Damage caused by guitar techs

57Deluxe

Brize said:

Can anyone recommend someone to drop fill this little ding so my thumb doesn't catch it?

a student of mine had a similar with his SG. The top top (guitar building) luthier and (highly rated) didn't mention it on handover and later when challenged took it back and filled the ding with super glue and buffed it. You can't see the damage, but still....

springhead

I saw a post and pictures on the LP Forum from a chap who had taken his new LP in for some electrics work and was now in dispute with the shop.  Next to each of the four knobs was a dent in the top where they'd used a screwdriver as a lever to pry them off.  Then denied it was them and refused to fix/compensate.

Haych

Brize said:

Can anyone recommend someone to drop fill this little ding so my thumb doesn't catch it?

Unsung Hero Guitars in Torrington, I think the guy's name is Clive Savage.  He's done a lot of work for the PRS community and his touch up work is meant to be incredible.

Teyeplayer

Back in the day did the classic grunge mod of adding a humbucker as the bridge pickup to a pre-cbs mustang (it was already refinished and brutalised I’m too many ways by the previous owner so my guilt is minimal).

Anyway, took it to the only store with a tech in that little south coast town and asked for the bridge switch to split the coils, whilst the neck switch would put the pickup in phase/off/out of phase. 

When I collected and paid for it I was told he hadn’t been able to work out the wiring -it was a Seymour Duncan and a simple switch, shouldn’t have been that hard. Stupidly I let it go, paid the money and then went home and promptly had a go at the wiring myself and made it work first time. 

I learnt from that experience to research my techs first and never to take a job to them I could do myself. 

axisus

I had a strat with a Callahan trem block. Took it to a highly rated guitar tech and he messed up the screw thread on the trem arm. Pretty annoying, it still fitted but just wasn't as good any more.

In my youth I took my relatively cheap guitar to Machinehead for a fret level. Barrie Palmer worked there at the time, but no way did he do the crappy job I got back, the frets weren't crowned properly. I was too naive to complain at the time.

A luthier refretted a neck of mine with stainless steel frets and the idiot put a fret in the wrong place! It was CLEARLY wrong when you looked at it, no measurement required. He begrudgingly fixed it.

I don't use guitar techs much at all any more, I just learned to do most stuff myself. I do trust Jonathan Law with stuff but he is a long trek away unfortunately.

impmann

I still rue my Jap Tele Custom... I had it refretted by a 'luthier' in Weymouth. It came back utterly unplayable - buzzes, choking and generally terrible. I didn't have the knowledge to do anything about it, so just accepted it wasn't as good as before...

I sold it in the end, as I was so disillusioned by the guitar - a mate bought it (£150) and gave it to someone who knew what they were doing (Andy Warnock). He still has it (this all happened about 25 years ago) - and I've played it since... its a cracking guitar.

It was at that point I vowed to learn more about how to fix guitars... and so I wouldn't get screwed over again.

Haych

axisus said:

A luthier refretted a neck of mine with stainless steel frets and the idiot put a fret in the wrong place! It was CLEARLY wrong when you looked at it, no measurement required. He begrudgingly fixed it.

How is that even possible?  I don't doubt what you say but my mind can't quite get to grips with that one.

I once had a guitar refretted where ALL the frets on the treble site weren't seated properly.  They were sharp and the high e string would occasionally get caught under the tang.  It's a shame because apart from that he'd done a pretty good job, a bit more attention to detail and it would have been perfect.

I had the same guitar refretted again by a very well known workshop and while it was much better I got the impression the apprentice, or worse, a paying student, did the fret ends - they're not sharp, just very sloppy and inconsistent.

One tech did a set up of my PRS CE24 which seemed ok until rehearsal one evening.  He'd basically cocked up the trem so the knife edges weren't in the grooves of the screws mounting it to the body.  A bit of trem action and the whole bridge slipped down to the body.  That was quite simple to fix, but still, shouldn't have happened.

I'm very careful about choosing techs now and luckily I've found one who is incredibly competent and charges next to nothing.  He does it for the love of doing it and he's always busy and always has good customer feedback.  If he can't do something he'll tell you straight up rather than attempt and cock it up.

Haych

impmann said:

It was at that point I vowed to learn more about how to fix guitars... and so I wouldn't get screwed over again.

I've actually bought myself a cheap guitar just for this purpose.  It's in the process of having a fingerboard radius change and a refret.  If I cock it up I've not lost anything and I've learned a whole bunch.

Other stuff I'm confident about, it's aways been doing fretwork which has frightened me.

John_A

Haych said:

 I've found one who is incredibly competent and charges next to nothing.  He does it for the love of doing it and he's always busy and always has good customer feedback.  If he can't do something he'll tell you straight up rather than attempt and cock it up.

