Thanks in advance for any comments. A pic of the guitar is below.
As promised buddy:
There's also a possibility that it could be a sonic runt (©
@adorshki). I had a New Hartford D40 Traditional that was like that, and was one of the rare duds from that plant.
"Sonic Runt?" Ooo, that's harsh, LOL Certainly possible I guess. My H & D "Pilgrim" just does not
match my DS, even though its a "full" dread and torrified...but in its defense, I have to admit I probably have just have not played it
enough...
Thanks for the citation Sandy, and yep, Bill, that was my assessment very early in the game, like when it was new (March '04) to about 8 years old. I'd had the D25 for almost 8 years and the F65ce for a little over 2 in '04, both since new. More below.
Good point Charlie and Bill. The guitar was set up 2 months ago and I have not changed the strings since then. Because it is in rotation with my other dreads I estimate I play it 2-3 hours per week. So, those strings only have 16-24 hours of playing time on them. All four of the dreads I am comparing ('71 D25, '71 D35, and the Martin D-18 is a 2018 model but with way more hours on it than the D40T) are strung with Martin Phosphor Bronze 11s. I really like those strings on the other 3 guitars but perhaps I should bump up to 12s on the D40 Traditional? And perhaps the heavier strings would speed up the break in period too? Open to string suggestions but I do like Martin Phosphor Bronze a lot.
Short answer to the OQ: 2-300 hours of play time. Have no experience with Tone-rites but concept seems valid and might perhaps try one as long as I wasn't worried about any potential finish dings. 250 hours in a year would mean about 5 hours a week of playing time. Most of mine was during extended Saturdays at the park.
I put about 250 hours on the D25 in the first year ('97-'98) and needed a fret job. Got a bone nut and saddle at the same time. About a month later, nice warm late spring day in the park, warming up with some rhythm stuff like "Love the One You're With" and "Big Yellow Taxi", and some open chord parallel harmony things inspired by "Starship Trooper" and Havens, and realized it was just ever so much more loud and resonant than before. Realized I could feel the neck vibrating in my hand. Started thinking about how that energy must be getting back into the top through the neckheel block and even the fretboard extension.
Later that day figured out it must be that big "opening up" moment "everybody" talks about, even taking the bone nut&saddle into account, and strings 3 or 4 hours old, the prime age. So now I'm a believer in an "opening up moment" although I didn't expect it to happen like that. The D25 was unique out of the 3 though in that regard, though. Think it's got around 1500 hours on it now and couldn't possibly replicate it with another guitar at this point, I'm simply not young enough anymore.
Acquired the F65ce (new like the D25) in early '02 IIRC but took a while to bond with it. For a while it had near equal sustain (measured as "decay" time after plucking a full 6-string harmonic) to the '25 and near the same volume. D25's a bit louder now but also now play the F65ce with silk&steels now for beautiful clear silver bell-like voice. Now that I think about it also have the '25 strung with silk &
brass which I thought would yield an even woodier voice.
This, btw, is the D25 in current "tune" (standard with silk &brass mediums, thickest I could get considering reduced tension and soft fingernails, think they're actually something like 052-011, I forget without hauling out the case
):
Spring '04. New apartment, new excellent paying job. Company installs internet access. One day got curious, "Wonder what D25's are going for these days?"
Look up Guild's site on the net, there's the spring '04 catalog/pricelist.
"Huh. Where's the D25? Waitaminnit, what's this?
Guild
Acoustic
Design Series. Uh-oh. Fender's gonna turn Guild into another badge-engineered import like Epiphone."
Then I see: D40 Richie Havens Signature Edition. Think to myself, "I better get one more American made Guild while I still can". Richie Havens being a long-standing hero ever since seeing Woodstock movie premiere at 14, and thinking "a D40's gotta be like a D25 plus 15
" helped justify the purchase. So called Guitar Showcase right then and there to see if they had any. They did (one) so I told 'em I'd be right down and took an extended lunch.
