I thought your older models looked more rugged than this series.
Agree; maybe Guild thought the particle board was the thing of the future or they were 'green' even back then. The board is susceptible to moisture absorption and it has no impact resistance. The 'ears' on the front of my T1 RVT cabinet are 'mushy' from getting bumped.
My T1 is back from its trip to my pal Zach, I can't explain why he never replied to you. If you'd like, I'll ping him for you. He did the from-scratch re-build on the power supply and de-bugged the reverb including adding a drop-down resistor to quench the 'pop' when switching the reverb in/out.
With used Celestions and a fresh reverb can, it sounds pretty good even with its off-the-wall 6GW8s. Running Tungsrams now; holding Mullards in reserve. I hope John K can get his reverb running; with the controls, mine can range from minimal to 'rain forest'.
According to one of Jay Pilzer's articles, the Thunderbird has the same stand-alone reverb amp as the T1 RVT except it's pc-mounted although I didn't understand his remark about wiring the two speakers out-of-phase; do you?
http://www.guildguy.com/fgp6.html
Now it resides inside the chassis behind the pots. This makes the circuit more susceptible to noise from movement but as long as the reverb speaker (8" CTS 137702) is wired out of phase with the main speaker (12" non-original) noise problems are nil. This wiring scheme is the same as our Thunder 1 reverb.
To accomodate both speakers, the T1 RVT baffle board and cabinet are wider than the chassis leaving the chassis-to-cabinet attachment engineering a little suspect not to mention relying on a bolt through the top (disguised as as one of the handle anchors) down to tie into the cross-bracket over the chassis for load support and front-to-back stability.
I find myself alongside, if not in, in John K's boat; heavily patch, scratch-build, or mooch / buy a dead amp with a solid cabinet although based on the dissing I've given Guild cabinets, maybe I can get John to make an extra one...
That girl/guy pic knocks me out too ... maybe it's the bent knees crouch, as if they were dancing or something ... anyway it's pretty cool.
Maybe we need to 'salt the mine' when it comes to Guild amps; go out to BBs everywhere and rave on and on about them, write stunning reviews ... or maybe not. When mine's done; cab re-hab, re-cover, other bits and pieces, I'll have more in it than I can get for it but that won't stop it from being a pretty good amp with a proud heritage and logo.
regards,