Just back from Feline...

Bigsby

...and 40 years to the day since I first bought it from Arcade Music in North Finchley, for £186, including a fitted case.

My Guild S-60. The only guitar I've kept from when I was gigging, having sold my 80s Strat a few years ago, and the others back in 1990. This one wasn't getting much attention, with a lot of fret wear (they were pretty flat to begin with), and pots that were falling apart. Feline have done a great job on the refret, also fitting Graph Tech locking ratio tuners, and replacing all the electrics. This included swapping the Seymour Duncan I'd added in 1980 for a Railhammer Hyper Vintage pickup, and fitting a TBX tone control to mimic the Reverend bass contour within a single pot (I really didn't want to change the controls). Lovely work, and I'm really happy to have this one back as a player again.





I had thought about keeping this as a bit of a relic from my past, but I've been having so much fun with the single pickup Gordon Smith GS1000 since I got it in August, I really wanted to get this one back in action too. And I'm really glad I did. Here they are together, the GS has a recently added Les Trem II

mbe

They're both fab.

The photography is top notch also.

JerkMoans

So cool to see them spec'd up and back in action. 

Sporky

That Guild is ace. 

UnclePsychosis

Love it. Really cool pair. 

timmysoft

I love those guilds, they are cool AF. I used to sit in my local music shop playing a white one with two single coils for hours, but I could never afford to buy it

grungebob

I do like single pickup guitars, and both of those look ace. 
My only guitar that I own now ( well I’ve 2 others but their up for sale) is a single humbucker musicman Sub 1. 
With the volume and tone control you can get lots of varied sounds. 

richardhomer

Yep - that’s a cool guitar!

skullfunkerry

mbe said:

They're both fab.

The photography is top notch also.

^ exactly this

jdgm

I don't remember them with just one pickup....a mate of mine had a brown/plain one. Good guitar too!

Strat_a_tat_tat

Very nice.

Can I ask what bridge you're using with the Les Trem... is it a roller bridge of some type?

Voxman

Very cool guitars and pics!

 I bought my very first three guitars from Arcade Music in Tally-ho North Finchley, I used to live in Sandringham Gardens off Summers Lane..were you a local North Finchley boy too? 

Bigsby

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Very nice.

Can I ask what bridge you're using with the Les Trem... is it a roller bridge of some type?

Sure, it's a Graph Tech bridge. I bought it to use on my SG Standard when I fitted a B3 Bigsby - but I ended up replacing it with a roller bridge, so I thought I'd try it on the GS1000. So far it seems pretty stable, so I may just get away without having to buy another roller bridge. The saddles are very low friction, and don't seem to have had a noticeable effect on the sound, and certainly not a negative effect.

Bigsby

Voxman said:

Very cool guitars and pics!

 I bought my very first three guitars from Arcade Music in Tally-ho North Finchley, I used to live in Sandringham Gardens off Summers Lane..were you a local North Finchley boy too? 

Ha! The Guild was the only one I bought there (my first two came from the Bell catalogue), but I did visit quite often for bits and pieces. There was a guitar store in Barnet too - can't remember the name, and it may have opened a few years later - I bought my next guitar in there, a Yamaha SG700. 

My family had moved to Whetstone - and there wasn't much going on there, so I spent a lot of time in North Finchley or Barnet.  I remember the Torrington in North Finchley was a good place for gigs.

Henrytwang

Nice looking Guild, I’ve got a sunburst S60d which has 2 Demarzio SDS pickups but basically the same guitar. The build quality of these old Guilds is fantastic.

Strat_a_tat_tat

Bigsby said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Very nice.

Can I ask what bridge you're using with the Les Trem... is it a roller bridge of some type?

Sure, it's a Graph Tech bridge. I bought it to use on my SG Standard when I fitted a B3 Bigsby - but I ended up replacing it with a roller bridge, so I thought I'd try it on the GS1000. So far it seems pretty stable, so I may just get away without having to buy another roller bridge. The saddles are very low friction, and don't seem to have had a noticeable effect on the sound, and certainly not a negative effect.

Thanks for the info.
I use the trem a lot... so, on something like a PRS, I tend to saw through the plastic material that they use for nuts.  I'm not sure what material Graph Tech use - but I imagine it to be some kind of polymer, so I guess I could have the same problem.  Which roller bridge did you use on your SG... and does it work well?

(I'm looking to fit a Les Trem to a Flying V)

Thanks.

Bigsby

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Bigsby said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Very nice.

Can I ask what bridge you're using with the Les Trem... is it a roller bridge of some type?

Sure, it's a Graph Tech bridge. I bought it to use on my SG Standard when I fitted a B3 Bigsby - but I ended up replacing it with a roller bridge, so I thought I'd try it on the GS1000. So far it seems pretty stable, so I may just get away without having to buy another roller bridge. The saddles are very low friction, and don't seem to have had a noticeable effect on the sound, and certainly not a negative effect.

Thanks for the info.
I use the trem a lot... so, on something like a PRS, I tend to saw through the plastic material that they use for nuts.  I'm not sure what material Graph Tech use - but I imagine it to be some kind of polymer, so I guess I could have the same problem.  Which roller bridge did you use on your SG... and does it work well?

(I'm looking to fit a Les Trem to a Flying V)

Thanks.

Graph Tech make bridges with a choice of materials for the saddles, details are here. I bought the NV2 version. Perhaps because they "have a more balanced sound with sizzling highs, full mids and big open lows" -  I do love marketing talk.

The SG now has a Göldo roller bridge. It seemed to need a bit more help with the tuning stability. I do wonder if the extra string length on a B3 has something to do with this, the Les Trem is very close to the bridge. In fact, on the GS there's probably less than half a mm between the Les trem and the thumbscrew on the bridge! Another possibility is that the Les Trem is inherently more stable than the Bigsby, which has to rely more on looks for coolness...  

Obligatory SG pic with roller bridge, Towner tension bar and B3:


And thanks to everyone for the kind words about the pics above.

Strat_a_tat_tat

@Bigsby ; Thanks for the info.  Have a Wis.

Fez

I haven't seen one of those Guilds for years always liked 'em but never owned one.

scrumhalf

Is this turning into a Finchley love-in?

Arcade Music was before my time there but I remember Ace Tones (IIRC) in the Arcade. Not fondly.

DLM

Phwoar!

I'm nowhere near cool enough to play any of those, but all three look like prime music vid eyecatchers!