F40 Valencia questions , Al ?

Rayk

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I don't recall ever seeing B/S woods graded like tops were, and only recall seeing "AAA" as the highest grade.
According to their grading scale, which as you may recall is seen by some here as being more stringent than a lot of other makers.
I've posted it before but in case you missed it, in Westerly's case at least, thank Willie Fritsch:
http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/articles/woodselection.pdf
One of their advantages was that they were small enough to go directly to suppliers, bypassing brokers and mass lots of possibly sub-par wood.
I don't think their volume requirements changed so much even after Westerly that that was discontinued.
If anything volume went down after Westerly.
Judging by reports of New Hartford top quality it appears their grading standards remained intact.

Custom Shop material may have been higher graded, I just don't recall seeing "AAAA" though.

Maybe I’m tripping in the AAAA from another company . There’s is a F47 on reverb claiming AAAA flamed maple back and sides lol but no clue to where the info comes from .

It is interesting that the back and sides are not graded I mean heck if CDX plywood is ok let’s roll with it ! Lol
 

adorshki

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Maybe I’m tripping in the AAAA from another company . There’s is a F47 on reverb claiming AAAA flamed maple back and sides lol but no clue to where the info comes from .
I strongly suspect seller "puffery" if that's being said about backs/sides.
There have been some comments in the last couple of months about how magnificent the maple was in very late Westerly but even the Bluesbirds that got 'em were maxed out at the "AAA" tops, and that was a $300.00 price adder (see the Bluesbird 350-6400 compared to the one right above it) on the '01 price list:

http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/files/Guild2001.pdf

Note on that list D30 and D40 spec'd with "AA" tops, and D55;JF55/65 and my beloved F65ce all spec's with AAA..and the F47's spec's with AA tops and not a word about what kind of maple on those got. In fact the only one making any description at all was the "Curly maple" on the JF65-12, but I'm happy with what they chose for F65ce's:
f65ce-5.JPG

(not mine, photo courtesy of westerlyguildguitars, but basically identical, except mine's actually more horizontally aligned than that one)
I'm pretty sure the same stuff wound up on the back of F47Mce's, so maybe that's why the seller feels compelled to call it "AAAA"
But Guild didn't.
Note also the "AAA" tops on Bluesbirds actually had patterning identical to what you see on the neck of that F65ce.
So I think they just selected the best of the maple they had that was suitable for tops and used that on those BB's.
 
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Rayk

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I strongly suspect seller "puffery" if that's being said about backs/sides.
There have been some comments in the last couple of months about how magnificent the ample was in very late wrestler but even the Bluesbirds that got 'em, were maxed out at the "AAA" tops, and that was a $300.00 price adder (see the Bluesbird 350-6400 compared to the one right above it) on the '01 price list:

http://www.westerlyguildguitars.com/files/Guild2001.pdf

Note on that list D30 and D40 spec'd with "AA" tops, and D55;JF55/65 and my beloved F65ce all spec's with AAA..and the F47's spec's with AA tops and not a word about what kind of maple on those got. In fact the only one making any description at all was the "Curly maple" on the JF65-12, but I'm happy with what they chose for F65ce's:
f65ce-5.JPG

(not mine, photo courtesy of westerlyguildguitars, but basically identical, except mine's actually more horizontally aligned than that one)
I'm pretty sure the same stuff wound up on the back of F47Mce's, so maybe that's why the seller feels compelled to call it "AAAA"
But Guild didn't.
Note also the "AAA" tops on Bluesbirds actually had patterning identical to what you see on the neck of that F65ce.
So I think they just selected the best of the maple they had that was suitable for tops and used that on those BB's.

That’s great info how do you find this stuff we need a reference page with all this stuff .

Thanks for the info :)
 

adorshki

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That’s great info how do you find this stuff we need a reference page with all this stuff .

Thanks for the info :)

Westerlyguildguitars.com is your friend and has other years of price pages and articles, too, besides a great picture gallery.
And it's run by member(s) here.
 

Rayk

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Westerlyguildguitars.com is your friend and has other years of price pages and articles, too, besides a great picture gallery.
And it's run by member(s) here.

Oh had no idea , I did see some westerly pages that hat showed models and such but the specs on a lot were empty some like the standard series did show a top grade hence the jump to conclusion their AA or CDX lol
 

adorshki

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Oh had no idea , I did see some westerly pages that hat showed models and such but the specs on a lot were empty some like the standard series did show a top grade hence the jump to conclusion their AA or CDX lol

Yep, some of 'em don't have spec pages. The ones that do, and the blurbs and many of the images, are directly from Guild catalogs, so if there was a goof in the catalog it's showing up there too..
But I only ever recall seeing grade specs in the price lists, (or a description blurb), maybe because it's a way to ID exactly why similar models have price differences.
 

Rayk

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Gotcha , it seems anymore info I need on the F40 will be forth coming from personal experience . I can't explain it but it appears one is being shipped to me and it's Tx's fault !
now how to fight off the debt collectors LOL

I'll post a NGD when it comes in . :) I'm really starting to hate Guild .............. :subdued:
 

Rayk

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Yep, some of 'em don't have spec pages. The ones that do, and the blurbs and many of the images, are directly from Guild catalogs, so if there was a goof in the catalog it's showing up there too..
But I only ever recall seeing grade specs in the price lists, (or a description blurb), maybe because it's a way to ID exactly why similar models have price differences.

