Angry with my luthier: A rant post.

[Tony_H]

Re: Angry with my luthier: A rant post.

i am at a point that i never need anything right away I have more than enough guitars. The way I look at it is perfection takes time. I NEVER RUSH MY LUTHIER. I wouldn't rush a surgeon, and I wouldn't rush my luthier. That works to my advantage at times. When he takes a very long time with a project he usually cuts the rate. I remember when I was younger, I had a project that took this guy forever to complete. That is when I started doing my own electronics. I know how you feel. But one word of advice, awesome guitar techs, amp modders/repairman, and luthiers are RARE. There are many good ones but great ones are rare. They are artists themselves. and sometimes you have to put up with there idiosyncrasies. Hope everything works out.

I see what you mean. But when he initially told me it would be a month, and it has now been 8 months and still not finished, I am disappointed.

OK, I guess I'll really have to calm down and see what happens. I still want that guitar although my perception of it will definitely be affected. That superstition thing you talk about in your second post is something I thought of too. Oh well.

[Tony_H]

Re: Angry with my luthier: A rant post.

OK, tomorrow is the D Day. I'll have my new guitar in 24 hours from now, and be sure I'll let you know how things have turned out. I have thought about the whole thing and I have also calmed down a bit, and of course I'm curious. So see y'all later.
Tony

[Benjy_26]

Re: Angry with my luthier: A rant post.

Crossing our fingers, bro.

[Tony_H]

Re: Angry with my luthier: A rant post.

Sooo...

THE GUITAR IS GOOD!!! DEFINITELY A KEEPER!!! DUH... But read on, if you care:

It's not dead perfect though. So first the niggles:
1. The bridge is not positioned its best - the high e string saddle had to be set so far towards the neck that the hole where the string comes out of the trem block is almost covered by the saddle. The intonation is still not the best (the octave harmonic is a tad higher than the fretted note). At any rate, I played the guitar in rehearsal right after I got it and there were no problems with tuning except from the new strings that were not broken in yet. I have yet to see how this will affect changing the strings. It might be quite a hassle.

2. The finish: there is some lacquer sinkage on the back. But honestly, I am mentioning this only because reviews in Guitar Player do, and in fact I don't care in the least. The front is good - a nice rich yellow opaque lacquer. (My cheeky drummer commented on it like, "Nice looking. Looks like plastic faking the wood. No, in fact it looks like wood faking the plastic that fakes wood. That's progress you know - faking plastic with wood!" The cheeky b..tard!!)

3. Tremolo setup. The trem is too tough to work. I'll try loosening the springs a tad. But this is not a real problem - just a matter of taste I guess.

4. Volume pots. They don't work the way I'd like them to - the sound gets too muddy when turned down just a bit. But this is my problem - I gave the guy my own pots that I wanted installed in the guitar.

5. Control placement. The pots are laid out as on a PRS singlecut and the pickup selector is located about where the jack is on an SG. All five controls look a bit like the Olympic circles. And the problem is that when I reach for the pup selector, the trem arm gets in the way. Oh well. I should have been more clever when designing the control layout.

Now the good things:
1. The fretboard: the luthier ground the old fretboard away and put up a new one. As the bridge is located too close to the neck, he shortened the string scale (the neck was originally a 25.5") and, as a bonus, added the 23rd and 24th frets. Woohoo! The fretwork is immaculate and the fretboard is ruler straight. A tone bender's dream! So this is definitely an improvement over my original plans, and this alone overrules any niggles.

2. The pickups: There is a '59 in the neck and a Gibby 498T in the bridge. The '59 smokes and the 498 has all the grit and dirt I could ever ask for. I plan on some experimenting with the pups, but for the time being, I will keep the guitar as is and live with it for some time.

All in all, I like the guitar, although I am mentioning more flaws than good things here. It feels great overall, and that's what matters. And I'm borrowing a digital camera this week so I'll post pics for you to judge.

Sorry for the lengthy post. I am glad that this has ended this way.
Peace
Tony