1964 Guild No Bird needs some TLC, tips welcome.

[bieke]

Oh well, only 2 months ago I was contemplating letting my No Bird go to a new owner, as I had not been playing it at all for some years, made a post about it here, took the guitar out of its case and started playing it again, took some time to adjust to it, it has high action which I dislike, adjusted the truss, strung her up with fresh strings and that was all it took for me to circle back and I decided to keep it. 6 weeks onwards, it now is my favorite guitar.

So, there's one issue that I want to sort out, the tone pots don't do much, both have basically 2 setting, set to 0 you get the slightest tone rolloff, barely audible, and set to 10 I'm getting a bit of extra sparkly treble, barely audible. In fact, I don't hear it when playing clean, you can hear a very subtle (barely) difference in tone on an overdriven amp only.

I remember taking a look under the pickguard when I first got the guitar 7 years ago, wiring, pots, caps all looking looked fairly clean and solder joints were untouched. And back then the tone pôts were already having the same behavior. Not really doing much, just the subtlest tone change, barely making a difference. Does not seem normal.

Anyway, I wanted to have a look at it again, any pointers what I could do to troubleshoot this issue ? Thanks already for your help.

 

[bieke]

 

[ArsenalVinyl]

Absolute beautiful guitar. My dream guitar. Congratulations!

 

[GAD]

LOVE the color on that! Wow!

 

[GGJaguar]

The pickups are killer in a solid body guitar. I love them in my S-100 Polara.

 

[matsickma]

Would love one of those!
I foresee a modified NS T-Bird as a future project!

 

[chazmo]

What's a "No Bird?"

 

[chazmo]

What's a "No Bird?"

I'm guessing what he means is that the headstock faceplate is just a normal Chesterfield rather than a groovy thunderbird...

Am I right, @bieke ??

Oh, and I do love the color, like the other folks said!

 

[lungimsam]

You can put new pots on. Easy to do! If you are in MD I’d be glad to do it for you.

 

[Nuuska]

Could also be that the pots are ok - but tone capacitors have lost their value - or in worst case are one decade off to begin with.

 

[SFIV1967]

What's a "No Bird?"

It's a kind of special run from 1964 of a mixture between two guitars, the Polara and the Thunderbird...Chesterfield headstock inlay, unbound dot neck, single coils, Polara electronics but a Thunderbird S-200 body. Was discussing that one with the owner of Guitar Point and Hans back in 2017 before bieke bought her from Guitar Point. Hans knew that guitar from the shop in Cologne who had it sometimes in 2011 or 2012. Hans actually owns two others of this run. He wants to keep the background info for a future update of Part 1 of The Guild Guitar Book. (looking forward to it!)
Ralf

 

[chazmo]

Oh, that's very cool! Thanks for the update, Ralf! Wish I could help with bieke's question...

 

[bieke]

Ah well, another stupid move I made is I took the No Bird back to Guitarpoint last month to trade it in for something else
Meanwhile Guitarpoint has switched ownership and now is owned by one of the largest German music store chains (Thomann)
Anyway, the shop manager was not interested in a trade, so I walked out with the No Bird.

 

[bieke]

You can put new pots on. Easy to do! If you are in MD I’d be glad to do it for you.

Thanks for the offer (that is what's so great about this place, always helpful and knowledgeable.)
I'm kind of reluctant to put in new pots, the volume controls are working smooth, the tone controls are just not doing much, but seem to work, so I hope it can be fixed without having to swap parts, in fact, if it can not be fixed, I think I'm just going to leave it at that.
If the tone caps are the root of the problem, hmmm, if I can find something period correct, I might consider
I'm guessing I wil l find .20uf caps in there?

 

[lungimsam]

Less invasive is to try to Spray the pots with Deoxit FaderF5 like this. Right into that slot. Just a spritz then turn the knob back and forth several times to clean it out. I doubt that is the issue. But worth a try before replacing the pot or caps.

 

[SFIV1967]

Meanwhile Guitarpoint has switched ownership and now is owned by one of the largest German music store chains (Thomann)
Anyway, the shop manager was not interested in a trade, so I walked out with the No Bird.

Yes, Detlef is no longer in charge, and Simon just was in Dallas for the guitar show, he continues getting guitars from the US and might not know about the Guild. Simon is a "Gibson-Fanboy"...well and Fender I guess.
Thomann GmbH with Hans Thomann as owner is the 100% owner of the company since 2019. But the revenue of Guitar Point is increasing a lot since 2019 so it was a smart move for Hans Thomann.

If you still wamt to sell the guitar you always can talk to Hans Moust in the Netherlands, as he was originally interested in her but he found the price that Guitar Point offered back in 2017 as not attractive for him.

Ralf

 

[SFIV1967]

If the tone caps are the root of the problem, hmmm, if I can find something period correct, I might consider

Unlikely I'd say. Guitar tonecaps rarely get bad. It's amplifier caps due to the high voltage which need to be replaced. But guitar tone caps live forever...
Ralf

 

[lungimsam]

Or remove the entire harness intact for now, reinstall later if you ever resell the guitar, and install a replacement harness to use while you own it.

 

[bieke]

It's a kind of special run from 1964 of a mixture between two guitars, the Polara and the Thunderbird...Chesterfield headstock inlay, unbound dot neck, single coils, Polara electronics but a Thunderbird S-200 body. Was discussing that one with the owner of Guitar Point and Hans back in 2017 before bieke bought her from Guitar Point. Hans knew that guitar from the shop in Cologne who had it sometimes in 2011 or 2012. Hans actually owns two others of this run. He wants to keep the background info for a future update of Part 1 of The Guild Guitar Book. (looking forward to it!)
Ralf

Ah well, that explains, I also offered to trade or sell the guitar to Hans, he did not make me an offer
Anyway, I'm really happy I still own it, been playing it almost daily since mid April and now I'm hooked ...

 

[bieke]

Or remove the entire harness intact for now, reinstall later if you ever resell the guitar, and install a replacement harness to use while you own it.

makes sense apart that I'm too lazy to make a new harness, and somehow, I just don't want to tamper with the old harness ...
so far, I did not do anything yet, got the neck and action adjusted the way I prefer, still struggling a bit with the intonation (not really much one can do)