beatcomber
Junior Member
It's been about two months since I acquired my first vintage Guild, a 1964 Starfire III in very nice original condition, and I wanted to share my impressions.
I've experimented with a bunch of different string types and gauges - roundwounds, flatwounds, different alloys, everything from .010s thru .012s, and I've settled on round-core pure nickel Pyramid Classic round-wound .011-.047s. These strings have a nicely balanced, rich, fulsome tone that just rings out, and they offer excellent tuning stability with the Guildby. Of course, having pure nickel wraps, it was necessary to raise the poles on the wound strings to balance them with the unwound strings. Marvelous strings, and probably very similar to what Dave Davies had on his SFIII in 1965.
The frets are unusually low vs. modern production guitars, which seems to be common on 1950s-60s guitars, but they were nicely dressed by a professional tech prior to my purchase, so it plays cleanly up and down the entire neck. I will admit that it took some adjustment learning how to dial in the action properly and getting used to such low frets, but I've gotten comfortable with it. I had considered getting it refretted, but I think I will just leave it as is for a while at least. It plays clean and fast, so I think will leave well enough alone.
The guitar is extremely responsive to picking dynamics, most likely due in large part to the aforementioned low frets; you can really dig in and slap the strings against the fretboard! A lighter touch, of course, produces a more delicate, warmer response.
The Anti-Hum pickups are simply terrific. The neck pickup has a wonderfully smoky jazz/blues tone and the bridge pickup is bright and clear but not piercing. The out-of-phase middle position has a very sweet chime. I'm finding the SFIII capable of all of the old school styles that I typically play... blues/r&b, rockabilly, jazz/swing, surf, '60s garage, etc.
I've been cycling through a lot of guitars these past couple of years, but my '64 Starfire III ticks a whole lot of boxes for me. It's a keeper!
On the not so-good-side, the back of the neck on my guitar is very sticky/rubbery/cloudy. I know that this a common issue with nitro-finished necks, but I've never experienced it quite to this degree. I've tried wiping it down with naptha, isopropyl, Nu Finish, and Martin guitar polish to no avail. Scanning the guitar forums, apparently Virtuoso polish is said to effectively fix the problem, so I have a bottle of it ordered. If that doesn't work, I'll have to discuss it with my guitar repair tech.
I've experimented with a bunch of different string types and gauges - roundwounds, flatwounds, different alloys, everything from .010s thru .012s, and I've settled on round-core pure nickel Pyramid Classic round-wound .011-.047s. These strings have a nicely balanced, rich, fulsome tone that just rings out, and they offer excellent tuning stability with the Guildby. Of course, having pure nickel wraps, it was necessary to raise the poles on the wound strings to balance them with the unwound strings. Marvelous strings, and probably very similar to what Dave Davies had on his SFIII in 1965.
The frets are unusually low vs. modern production guitars, which seems to be common on 1950s-60s guitars, but they were nicely dressed by a professional tech prior to my purchase, so it plays cleanly up and down the entire neck. I will admit that it took some adjustment learning how to dial in the action properly and getting used to such low frets, but I've gotten comfortable with it. I had considered getting it refretted, but I think I will just leave it as is for a while at least. It plays clean and fast, so I think will leave well enough alone.
The guitar is extremely responsive to picking dynamics, most likely due in large part to the aforementioned low frets; you can really dig in and slap the strings against the fretboard! A lighter touch, of course, produces a more delicate, warmer response.
The Anti-Hum pickups are simply terrific. The neck pickup has a wonderfully smoky jazz/blues tone and the bridge pickup is bright and clear but not piercing. The out-of-phase middle position has a very sweet chime. I'm finding the SFIII capable of all of the old school styles that I typically play... blues/r&b, rockabilly, jazz/swing, surf, '60s garage, etc.
I've been cycling through a lot of guitars these past couple of years, but my '64 Starfire III ticks a whole lot of boxes for me. It's a keeper!
On the not so-good-side, the back of the neck on my guitar is very sticky/rubbery/cloudy. I know that this a common issue with nitro-finished necks, but I've never experienced it quite to this degree. I've tried wiping it down with naptha, isopropyl, Nu Finish, and Martin guitar polish to no avail. Scanning the guitar forums, apparently Virtuoso polish is said to effectively fix the problem, so I have a bottle of it ordered. If that doesn't work, I'll have to discuss it with my guitar repair tech.
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