Guild S-100 Polara

93
september 2018 Guitarist
reviewGUILD JETSTAR & S-100 POLARA GUILD JETSTAR & S-100 POLARA
Video demo http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
split post Kluson-style of the Jetstar. While
the bridges seem identical there’s the
stud tailpiece of the Jetstar closely placed
behind compared to the more distant,
angled anchor block of the Polara. Factor
in the scale length differences and all these
subtle differences begin to add up.
Even if both guitars shared the same scale
and hardware geometry you’d still expect
a difference between the original small
humbucking LB-1 pickups on the Jetstar
to the later larger HB-1 humbuckers on
the S-100. Then there’s the vintage wiring
of the S-100 with 223J (0.22microfarad)
tone caps – not least with a volume and
tone for each pickup – over the modern
wiring of the Jetstar with its larger 473J
(0.47microfarad) tone cap and, of course,
master volume and tone. The net result is
two quite different guitars.
We’ve discussed the ‘mismatch’ of the
Guild LB-1 pickups (Mod Squad, issue 436)
and we’d suggest you give it a go: raise the
bridge nice and close to the strings with a
little bass-to-treble tilt and pull the neck
down, especially on the bass side, and you’ll
easily find a balance. Along with that comes
a huge width of sound from the stinging
big single coil-like voice at the bridge to the
darker, textured neck and a sprightly and
vibrant mix that has a lot of Fender in there
– maybe the longer scale is adding its mojo?
As a Newark St. Starfire user, this writer
feels very at home here – there’s plenty of
60s jangle, that bridge really spanks for
instrumental leads yet it can do mellow
jazz at neck at the flick of that pickup
toggle. The volume and tone work as you’d
expect; you damp some highs with volume
reduction and the tone takes a while to kick
in but neither bothered us in the least.
Plugging in the S-100 we go up a notch
in juice. There’s a noticeable PAF-y quality
here with a little airy chime evident on
both pickups, and the mix. The bridge has
more depth, it’s more humbucking but in an
early sense – it’s far from overwound. The
neck, too, while not as such more powerful
just has a hint more clarity. The wiring
style plays its part as the volumes are quite
sensitive – a small pull back cleans up the
5. The S-100 trades a
vibrato for a standard
tune-o-matic bridge
6. With two hefty screws,
this angled chromed
metal bar firmly anchors
the strings to the body
with no moving parts
6
The Jetstar bridge
really spanks for
instrumental leads
yet it can do mellow
jazz using the toggle
A COPY… OR NOT?
From the original designs of the
Thunderbird, Polara and Jetstar in the 60s,
the turnaround to the 70s solidbodies, like
our S-100 here, was an obvious attempt
to capture some of Gibson’s SG market.
Gretsch had already been inspired by the
bevel-edged SG with its 1963 Corvette,
taken to out-there extremes with the
1966 Astro-Jet.
But although these second-wave Guild
‘copy’ models debuted in 1970, by 1977 a
new original design in the form of the
24-fret S-300 and S-60 had replaced
them. Gibson did take action against
Hoshino in the late 70s and the US was
awash with import lookalikes, but there’s
no documented evidence of any litigation
between Gibson and Guild so, perhaps, as
The Guild Guitar Book author Hans Moust
suggests, the new late-70s shape was
simply a “serious attempt to come
up with something original”.
As Guild found in the 70s, it seems to be
the case that as long as you offset that SG
body, as illustrated by ESP’s Viper design
and Vintage’s VS6 with its “ingeniously
designed drop shoulder and offset heel”,
you can sidestep any legal issues even
though there’s no dispute where the idea
originally came from.
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GIT437.rev_guild.indd 93 09/08/2018 18:42