DeArmonds on a SFIII Special

teleharmonium

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I just took delivery of a '66 (I think) SFIII special, in "ebony" which is now faded to green. I'm pretty happy with it, but I was surprised that there are two different types of pickups on it. The bridge pickup is the usual Dynasonic type with a white face. The neck pickup also appears to be an old DeArmond, but it has only a single row of what appear to be flat top, larger screws as the adjustable polepieces. What struck me about this pickup, is that the white top area inside the mounting ring, is not flat, it is a little bit beveled so that it is taller in the center.

So, my two questions are - did Guild ever mismatch pickups at the factory, or should I conclude that one of these was replaced ? And, is the neck pickup a different type than the ones on Duane Eddy's original guitar, which IIRC have smaller adjustment screws and appear to have a flat white surface ?

A little later, I'll pull it out to examine the bottom. Maybe I can get some pics posted here of the neck pickup and the cutout in the top in hopes of IDing the pickup and determining originality. I haven't heard it yet, and if it sounds good, I'll leave it in, but I would still like to know whatever I can about the pickup since I am into DeArmonds.

Otherwise, the headstock repair is well done and stable, and harder to see than it looked like in the auction pics, and everything else seems pretty good too. I'll just need to get the frets polished and the lowest few frets crowned, and straplocks installed. I'm pretty excited to have it in the stable, the Bigsby works great with the aluminum Bigsby bridge and the whole thing looks really cool.
 

hansmoust

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teleharmonium said:
I just took delivery of a '66 (I think) SFIII special, in "ebony" which is now faded to green. I'm pretty happy with it, but I was surprised that there are two different types of pickups on it. The bridge pickup is the usual Dynasonic type with a white face. The neck pickup also appears to be an old DeArmond, but it has only a single row of what appear to be flat top, larger screws as the adjustable polepieces. What struck me about this pickup, is that the white top area inside the mounting ring, is not flat, it is a little bit beveled so that it is taller in the center.

So, my two questions are - did Guild ever mismatch pickups at the factory, or should I conclude that one of these was replaced ? And, is the neck pickup a different type than the ones on Duane Eddy's original guitar, which IIRC have smaller adjustment screws and appear to have a flat white surface ?

Hi teleharmonium,

Mounting two different pickups in a guitar would be somewhat unusual for Guild. I would think that the neck pickup has been replaced.
The type of DeArmond that's in the fingerboard position was used on a limited amount of guitars around 1960. They were indeed mounted on the first Duane Eddy guitar that Duane Eddy got from Guild.

If you're not sure about the date of the guitar, just e-mail me the serial number and I should be able to tell you when it was made.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

teleharmonium

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Thanks Hans. I dropped the guitar off at home, but this weekend I'll check the serial number against the chart in your book to make sure about the date, and if there's any ambiguity remaining I'll post another reply here.

At first I was disappointed by the neck pickup not being a Dynasonic with adjustable alnico pole pieces, but now I'm starting to think that maybe it's actually lucky to be this other type. I'll post about the sound of that pickup, compared to the bridge Dyna as well as a neck Dyna in a Kustom guitar, after I play it this weekend.
 

teleharmonium

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I've spent some more time with this guitar, and cleaned it up. I was getting intermittent output from the bridge pickup, until I used contact cleaner on the 3 way switch. Overall, the guitar sounds great and it in better shape than I had hoped. The neck pickup is a bit hotter than the bridge, but I tweaked the polepieces a bit and I just back off the neck pickup volume slightly, which I usually do anyway to help fight that phasey midrange sound that most two pickup guitars have in the middle position.
I'm still using the old flatwound strings that came with it; with these strings, the neck pickup alone is slightly dark for my tastes when I leave the neck pickup volume at the slightly backed off setting. I like to be able to use the switch freely without touching volume or tone knobs, so I'll probably switch to rounds on this guitar, and back the treble off a little on the bridge pickup to compensate, since that pickup doesn't need to be any brighter.
I feel like it has a good vibe, as it was special ordered by somebody with excellent taste (black finish and DeArmonds, just like I would get if I had a time machine), came to me with perfect intonation, and has seen some use, but is still all original other than the one earlier pickup and a missing pickguard. The Grovers appear to be the original tuners, I don't see extra holes and Hans' book supports them being correct for '66. It's been a "player" and it feels right to let it continue to be that. I won't have to worry so much when taking it out of the house to use, like I do with my other Guilds, and it has the same versatility and great sound "to which I have become accustomed".
 

HoboKen

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Speaking of cleaning up a Guild DeArmond Starfire III Special........A year ago I bought one on E-Bay and the only thing wrong......was dust, oxidation and sweat tarnishing on the metal parts.

By way of a recommendation from a luthier friend, I ordered a tube of "FLITZ" on-line (not cheap...but worth it!) and used a Dremel polisher wheel with a dab of Flitz paste on it to clean up the chrome and aluminium parts. I took the guitar apart and polished up each part separately. Flitz is safe for metals and plastics. IT REALLY WORKS GREAT.....ESPECIALLY ON OXIDIZED and HAND SWEAT TARNISHED ALUMINUM!! I put all the parts back together (and actually had no left-over parts!) It looks like a just-out-of-the-box new-be guitar now! (Of course I have to play it up-side-down now.....something about making note of which corner on what part goes up or down when you take the "parts" apart??? Just kidding!)

Remember.....treat it like its a "Learning Curve." "Cause a curve you can get around on all four or two wheels to where you want to get to. If you treat it as a "Learning Cliff" to over-come........well, it can be just as the Road Runner's friend the Wiley desert dog feels after a good free-fall of 6 seconds or more 'til the puff of dust comes up off of the caynon floor.

HoboKen
 

john_kidder

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Great tip - never heard of this stuff before, just ordered some. I've been using regular Silvo or Brasso polishes - they're good to restore lustre, but not, as FLITZ claims to be, for eliminating tiny scratches, etc.

I note that FLITZ also sells microfibre polishing cloths - I've used these for a while with McGuyver's Polishes for cleaning up guitar finishes, with great success. Now I keep a microfibre cloth in every case, and wipe the guitar down with it after playing.
 

HoboKen

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Hummm.....
Is that micro-fiber cloth good for just poly finishes or for Nitro guitar finishes also?

HoboKen
 

john_kidder

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Don't know about poly, Ken - I think all my Guilds (save the M-20) are a nitro finish? The micro-fibre also works on my old Ovation 12, whatever the finish was on that in 1970.
 
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