Archtop By Squier!

[fenson]

Got This one this morning!
Once upon a time Fender acquire Guild Brand and start a line that was produced in Korea...
This line was first distributed with the DeArmond name and logo...then Fender stoped this line and distributed the yet not sold stock with the Squier by Fender logo... These Squiers got their DeArmond pickups replaced with Seymour Ducan Humbucker.

I finally put my hands on one of this model!
Since I've some original DeArmond pups in my private stock, soon they gonna replace the Duncan on my new "Blondie"

Archtop by Squier.jpg (3.77 MiB) Viewed 19173 times

[tytlblues]

Beautiful guitar! I’ve always had a love of arch tops! Great find.

[VikingBlues]

That is one lovely looking guitar Fenson!

Swapping out pickups - often a good idea with a new electric guitar!
The only two left in my collection both had the original pickups dispensed with. Happily!

Should sound great with the DeArmonds. Vintage tones - gotta love 'em.

[12bar]

Look like the perfect Blues guitar... congrats!

[fenson]

Thanks gents!
Already got the "real thing" the Gibson L5, also have a Wahsburn J600, an AriaPro II AF 71 and not to forget my Eastman John Pisano...
And you know what! After I'm done with pups replacement, and did some frets job and a fine intonation tuning that "poor man" archtop is acoustically (unpluged) as good as these laminated or steam-formed Gibson, Washburn and Aria but far after the Eastman wich is hand craved solid wood and suits a floating pup.
When plug The vintage DeArmond pups are doing the job! Well I also replace the wiring harness, pots and caps...
Now sounding pretty close to the real Guild grandma' !
Sound samples as soon as possible...

Cheers!

[VikingBlues]

All worked out very well - you've certainly done a fine upgrade. Look forward to hearing the results.

Good to hear it came with wiring harness, pots and caps and the like. As it should.
The last Gibson electric I got (in 2012) was marred by a PCB arrangement. Complete with special Gibson plugs for the pickups. I guess that's not so easy to do on an archtop as on a solid body.
Slowly became apparent when not over-driven hard that it lacked sustain, didn't cut through the mix. Due (I think and I found many agreeing on-line) to inferior design and a PCB used to cut labour costs of soldering work etc. more than give the guitar a proper sound.
So the only way I could tweak was to rip the whole thing out and void the warranty.
Maybe forgivable if the PCB gave great sound and added flexibility in variable wiring emulation setup. But it wasn't and didn't.
So annoyed I sold out. Still annoyed even 10+ years later!