Crooked Guitar?

[Brian Farrell]

Well, this old Guild is becoming well documented, but as long as there are people willing to answer my questions, I'm gonna keep asking them.

I imagine it must be difficult to make a perfectly symmetrical guitar, but I'm noticing some things about my old guild dread, and I'm wondering if they are normal occurances.

the neck and bridge seem to be shifted slightly to the treble side of this guitar, and I'm wondering if this is going to cause me trouble when I replace the bridge and reset the neck.

This first pic is of the bridge area and the rulers represent extension of the fingerboard. Note that the gap from the ruler to the E string is larger on the bass side (nearly 1/8").
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd35/brianfguitar/?action=view&a...

This next pic doesn't give you a great angle, but the 5" mark is on the center seam of the top; the 4" mark is at center of the low E hole, and the center of high e hole is at 6-1/16"
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd35/brianfguitar/?action=view&a...

This pic shows the center seam of the top (the ruler) running 3/32" off from the bottom seam where the sides connect.
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd35/brianfguitar/?action=view&a...

The last pic shows a view of the neck heel looking down from the headstock. The 10" mark is on the center seam of the back, and the neck heel is shifted about 1/8" to the treble side.
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd35/brianfguitar/?action=view&a...

So, It would seem that if the neck and bridge are shifted in the same proportion, then everything should be fine from a playing standpoint, although not symmetrical. Or, do I have other issues to deal with?
Should I keep the pin holes where they are or try to center them?
I had the guitar strung up briefly before bridge removal, but the action was ridiculously high so I couldn't notice anything strange.
Is this poor quality control, or something normal from an early 70's manufacture?

thanks for reading
Brian

[Frank Ford]

We see guitars of all ages with this kind of alignment issue quite frequently. As you might expect, some makers miss the mark more often than others. If the strings run appropriately down the edges of the fingerboard, we don't try to "fix" anything about the alignment. If they run severely off to one side, we'll make a correction, first by changing the neck angle if it is off for resetting. Otherwise, we'll move the bridge pin holes and make a new bridge that fits the scar on the top with holes where they need to be.

[Brian Farrell]

Thanks Frank. I don't think there is anything severe here.
The guitar needs a neck reset as well, so should my approach be to replace the bridge first, then reset the neck to match the bridge?

[Greg Mirken]

Brian, does your first photo indicate that the strings were running off to the treble side? It's not a gross error, and would be easy to align them better during the reset process.

Is that the replacement bridge you are going to use? It looks smaller than the original.

Greg Mirken

[Brian Farrell]

Greg, the smaller bridge on the bottom of the picture is not the replacement. I will be making a "historically correct" bridge that has the same footprint as the larger bridge, which I removed.

Based on what you are saying, I'm not going to worry about this mis-alignment. I am going to replace the bridge, then reset the neck with an eye towards correcting the mis-alignment if possible. Depending on how the reset goes, I may just leave it as is...as you said, its not a gross error.

Thanks!