Guild buys its tonewoods and allows them to season and acclimate properly before being used in any Guild instruments.

Installing the neck and tail blocks for the Guild Traditional Series before sanding the radius into the sides for the top and back.

Installing the rosette on a Guild D-50 Bluegrass Special.

The Guild name is wood-burnt into the internal back strip for all Guild models.

Our R&D department and head of body assembly discuss Contemporary Series bracing patterns.

Cleaning up the edges of a Madagascar rosewood bridge for a Contemporary Series model; one of the final steps before the bridge is glued onto the guitar.

Cleaning up the binding for an F-412. This and Guild's F-512, F-50, F-50R and D-55 models all have bound headstocks requiring 18 hand-made mitered cuts; one of the most challenging elements of completing of a Guild guitar.

Installing solid pearl and abalone inlays on a D-55 model. This inlay has been in use by Guild since 1954 and is done entirely by hand.

A completed Contemporary Series neck with a Madagascar rosewood fingerboard and headcap ready for installation onto its matching body.

Fine hand sanding of the lacquer between coats. Guild uses nitrocellulose or hand-applied gel varnishes on all its U.S.-made guitars, and completing our thin lacquer finishes requires an eagle eye for detail and an angel's touch.

Cleaning up each miter joint on Guild headstock binding is done by hand and with great precision. The cuts must be exact for the clean, precise look of the Guild headstock.

Our binding and purfling are cut and fitted by hand; another job requiring exacting skill and great finger dexterity. Here we're fitting a D-55 with multiple purfling and white binding.

Cleaning up the heel cap and binding on the back of an F-50.

Fitting the heel on the neck before it is set into the body is just one of many steps in gluing in the dovetail necks used on all Guild's Traditional Series instruments.

The first coat of clear lacquer being applied to an Antique Burst F-412 model.

The lacquer used on our guitars cures for 14 days from the last finish coat before the instrument is ready for final sanding and buffing, after which the guitar's bridge is glued on.

An F-50 Blonde receives its final buffing before having its bridge glued on.

After each guitar is set up, we test its playability and prepare it for shipment.