Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Dave Locher said:
The important part here is to get a refund. Go straight to the manager. No guitar nut should move, and no nut should be spaced away from the fingerboard like that. The fact that he also installed one pickup ring backwards is just another sign that this was not good work done well. If the manager will only refund for the nut and nut install, that's okay.
Then take it to someone who knows what they are doing. 25 years ago I had a bone nut made by Virgil Lay (of Lay's Music, in Akron, OH - they were right down the road from me then and they were open late!). It took him about 10 minutes total. It's been on the guitar ever since with no problems at all. No buzzing, no tuning issues, and NO moving around.

Since then I have made two or three nuts myself. None of them look quite as neat as Virgil's, but they all also stay in tune and stay put on the guitar. The person who did your work either really just doesn't know what they are doing or they really did rush through the job. Either way, it is not right.

BTW, I assume you are having tuning/intonation problems? Moving the nut away from the fingerboard like that increases the distance to the frets, which should make it impossible to get the guitar in tune correctly? I assume he forgot to glue it down at all, which means it will probably just fall off when you take off the strings.
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I think he glued it but not correctly. If you look at the one pic there is stray glue on my fretboard. And yes you are correct, I cannot get the thing to intonate. I asked him if he was able to get it intonate with this not very adjustable bridge as I was trying to determine if I would get the better version of this bridge from PRS or one with individual saddles. He said he was able to. Not so I found out. He also didn't do any adjustment on the pick ups. The Bridge pickup was way too close to the strings. What happened with the nut moving was this: after I discovered the gap, I became curious as to how well it was glued. So i pushed on the nut from the side and it made a nice "pop" and the bridge shifted slightly. I think he is not really qualified to be a tech and rushed through the job. The guy forgot to call me to tell me he was done. I had an appointment in Fairview that day so I decided to check and see if he had my guitar done. So he totally dropped the ball here.
 
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Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

It sounds like he was totally out of his depth. Sorry to hear that. You must take that guitar to someone who knows what they are doing. If possible, find someone who builds guitars and/or someone who is licensed by big manufacturers to do repairs.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Dave Locher said:
It sounds like he was totally out of his depth. Sorry to hear that. You must take that guitar to someone who knows what they are doing. If possible, find someone who builds guitars and/or someone who is licensed by big manufacturers to do repairs.
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You know, that's what is kind of nuts. The Guitar Center where I took my guitar (at least when I checked a few months ago) is an authorized Taylor repair place. No way I would take my Taylor there ever!!!! I am of half a mind to contact Taylor and tell them that might want to look into how qualified the techs at GC are to be working on their instruments.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

There is NO WAY Taylor would authorize a craphole music store like GC known for NOT providing customer service to be a service center.
Did GC tell you this, or did Taylor?
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

The guy started bad at the very beginning: PRS uses nuts that are thicker than standard Gibson or others, so you've gotta make your own from scratch using an over-sized bone piece, cut it, shape it, etc. That's kinda expensive, so it's done in either top-of-the-line instruments or being commissioned by extremely anal guys, which are also cheap. A recipe for disaster either way.

What the guy did was to take a standard, pre-cut nut and just glued there, without even cleaning up the slot, that's why the too small nut sit skewed.

All signs point to a seriously under-qualified person for the task at hand.

OK, I know it's your guitar and you can do whatever you want with it, but why to change the nut? PRS SE's nuts are not made of cheap plastic but from some synthetic material similar to TUSC, which works extremely well.

From all the SEs that passed through my workbench, not even one had a bad cut and/or intalled nut. A not-so-stellar setup, yes. But none even had a single piece of any kind of structural part misplaced or not working properly. Most of them changed p'ups, though.

HTH,
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Graptech has a TUSQ nut that will fit the PRS SE. It's not specifically made for the SE's so it may be less "drop in" than the so called drop in's. Not intending to be argumentative but the point being that one doesn't have to start from scratch with a blank. That said, I agree with LtKojak above in that the "tech" apparently took what they had on hand, which was clearly not wide enough, and stuck it in the slot. To me, that's the sign of a hack who takes zero pride in what he's chosen to do for a living and probably doesn't care.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

ICTGoober said:
There is NO WAY Taylor would authorize a craphole music store like GC known for NOT providing customer service to be a service center.
Did GC tell you this, or did Taylor?
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Well they were actually listed on the Taylor website.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

LtKojak said:
The guy started bad at the very beginning: PRS uses nuts that are thicker than standard Gibson or others, so you've gotta make your own from scratch using an over-sized bone piece, cut it, shape it, etc. That's kinda expensive, so it's done in either top-of-the-line instruments or being commissioned by extremely anal guys, which are also cheap. A recipe for disaster either way.

What the guy did was to take a standard, pre-cut nut and just glued there, without even cleaning up the slot, that's why the too small nut sit skewed.

All signs point to a seriously under-qualified person for the task at hand.

OK, I know it's your guitar and you can do whatever you want with it, but why to change the nut? PRS SE's nuts are not made of cheap plastic but from some synthetic material similar to TUSC, which works extremely well.

From all the SEs that passed through my workbench, not even one had a bad cut and/or intalled nut. A not-so-stellar setup, yes. But none even had a single piece of any kind of structural part misplaced or not working properly. Most of them changed p'ups, though.

