1966 Guild Starfire III restoration / conversion
Full restoration on this beautiful old Guild addressing the typical Starfire idiosyncrasies, as well as some more tailored modifications to the owners specifications!
Main repairs included new headplate, neck re-set, full re-fret and fretboard re-bind, loose binding re-glue, finish repairs and full re-wire.
Headplate was in a bad way – a very common issue with these old Guilds. Unfortunately this one had shrunk and warped beyond reasonable repair – so a replacement was in order. Managed to salvage the original inlays for use in the new solid maple replacement which was excellent.
Full electronics restoration was also on the cards with decades of oxidisation removed from the pots. Luckily all of the original electronics were working perfectly, so managed to re-use them all (including wire and caps) in the re-wired harness. Original pickups still sound amazing too!
Original bridge was also replaced with an aftermarket Bigsby G6120w bridge. Same aluminium construction and post hole spacing as the original, but perfectly intonated. The original Starfire bridges are useless unless using a wound G-string, although intonation for the rest of the strings is pretty sketchy too. Highly recommend this upgrade for all you vintage Starfire owners – no change in tone with the ability to be perfectly in tune!
Lastly, to the keen observer (or vintage Starfire enthusiast) one might note the final appearance is not exactly that of a Starfire III but rather a Starfire II. This was because at the owners request the guitar was converted to 1962 Stafire II specs. This included an original ’62 Guild Harp tailpiece and a ’62 style curved pickguard in place of the vibrato and stairstep pickguard respectively. As well as a custom made Brazilian rosewood bridge base in place of the original aluminium base. Don’t worry, the originals are still in the case, and all are ‘non-instrusive’ modifications and easily reversible if desired.
