Well, Gentlemen, this has been a double Guild kind of month. I bought this bass at the start of April and a '71 S-100 Std. yesterday.
A guy had the bass for five years, sitting in the case. He said that the neck was bowed (it was) and he wanted to either sell it or fix it (the dread Amateur Repairman!).
I went up to his house in the middle of the night and checked out the bass. It was a dimly lit house, as Seller was watching a Southern Rock band on a Big Screen. I ran my hand up and down the neck several times. Twice I felt something sharp, so I brought a small flashlight in from my car and found an ear crack at the foot of the headstock on the Low E side. The truss rod nut was buried into the neck, too, symptomatic of trying to adjust the neck bow!
The Seller was really embarrassed. He was a nice, honest guy. He was sure that the neck wasn't cracked when he bought it! We finally decided that it was a 'case crack incident', as the case, while a Guild, was way too tight where the headstock lay in the case.
I bought the bass and took it to my luthier. He looked at it and pulled TWO truss rod nuts, not one, out of the rod channel!! He took the fingerboard off between the nut and the first fret and discovered that a small piece of Maple that lay between the strike-plate of the nut and the bottom of the fingerboard had given way, which allowed the strike-plate to move down into the interior of the neck. He lubed the truss rod, then:
1. Made a harder, longer piece of Maple to use as a shim between the finger board and the strike-plate
2. He also made a slightly deeper strike plate to i) allow one end to sit squarely against the crushed wood area at the top of the truss rod channel and ii) allow the other end to be properly positioned at the base of the headstock truss rod nut slot
3. He buttoned it up the finger board,
4. Fixed the the ear crack on the headstock,
5. Replaced the fingerboard section,
6. Lacquered over the sides of the fingerboard,
7. Heat-treated the neck,
8, Planed the fret-board,
9. Re-fretted the neck with the same size wire that was on it,
10. Made three rosewood wooden bridge saddles,
11. Found me a clean set of medium scale D'Addario round-wounds in his good used pile,
12. Wet-sanded the lacquer-work on the edges of the first fingerboard section,
13. Put a pile of towels in the case to get the back of the headstock off of the case floor and, finally, sent me on my way! Whew!
The bass plays very well, The 'suck switch' works on the neck pickup only, which is how it's supposed to be. The Big Guild Humbuckers sound fine, but I would like to hear them with Thomastik strings, before I pass final judgement.
Here are some low resolution cell phone pics:
A guy had the bass for five years, sitting in the case. He said that the neck was bowed (it was) and he wanted to either sell it or fix it (the dread Amateur Repairman!).
I went up to his house in the middle of the night and checked out the bass. It was a dimly lit house, as Seller was watching a Southern Rock band on a Big Screen. I ran my hand up and down the neck several times. Twice I felt something sharp, so I brought a small flashlight in from my car and found an ear crack at the foot of the headstock on the Low E side. The truss rod nut was buried into the neck, too, symptomatic of trying to adjust the neck bow!
The Seller was really embarrassed. He was a nice, honest guy. He was sure that the neck wasn't cracked when he bought it! We finally decided that it was a 'case crack incident', as the case, while a Guild, was way too tight where the headstock lay in the case.
I bought the bass and took it to my luthier. He looked at it and pulled TWO truss rod nuts, not one, out of the rod channel!! He took the fingerboard off between the nut and the first fret and discovered that a small piece of Maple that lay between the strike-plate of the nut and the bottom of the fingerboard had given way, which allowed the strike-plate to move down into the interior of the neck. He lubed the truss rod, then:
1. Made a harder, longer piece of Maple to use as a shim between the finger board and the strike-plate
2. He also made a slightly deeper strike plate to i) allow one end to sit squarely against the crushed wood area at the top of the truss rod channel and ii) allow the other end to be properly positioned at the base of the headstock truss rod nut slot
3. He buttoned it up the finger board,
4. Fixed the the ear crack on the headstock,
5. Replaced the fingerboard section,
6. Lacquered over the sides of the fingerboard,
7. Heat-treated the neck,
8, Planed the fret-board,
9. Re-fretted the neck with the same size wire that was on it,
10. Made three rosewood wooden bridge saddles,
11. Found me a clean set of medium scale D'Addario round-wounds in his good used pile,
12. Wet-sanded the lacquer-work on the edges of the first fingerboard section,
13. Put a pile of towels in the case to get the back of the headstock off of the case floor and, finally, sent me on my way! Whew!
The bass plays very well, The 'suck switch' works on the neck pickup only, which is how it's supposed to be. The Big Guild Humbuckers sound fine, but I would like to hear them with Thomastik strings, before I pass final judgement.
Here are some low resolution cell phone pics:
