Guitar Spotlight:
Late 50’s to Early 60’s Guyatone GT-70 Electric Guitar
Early last year while visiting family in Ohio one of my cousins asked if I could do anything with one of my late uncle’s old guitars. It was, in fact, his first guitar and I had in possession a few very old photos of him playing the guitar at home and on stage at school in the 60’s. I was excited to see it, as other than the photos, I didn’t even know it still existed in the family! My father tells me that their Dad, a railroad brakeman, bought the guitar in Columbus, Ohio and brought it back home on the caboose for the two hour ride home from work to southeastern Ohio.
The guitar is a Japanese built Guyatone GT-70. As you can see, is very unique in features and is an obvious mid-century Japanese import from the late 50s to early 60s. It’s funky. It’s wonky. Heck… it’s so lightweight that I MIGHT have some guitar pedals that weigh more than it! This particular guitar had been untouched for most likely 55-60 years, stashed away without a case in closets over the decades. By 1965 my uncle had moved on to a Harmony Rocket and then a few years later a Gibson 335 that he played until his passing.
This bolt-on guitar was simply unplayable. It still had the three lower flatwound strings on it, and decades and decades of dust and dirt! Luckily, it appeared that nothing was ever damp as there were no major rust or humidity issues! I completely took it apart and cleaned and rebuilt from the start - wanting to obviously keep the patina "as it was" when he played it. One of the string ferrules on the headstock were missing, some were cracked, and just falling apart. I decided to make a full set of replicas of them out of Delrin on the lathe and color them to look old. The tuning machines had to be taken apart, sand blasted, polished, lubricated and put back together, as well. Then you had just general cleaning of the neck and body, electronics cleaned with Deoxit, and the neck cleaned and treated with lemon oil. All of the chrome parts were cleaned and soaked in Balistol.
I am happy with the results after putting it back together. I have this guitar adjusted playing as well as it can, considering its physical limitations like no trussrod and no routing on the pickup cavities combined with tall pickups! In fact, my father tells me that my Uncle complained that it WAS hard to play. Well… its better, but the Harmony H-59 Rocket III that came after it (which I have) is light years better than this budget Japanese guitar. Two weeks ago I took it back to my cousin. He has a son that plays now, and while it’s sure not much to learn to play on, it is a cool piece of family history that is worth hanging on to!
Below are several vintage photos of the guitar in action, before and after photos, and a quick video of me playing the guitar. Questions? Comments? Please email me at [email protected]