Based on my previous experience with my Westerlys I didn't even try it out (never really works for me in a store environment anyway, I always make 'em sound better in my living room, just inspected it while they retrieved the case with extra 'guard, turned out to have a UST, cool!) $1695 OTD from $2299 list IIRC. Dropped it off at home on my way back to work.
That night, got home, "unwrapped" it, see the "Handcrafted in Corona CA" logo and think "Huh. Fender must be making these in the Custom Shop. COOL!" Didn't realize they'd relocated the whole plant till a couple of years later.
Put on the second 'guard. Noticed it didn't match. But it was original. On it goes.
Tried it out. Anticipation deflated like a Punctured Blimp** :
Where is the vaunted volume and oomph? Check the D25 again. Become inspired to invent and try the "full harmonic chordato" on each one. Sure enough. '40 wimped out in time-to-silence, like 8 or 9 seconds compared to over 14 for the F65ce and '25.
Note the F65ce still had probably under 100 hours on it at the time as I hadn't really quite learned how to play it yet, it was so much like an electric and I was an extremely hamfisted strummer. It's got right around a couple of hundred hours maybe even close to 3 on it now, and perhaps surprisingly it's actually improved the least of all 3. I came to suspect maybe it was because the top was already so good, a genuine Guild-rated AAA. I stopped timing my hours of use a few years back, thus the estimates on current time-of-play.
So around '08 I think it was, I got refret #2 on the '25. Also discovered the soft spot on its bass lower bout from resting my arm, showed up when I polished it. So first thing was to rest it for a while and keep my fingers crossed (took over 6 months to finally harden back up, maybe even about 9 IIRC?) But as I'd joined up here and started posting I did in fact mention a couple of times that in fact, to my surprise, the D40 was the "sonic runt
of the litter", was the tongue-in-cheek term I used, for full impact.
I did also take pains to mention the build quality was every bit as good as the Westerlys even if it seemed to be from the "built like a tank" school especially compared to the Westerlys, and the finish absolutely was the best of the bunch, thick though it seemed to be.
So Hally (D25, 10-13-96 neckblock date) being in rest cure meant I started intensively bonding with Richie (and Blondie, the F65ce).
Good thing. By then I'd been lurking here for a bit and seen posts about the "debacle" of Corona's closure and references to high rates of "duds" there-from. I'd learned a bit and suspected Richie's retiring "attitude" might be due to several interacting factors: The UST, coupled with what I'd discovered was an exceptionally thick bridge and tall saddle (now think that's good and UST is irrelevant); the double 'guards; and an exceptionally thick finish which I wondered if may be poly for a while after seeing refs to its use in Corona (turned out to be true for D25's there). In fact the finish was the best of the 3, "literally" glassy smooth, it took almost ten years to finally start shrinking into the grain a bit.
I think it was around '16 or so when I started really noticing its improvement in late-night quiet practice settings. I'd also been able to hear it compared to the '25 on recordings and realized it had a punch and clarity the '25 didn't, so my ears started getting educated to the difference between the flattop and the archback voices of 2 otherwise basically identical guitars. I never thought I'd say this but I may actually prefer the flatback now. I can absolutely say the best sound I ever recorded was done with the D40. And volume's come in over the years as well, about a 12-second "decay" time now.
You be the judge. Think Richie's somewhere between 250 and 300 hours now, could definitely use a fret dressing at least, but my playing's become more delicate, EJ-16's tuned a full step down with about 20 hours on 'em IIRC:
One other thing, almost forgot, a long time ago Chaz said the single most important thing you can do to change a guitar's voice is change the strings. I didn't buy it until I decided to try silk and steel on the F65ce. A D40 needs 12's at the minimum; Guild site says they're spec'd for 12's, I wouldn't go heavier unless tuning down, and would anticipate some volume loss if going lighter for whatever reason.
Any typos are purely the work of the author and any resemblance to living words is purely coaxial.
**(No stealing the band name. Yeah, looking at you,
@GGJaguar )
