1974 Guild F-48 Navarre Jumbo Flattop Guitar

December 22, 2019

1974 Guild F-48 Navarre Jumbo Flattop Guitar

Guild F-48s, with their mahogany back and sides (they feature a flat and braced back rather than a press-arched one with no bracing), are actually relatively hard to find. They sound a lot like a cross between a warmer-sounding Gibson J-200 and a D-18, too, which is an interesting voice to have on hand. Where a Guild F-50 (with its press-arched maple back) is punchy, rumbly, direct, and projects really well, this is all of that but with a slightly woodier, more bluegrassy vibe that doesn't punch quite as hard.

This came in on consignment and I finally got around to fixing it up the other day. It didn't need a whole lot compared to some repairs, but once I was done with it I was very happy to discover how easy this handles and how useful its sound is. I think these big Guild jumbos are perfect for heavy-handed strummers and flatpickers as they have a ton of headroom and like to get played hard, but I have heard aggressive fingerpickers do well on them, too.

Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, new bone saddle, cleaning, and setup.

Setup notes: it plays perfectly with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. The neck is straight, the truss rod works, and the frets have some life left in them yet. Strings are gauges 54w, 42w, 32w, 24w, 16, 12 low to high.

Scale length: 25 5/8"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 7/16"

String spacing at bridge: 2 3/16"

Body length: 20 1/2"

Lower bout width: 17"

Waist width: 10 1/2"

Upper bout width: 12 1/2"

Side depth at endpin: 5"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back/sides wood: solid mahogany

Neck wood: two-piece maple

Bracing type: x-braced

Fretboard: rosewood

Bridge: rosewood, compensated bone saddle

Neck feel: slim C-shape, ~14" board radius

Condition notes: aside from pickwear around the soundhole and an average amount of light scratching and small dings throughout, it's in good order and has no cracks that I can find. There's one nick on the back of the neck about halfway down that can be felt if you're a neck-squeezer but it doesn't affect my playing at all. The binding along the fretboard edges has some small cracking at the dots here and there and over the body, but it's all stable and the rest of the binding looks great. The guitar is all-original except for the bridge pins and saddle. The truss rod cover has a little damage at the lower screw area but is still holding-up fine.

It comes with: its original hard case in decent condition. It also has an old '70s in-bridge acoustic pickup installed (you can see its blacked-out sensor-head to the treble side of the saddle on the bridge itself) and I wired it to a new Switchcraft endpin jack. It works best with a preamp (it has low output) but the sound is actually quite good!