HTH,
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Has that always been the case with the SE nuts? The nut ure looked like plastic. I know that what you said is the case with the new ones. The only things done that would have affected the unplugged tone would be the new tuning machines and the nut. I did go from a 10 to a 9.5 string guage but, I noticed a massive improvement in the unplugged tone of the guitar. So I would think the nut was the factor that made the biggest contribution to the change. The original nut was cut perfectly and I had no fret buzz. And the action was quite low.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

ICTGoober said:
There is NO WAY Taylor would authorize a craphole music store like GC known for NOT providing customer service to be a service center.
Did GC tell you this, or did Taylor?
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I went and checked out the Taylor website. There are a few GC locations on there yet but, the one where the guy works who did this sub-standard job on my guitar is no longer on the list. I think I can guess why.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Darg1911 said:
Graptech has a TUSQ nut that will fit the PRS SE. It's not specifically made for the SE's so it may be less "drop in" than the so called drop in's. Not intending to be argumentative but the point being that one doesn't have to start from scratch with a blank. That said, I agree with LtKojak above in that the "tech" apparently took what they had on hand, which was clearly not wide enough, and stuck it in the slot. To me, that's the sign of a hack who takes zero pride in what he's chosen to do for a living and probably doesn't care.
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That guy is never touching one of my guitars again. He is a very nice guy, and from what I hear a heck of a guitarist. But definitely not a tech. I went in and told him about it and he said no problem just bring it back. "We watch our work here". I was thinking to myself "dude if you watched your work I would not have had these issues". I also discovered a not super deep but long scratch on the top of the headstock. All I can say is WOW!!! I didn't really want to deal with it but I am getting more and more tempted to offer the guy a choice. In the nicest way possible tell him that he can either give me a partial refund, or I can ask the manager to do so. I am not sure it's worth the hassle but at the same time I kind of feeling like I should get some money back because the I am going to have to have re-done what should have been done right in the first place. I haven't pursued it real hard because I really hate conflict and I feel like a bad person for saying anything. Which is stupid!! Why should I feel bad for this guys crummy job? It's not my fault he can't do the job he is paid to do. I really blame GC because from what I have heard after the fact, the guy has had a ton of complaints. Yet he is still working there as a tech. Not cool!!
 
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Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

jalguitarman said:
That guy is never touching one of my guitars again. He is a very nice guy, and from what I hear a heck of a guitarist. But definitely not a tech. I went in and told him about it and he said no problem just bring it back. "We watch our work here". I was thinking to myself "dude if you watched your work I would not have had these issues". I also discovered a not super deep but long scratch on the top of the headstock. All I can say is WOW!!! I didn't really want to deal with it but I am getting more and more tempted to offer the guy a choice. In the nicest way possible tell him that he can either give me a partial refund, or I can ask the manager to do so. I am not sure it's worth the hassle but at the same time I kind of feeling like I should get some money back because the I am going to have to have re-done what should have been done right in the first place. I haven't pursued it real hard because I really hate conflict and I feel like a bad person for saying anything. Which is stupid!! Why should I feel bad for this guys crummy job? It's not my fault he can't do the job he is paid to do. I really blame GC because from what I have heard after the fact, the guy has had a ton of complaints. Yet he is still working there as a tech. Not cool!!
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No decent person likes conflict. It's not about a conflict. It's about getting what you paid your hard earned money for. And brother, turn the other cheek doesn't mean take it in the wallet when a service or product that you paid for doesn't live up to reasonable expectation. The choice is yours. Walk away and foot the bill yourself. Let the "tech" try and make it right. Or, ask for and expect a refund for that portion of the work which wasn't performed competently. If you choose the latter, bring the guitar and show the manager what his "tech" did, or rather, didn't do. That's not starting a conflict. It only becomes a conflict if the manager makes it one after that point. If he does and you don't want to try and reason with him/her, then walk away and chalk it up as lesson learned. But, not saying anything just further enables them to pawn off shoddy work on more customers. Again, it's up to you.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

Darg1911 said:
No decent person likes conflict. It's not about a conflict. It's about getting what you paid your hard earned money for. And brother, turn the other cheek doesn't mean take it in the wallet when a service or product that you paid for doesn't live up to reasonable expectation. The choice is yours. Walk away and foot the bill yourself. Let the "tech" try and make it right. Or, ask for and expect a refund for that portion of the work which wasn't performed competently. If you choose the latter, bring the guitar and show the manager what his "tech" did, or rather, didn't do. That's not starting a conflict. It only becomes a conflict if the manager makes it one after that point. If he does and you don't want to try and reason with him/her, then walk away and chalk it up as lesson learned. But, not saying anything just further enables them to pawn off shoddy work on more customers. Again, it's up to you.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
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Yes, I totally agree with this!


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Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

jalguitarman said:
Well they were actually listed on the Taylor website.
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Then I can totally understand why you took it there in the first place. I would have thought that meant assured quality as well.
Sorry all of this has happened but it's not that huge of a deal, just a disappointment. Speak calmly and rationally to the manager like Darg1911 says and if that doesn't work then just go elsewhere. I have no idea how much they may have charged for that nut job but hopefully it wasn't a small fortune.
 
Re: Nut replacement issue. (Pics)

GuitarDoc said:
"Rushing through it" is no excuse for poor quality. Lack of skill, lack of pride in your work, lack of caring for the customer, lack of ethics ...IS.
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Lots of people claim to be techs these days.. until you see their, ehm, jobs on your beloved axes.. may they burn in hell ASAP.

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