So Is there a site for Tocoma and New Hampshire specs ? Figure that info be right out front ?
 

adorshki

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So Is there a site for Tocoma and New Hampshire specs ? Figure that info be right out front ?

Never seen a site dedicated to either, but when NH was up you could just dial up their website.
Oxnard had (still has?) a section titled "Archived models" which represented specs on NOS NH inventory they still had on hand, but they delete 'em as they sell out so as not to cause confusion with the Oxnard specs.
With Tacoma when I don't want to wait til I get home to check that price list I just run a Google search for the model and hope to find a cut-n-paste of a spec sheet in an eBay/Reverb listing.
One thing to keep in mind though is that Fender was lax about updating spec sheets at that time.
For example all the Tacoma spec sheets show the L350 strings as still containing an .025 G when they'd already switched to another supplier who used an .024 in Corona.
I also remember Chaz being surprised that the spec sheet for F512's was never updated to show the running production introduction of the single truss rod (a pretty major change for Guild) sometime in mid -06 "IIRC".
He also said in later threads that he thought one reason Fender decided to shutdown Tacoma is that they just couldn't keep up with all the running changes Fender wanted to implement, whereas New Hartford could (Apparently as Ovation, the builders had more experience with prototyping and small runs which help implement running production changes and other ideas that Fender apparently had in the works. We've seen some interesting prototypes pop up from that period.)
Here's what I think is important to remember about Tacoma:
1: First announced use of Adirondack by Guild. IIRC ALL braces were "Red Spruce" (adi) and the tops of F30 Aragons, F40's and D40 and D50 Bluegrass models.
2: Introduction of the "notorious" neckblock-with-spider-tone-arm system on the Contemporary Series which offered alternative topwoods to the F30 and F40 on the Contemporary models (CO-1&2 and CV-1&2) based on those bodies.
3: Introduction of the dual action truss rod to Guild guitars
4: Introduction of the single truss rod with dual flanking carbon fiber stabilizing rods to replace Guild's historically unequalled and unrivalled dual truss rod necks on 12-strings.
5: Who knows what other wonderful little secrets never made a spec sheet?
:glee:
 
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Rayk

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Never seen a site dedicated to either, but when NH was up you could just dial up their website.
Oxnard had (still has?) a section titled "Archived models" which represented specs on NOS NH inventory they still had on hand, but they delete 'em as they sell out so as not to cause confusion with the Oxnard specs.
With Tacoma when I don't want to wait til I get home to check that price list I just run a Google search for the model and hope to find a cut-n-paste of a spec sheet in an eBay/Reverb listing.
One thing to keep in mind though is that Fender was lax about updating spec sheets at that time.
For example all the Tacoma spec sheets show the L350 strings as still containing an .025 G when they'd already switched to another supplier who used an .024 in Corona.
I also remember Chaz being surprised that the spec sheet for F512's was never updated to show the running production introduction of the single truss rod (a pretty major change for Guild) sometime in mid -06 "IIRC".
He also said in later threads that he thought one reason Fender decided to shutdown Tacoma is that they just couldn't keep up with all the running changes Fender wanted to implement, whereas New Hartford could (Apparently as Ovation, the builders had more experience with prototyping and small runs which help implement running production changes and other ideas that Fender apparently had in the works. We've seen some interesting prototypes pop up from that period.)
Here's what I think is important to remember about Tacoma:
1: First announced use of Adirondack by Guild. IIRC ALL braces were "Red Spruce" (adi) and the tops of F30 Aragons, F40's and D40 and D50 Bluegrass models.
2: Introduction of the "notorious" neckblock-with-spider-tone-arm system on the Contemporary Series which offered alternative topwoods to the F30 and F40 on the Contemporary models (CO-1&2 and CV-1&2) based on those bodies.
3: Introduction of the dual action truss rod to Guild guitars
4: Introduction of the single truss rod with dual flanking carbon fiber stabilizing rods to replace Guild's historically unequalled and unrivalled dual truss rod necks on 12-strings.
5: Who knows what other wonderful little secrets never made a spec sheet?
:glee:

Damg all that info should floating around on all powerful unforgetting web .
 

Rayk

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Right.
I could tell ya, but then as Rich Cohen suggested a couple weeks back, I'd have to charge ya.

Pfffffft you get payed plenty at me expense if anything I should have check coming every month from you folks lol 😝
 

Rayk

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So it just shows interest over the years ?
 

gjmalcyon

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So it just shows interest over the years ?

Yes. Compound interest, simple interest, some interest, no interest.....

It is a website that uses bots (or spiders - same thing) to crawl websites, archiving what they find unless the site has some coding that says "no thanks".

You start here, then enter the website you want to see old versions of.
 

Rayk

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Yes. Compound interest, simple interest, some interest, no interest.....

It is a website that uses bots (or spiders - same thing) to crawl websites, archiving what they find unless the site has some coding that says "no thanks".

You start here, then enter the website you want to see old versions of.

Cool , but no research info like guitar specs and so . Still good data that can be used to say hey ! We need to kick it up a notch guys ! Lol
 

merlin6666

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Cool , but no research info like guitar specs and so . Still good data that can be used to say hey ! We need to kick it up a notch guys ! Lol

You have to put in a bit of time and effort to find an archived page that has specs. But for many old models through the 2000s this can be found just check all archived front pages for each year and click on the instrument/product links from there.
 
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