NS Starfire VI

2nevets

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Holy smokes the best $950 I ever spent. This thing is incredible for that kind of money.
The build quality - fit and finish the fretboard all top notch.the only downside is some of the gold plating on the Guildsby is dull
This is what guild or Fender called a blem
Totally pleased
 

SFIV1967

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dancing2.gif
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GSFV

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Gorgeous!! I love that the Guildsby blocks the line from the 2 piece top. It always bugs me that flame maple tops don't have flame lines that line up. A little OCD I guess. But the guildsby blocks me from seeing that helping me to appreciate the flame! And the flame deserves appreciation!

Is the fretboard ebony? Or dark rosewood?

$950?! Pretty sweet! I spent more on a SFV a few years back, yours has more bling. I say good buy! How does it play/sound?
 

GAD

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Gorgeous!! I love that the Guildsby blocks the line from the 2 piece top. It always bugs me that flame maple tops don't have flame lines that line up. A little OCD I guess. But the guildsby blocks me from seeing that helping me to appreciate the flame! And the flame deserves appreciation!

Is the fretboard ebony? Or dark rosewood?

$950?! Pretty sweet! I spent more on a SFV a few years back, yours has more bling. I say good buy! How does it play/sound?

The lines casn't line up. By definition they need to be opposites because they're book-matched meaning that the slice a piece of wood in half and open it like a book. The best you can do in that scenario is polar opposite but that's rare. Wood is an organic thing. If the top is perfect, it's probably fake, or REALLY expensive.

LesPaul-2014-R9Top1.jpg
 

adorshki

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Gorgeous!! I love that the Guildsby blocks the line from the 2 piece top. It always bugs me that flame maple tops don't have flame lines that line up. A little OCD I guess.
Actually they do, they're usually "bookmatched" (a single sheet sliced through the edge and opened out like so):
il_340x270.1671140953_eies.jpg


But a property called "runout" now causes each side to reflect light at opposite angles so what appears dark on one side at a given angle looks light on the other.
Usually minimized with higher grade woods and at just the right angle of reflection, although then usually some of the figuring characteristics become less prominent in some areas and more prominent in others.
Like so:
guild-bluesbird-aaa-9106.jpg

'97 Bluesbird with a AAA top and photographed at just the right angle, notice how the seam just below the bridge is almost invisible.

Another:
vswidooi5ior3vdkokjd.jpg

Granted those are both quilted and stained which improves their manners, unstained flame is pretty tough.
Here's an example of how it works on the same guitar from different angles:
te0ohbrdunvelrweunsl.jpg

Below the bridge, mmmm. smooth and creamy.
mvmez8bz5rx9igcnik4i.jpg

Now the seam's almost invisible between the pickups.
Edit:
Hah!
I see Gary beat me to the draw, but no harm, you got to see more pretty pics.
:glee:
 
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GSFV

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Great photos! I clearly don't have an eye for photography because my pictures never look like that. It may also be because I'm using an iPhone. Who knows...

I get that the wood is organic and can't match. And I appreciate that. I have a minor wood working hobby. Like really really minor. So minor it might actually be diminished (sorry, no more music puns). But because it doesn't match, it bothers me... I actually prefer a more basic top with a sunburst finish, than all the crazy flame tops and such. The tops are beautiful, but I think that I am in the minority by preferring a burst with a relatively plain top. Like...PRS. just way too much going on in their tops for my taste.

Which is one of the reasons I like 2nevets Starfire VI so much! It has a more subtle flame top. Tight grain lines/patterns. It looks gorgeous! :love-struck:
 

adorshki

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Great photos! I clearly don't have an eye for photography because my pictures never look like that. It may also be because I'm using an iPhone. Who knows...

I get that the wood is organic and can't match.
It's not that it can't match because it's organic.
It does match, the two sides of a book-matched top are mirror images of each other.
It's just that now that that original piec of wood has been split down the center and laid out, the grain reflects light in different directions on each side.
So what looks like a light stripe one side looks like a dark stripe on the other.
Did you see the photos in post #7?
Or, if you're viewing on a n iPhone, maybe you can't see the detail large enough to see how they do match perfectly and the seam's invisible when viewed from the right angle.
 

JohnW63

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If they split it and book match it and then sand the top smooth, I would suspect a little change in how well they match would occur, because some of the wood is missing.
 

GAD

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Great photos! I clearly don't have an eye for photography because my pictures never look like that. It may also be because I'm using an iPhone. Who knows...

I get that the wood is organic and can't match. And I appreciate that. I have a minor wood working hobby. Like really really minor. So minor it might actually be diminished (sorry, no more music puns). But because it doesn't match, it bothers me... I actually prefer a more basic top with a sunburst finish, than all the crazy flame tops and such. The tops are beautiful, but I think that I am in the minority by preferring a burst with a relatively plain top. Like...PRS. just way too much going on in their tops for my taste.

Which is one of the reasons I like 2nevets Starfire VI so much! It has a more subtle flame top. Tight grain lines/patterns. It looks gorgeous! :love-struck:

You're not alone, just so you know. Feast your eyes on this - a very rare one-piece top 2004 Gibson R9:

_B0Z3354_800.jpg
 

kakerlak

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If they split it and book match it and then sand the top smooth, I would suspect a little change in how well they match would occur, because some of the wood is missing.

This is generally true. The more wood is missing b/w each side, the more opportunity there is for the grain not to match, side-to-side. For thin plywood veneers like this Starfire, you usually get a pretty strong/close bookmatch, since very little wood is lost b/w the two split sides. For something like carved Les Paul tops and carved archtop backs, the match tends to be strongest in the center, where the least wood has been carved away and weaker around the perimeter, where more wood is gone. The closer to quarter-sawn and generally straight the grain is, the less skew you get on the mirror image effect in the grain itself, but figure tends to shift/weaken/intensify throughout the wood blank, so the mirroring effect can be pretty variable in carved tops.

BTW, I'd have liked these better if they hadn't done a bookmatched veneer and were single-sheet instead, even if it meant using less figured veneers. 335-style guitars always look weird to me with center-seamed tops.
 
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