1964 Guild D-40 Dreadnought Guitar

My buddy David Richard (a luthier over in Corinth, VT) picked up this guitar and did a bunch of work to turn it into the gem it is now. It was a fairly clean instrument when he got it but it had some flaws which he sussed-out and rectified.

The nitty gritty on this is that it's the first version of the D-40 and so it has some neat features not found on later versions -- the bracing is fan-style rather than an x-pattern and it has a wider 1 3/4" nut width and wider bridge string spacing as well. It plays more like a "vintage guitar" than the usual D-40s (which are pretty D-18-like) and has a pushed upper-mids with a sing-song quality to them that's excellent for flatpicking lead work. The bass is quite nice, too.

Repairs included: Dave reset the neck, repaired a headstock crack (a year ago: holding pat), reglued the bridge, and refinished the back of the neck as it had been hit with some shellac and was sticky-icky. He also reglued the headstock veneer, fit a new bone saddle (properly comp'd), and refretted the board. He changed the radius on the board from flat (ew) to 12" (yes, please) and then replaced the funky old tuners with some Gotoh repros. It's gone-through top to bottom and in good order and ready to go.

Weight: 4 lbs 3 oz

Scale length: 25 1/2"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

Neck shape: slim-medium C/D

Board radius: 10-12"

Body width: 15 3/4"

Body depth: 4 3/4"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid mahogany

Bracing type: fan

Bridge: rosewood

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 54w-12 lights

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium modern

Condition notes: it has a repaired headstock crack (not a major one and not in the worst place), a refinished neck (the original finish had been top-coated in an icky way), the board has been planed and refretted, and the saddle and bridge pins are replaced. The tuners are also repro-style replacements. Otherwise, it's original. There's light weather-check to the body finish here and there and hints of small usewear but overall it looks really, really clean.

It comes with: a good hard case.

Consignor tag: DR