand for the Franz pups from the group on this forum. Getting the rest of the world to find out about them is another matter but if you figure out how to do it that could be a significant source of steady PUP sales. However limiting the availability of Frantz PUPs to your custom guitars may give you the unique edge in the guitar market.

What signature Head design are you anticipating?

Great idea. Hope it works out.

matsickma
 

jazzman

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What signature Head design are you anticipating?





Okay let's see where to start..hmmm..the beginning sounds good. I probably wouldn't have a 3 pickup model be a part of the "regular line" but as with the way Guild and the old epiphone company used to operate, if you want it and it can be done then we'll do it. I remember seeing a carvin guitar that someone chopped the last two frets off of and installed a floating pickup. Then they installed a second toggle switch. The first one worked like normal and selected between the two humbuckers, the second one if in the up postion selected just the floater and cancelled out the others, in the middle position it blended the floater with whatever pickup selection you had made on the other switch, and in the low position it turned off the floater all together.
Is that what you are referring to? I've not seen the custom starfire you are mentioning, but the vol/tone arrangement sounds a lot like the old Gibson ES-5 arrangment. Maybe I would find way to mount all of the vol and tone controls on the oblong plate so an X-375 would still kinda look right.
In regards to the franz pickups. Yeah I don't know what I"m going to do, whether i'll sell them as an accessory or just use them on my guitars. I think it would give them a unique look and edge but then again, there are too many old guilds out there with the wrong pickups that could really be put back to stock. We'll see.
When you ask about the "head" are you asking about the headstock shape I'm going to use?
I've made an acoustic and I modeled the neck off of the aristocrat carcass I have. I used the original guild headstock for that one. But for the sake of simplicity I think I'm going to rip off the old Epiphone design from the Spartan archtops. They used it until about '39. If you go on Google and search the images for an Epiphone spartan you'll see what I'm talkin' about. It just has one very pronounced lump in the middle.

Does anybody know how to post pics on here? I'm kind of a dummy when it comes to the computer stuff.

[/img]
 

dhdfoster

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jazzman said:
dhdfoster said:
"I'm going to be recreating the old franz pickups for the guild models"

:shock: :shock:

How?

Quite simple my boy! I have a few old franz pickups that I"ve bought off of ebay. I have the covers and there is a place I've found in the twin cities that does injection molding of plastic. I'm going to have them make the covers for me. I have a friend with a metal shop that is going to teach me to do brass work, so that will cover the brass base of the pickups (also the rare guild kluson tailpiece that I have one of and will be making more of those too)
I know where I can get the magnets, poles etc etc etc. I might do a few things to make them a little more sturdy as far as construction goes, but they will look right and sound right. I'm thinking about changing the placement of the pole pieces though to sit under the strings better. For some strange reason it bothers me when the pole pieces are no where near the same spacing as the strings.
Is it gonna be cheap to do? Not terribly, but it's one of those things that if you want it done right, there's only one way to do it!
Thoughts?

Holy cow, even the covers? If you are successful, you will create quite a stir in the Guild community. Fender didn't even do this for the X550.

Do you do repair/restoration work, as well?
 

dhdfoster

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northbayj said:
Here's one of the x500T Paladin models that was on sale from Elderly Instruments a while back
http://www.elderly.com/items/40U-3197.htm

Mighty bodacious...

As nice as that is, the late-X550 is the real looker, IMHO. I would love to get one of these with replicated pickups.

[img:300:400]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-10/1219882/X550P.jpg[/img]

[img:300:400]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-10/1219882/Paladin.jpg[/img]
 

matsickma

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Hi Jazzman,

To post a picture... there is a bit of a ritual to get it on the Forum. For instructions peruse the discussion that is called "Posting Pictures. How do I" under the section called "Guild amp & Effects". The posting is currently 6 or 7 down from the top. That will help.

In regards to the an example of the Custom shop switching..go to Gbase.com, search under Guild Starfire and then scroll down until you hit it. It is posted by Guitars-Inc.

In regards to retaining the look of a X350 control plate...Yes I think locating additional PUP controls on a plate in a area similar previously used to hold the switching is a good idea. (You may need to use mini knobs.)

In regards to headstock...Yes I was courious if you would style it after a Guild design with some alteration specific to you trade mark.

Great stuff.

matsickma
 

hideglue

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Re: I might be scratchin' that itch for you guys

jazzman said:
I am planning on opening my own shop in Minneapolis this spring to repair and build instruments....
They will be hand made by me, one at a time. They will feature nitro finishes, and the best part is that I'm going to be recreating the old franz pickups....
The best part is that I plan on selling my guitars for $1500...

Thoughts?
-Bobby Nelson

I think you're quite ambitious, jazzman. And that pricepoint even more so! If you can pull the entire package off at under two grand then sign me up now!!!
 

jazzman

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Yes I do repairs and such. I am in the process of locating a more spacious shop to move into so I'm limited right now in what I can do. (I can't do finish work at the moment) I am trained in all aspects of repair work though.
Yep I am going to have the franz covers duplicated. I'll do the black and white ones. Fender wouldn't tool up for that because the dave gonzales model was always a special order instrument, never a production model. I've only seen a couple pictures of that guitar, never head on to know if they got the body shape exactly right. I will be modeling mine on a 1953 X-300 carcass that I've had lying around for a while (serial number 1015 ) So it will be quite accurate.
 

jazzman

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wow I should have looked at all of the other threads before posting. Yeah it does look like they got the body shape correct, but that's only a small part of the bigger picture. I did check out the starfire switching and it looks pretty normal, not a bad idea though.
This spring as I search for a space to move all of my power tools and such into the big project will be to build my presses for making the laminate tops and backs. I'm going to build an old school press like the one that epiphone had designed for them.
I guess we'll see what happens but I'm very serious about trying to get the guitars out to the public for $1500 ( I think the case would have to be extra on top of that, but I'm going to have a wonderful case made for them by cedar creek cases. The reason? Well first of all they are great cases, and secondly they will make them with brown swamp aligator covering just like some of the original guild cases. SWEET!)
If anyone has any input as far as features you'd like to see or possible improvements to be made on the old aristocrat or X-series guitars, let me know now as I'm planning them. We can make them really cool!
 
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