I'm picking up a Westerley R.I. built (per the label), blonde '93 JF30-12 next week, once the store sets it up the way I'd like. This guitar feels like the previous owner bought it new, kept it in the house and hardly played it - no pickup, original bridge pins, no marks that I can see (even on the scratch plate), very little fret wear, and a dusty but pretty much unworn Guild case. Back and neck are medium flame maple, sides are figured but not flamed maple with interior reinforcement. The back appears to have the outer and inner laminations carefully position matched, as discussed in another thread here. It's done well enough that the shop thought it was solid wood - that seems unlikely 'cos it's steam pressed by the shape of it, with no back struts. Neck angle seems pretty good, with a straight edge coming just above the bridge top treble/ just on it bass, and I can't see any belly or bridge lifting.
Playing it has things in common with a Guild D-style 6 string I had when new in '83. It has a great basic sound, but it's really tight, like either it was never played in, or hasn't been played for enough time that it's sulking. When I bought the D 6 string, informal advice from a well known guitar shop was "Fit the heaviest strings it's happy with and beat the s*** out of it for about a year, man" - that worked. Would you do that with a 12? I'm tuning it DADGAD, and they'll fit 12-54s unless I suggest otherwise. Any recommendations on playing in to loosen it up would be appreciated.
Also, the thick fingerboard could be rosewood or maybe stripey ebony - fairly wide straight almost black and dark brown streaks running the length of the board. Which do you think more likely?
Thanks, Max
Playing it has things in common with a Guild D-style 6 string I had when new in '83. It has a great basic sound, but it's really tight, like either it was never played in, or hasn't been played for enough time that it's sulking. When I bought the D 6 string, informal advice from a well known guitar shop was "Fit the heaviest strings it's happy with and beat the s*** out of it for about a year, man" - that worked. Would you do that with a 12? I'm tuning it DADGAD, and they'll fit 12-54s unless I suggest otherwise. Any recommendations on playing in to loosen it up would be appreciated.
Also, the thick fingerboard could be rosewood or maybe stripey ebony - fairly wide straight almost black and dark brown streaks running the length of the board. Which do you think more likely?
Thanks, Max
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