1986 Guild D-16 Dreadnought Guitar

This wrecked Guild came in from a local customer. She'd played it for years and years and taken it all over the place. At some point, however, it gained two ugly cracks on the top and a broken neckblock/heel/side joint area. Oh -- and the neck had split near the headstock and been reglued in the past. Add to that list a bunch of nicks, dings, scratches, and flaking finish. I'm trying to upsell this!

The bottom line is that these all-mahogany Guilds from the '70s and '80s are actually great guitars. I tend to prefer them to the spruce-over-hog specimens and they usually have a nice, woody, chord-banging rumble to them. They're long-scale, however, and have thin (front-to-back), electric-style necks with flattish fretboards, so while my hands protest, many will exclaim, "yahoo!"

Work included: double-bolting the neck joint back together (dollars and instrument value were an issue per a traditional repair), a fret level/dress, bridge shave, cleats for the top cracks, cleaning, and a good setup. Action is 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12th fret, strung with 54w-12 gauges, and with a straight neck.

Scale length: 25 9/16"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2 1/8"

Body length: 19 7/8"

Lower bout width: 15 7/8"

Waist width: 10 7/8"

Upper bout width: 11 5/8"

Side depth at endpin: 5 1/16"

Top wood: solid mahogany

Back/sides wood: mahogany, press-arched ply mahogany back

Neck wood: mahogany

Bracing type: x-braced

Fretboard: rosewood, synthetic nut

Bridge: rosewood, synthetic saddle

Neck feel: slim C, ~16-20" radius board

Condition notes: you can see the mess -- two bigger top cracks, lots of wear and tear, shaved bridge (but not much), and whatnot. It's still handsome and all-original, however.