Are you going to tell us who this is?  Sounds like quite a find

Misty

A year or two ago I traded two nice Martins for a Lowden at a very well known guitar shop in the South. Long story short, the Lowden had a fault and the shop agreed to reverse the trade. When I got my Martins back I found that someone there had "set up" my OM28V and basically ruined it. It didn't need a set up, but some idiot had decided they could lower the action. When I got it back the nut slots had been lowered so that the open A and D rattled against the frets. The bridge saddle had been re-profiled, wrongly. The guitar no longer played well or resonated the way it did. Basically, as it was the property of the shop at the time the butchery was done, and I appreciated them reversing the trade, I had no come back. I spent £150 or thereabouts getting my local trusted luthier to replace the nut and saddle and level the frets while he had the guitar. It now plays like it should again, but I know who not to go to in future.

Teyeplayer

John_A said:

Haych said:

 I've found one who is incredibly competent and charges next to nothing.  He does it for the love of doing it and he's always busy and always has good customer feedback.  If he can't do something he'll tell you straight up rather than attempt and cock it up.

Are you going to tell us who this is?  Sounds like quite a find

For me my version of this is Howard Smith in Leicester, I know a number of us here use him and he’s in many ways the Steve Robinson of the East Midlands -one of the good guys.

Haych

John_A said:

Haych said:

 I've found one who is incredibly competent and charges next to nothing.  He does it for the love of doing it and he's always busy and always has good customer feedback.  If he can't do something he'll tell you straight up rather than attempt and cock it up.

Are you going to tell us who this is?  Sounds like quite a find

Glyn Withers, based in Caerphilly.  Don't think he has a website but does have a Facebook page called Boutique Guitars, it has lots of pictures of work he's done too.

John_A

Teyeplayer said:

John_A said:

Haych said:

 I've found one who is incredibly competent and charges next to nothing.  He does it for the love of doing it and he's always busy and always has good customer feedback.  If he can't do something he'll tell you straight up rather than attempt and cock it up.

Are you going to tell us who this is?  Sounds like quite a find

For me my version of this is Howard Smith in Leicester, I know a number of us here use him and he’s in many ways the Steve Robinson of the East Midlands -one of the good guys.

Howard was the guy that buggered up my Fernandes

Fifty9

Musicman20 said:

Man this would drive me nuts!

Does anyone know a reliable, trustworthy and decent guitar and bass tech in Manchester?

Reminds me of my colleagues newish car that came back from having a proper valet with scratches all over every single window....she only went to keep her car looking fresh and came back with it much worse.

@steverobinson

JezWynd

I damage my guitars myself; no need for techs. Recently took the truss rod cover off my Ric bass to tweak the truss rods. Some of the white backing paint on the truss rod cover remained bonded to the headstock. Doh! Fortunately when reassembled it fits together like a jigsaw piece and is hardly noticeable. I presume the original assembly must have been done before the finish had fully dried or cured.

Paul_C

I'm amazed/horrified at some of these stories, especially the ones where people get charged extra - I could never charge someone for work that they didn't ask for, and certainly not if it was work that was fixing a fault of my own.

I've charged someone the cost of a half-hour job that ended up taking most of an afternoon a number of times, I wouldn't dream of presenting someone with an extra cost they weren't expecting (apart from maybe a PP3 that turned out to be dead).

I've had to rescue a couple of jobs done by other local repairers though - don't know who as I never ask. I'd hope that if someone had a complaint they'd return it and let me sort it out free of charge.

Del_Preston

I wouldn't get too excited about Charlie Chandler's.  Nice guys in the shop, but I booked in a Warmoth Tele with a 24.75" scale conversion neck for a PLEK and setup years ago and gave them all the pertinent information.  I'd set it up pretty darn well to begin with but was convinced that the whole PLEK thing would be worth it.  Picked it up in a rush after a weekend in London and shot straight home up the M11 only to find the intonation all over the bloody place...  I can only assume they'd set it by eye to where it usually would be and hadn't bothered to check the thing.  Also wasn't convinced it had even been PLEKd with the way it played...  Absolute shower of you know what.  Spend your moolah on some tools and learn to do it yourself!

Phil_aka_Pip

I never had any such trouble with Colin who does my guitars. He checks it over in my presence then discusses options. Then he writes down what he's going to do in his little job book and I see what he writes, before the discussion is over. Whenever I've been to fetch an instrument, there it is, in perfect nick, with the work done exactly as per agreed spec.

DrJazzTap

I had the nut replaced on my SG years ago and the tech chipped the neck next to the nut slot. I remember being super fucked off at the time but kind of thought "meh what can I do?" Hindsight could have kicked off.

Kebabkid

octatonic said:

Charlie Chandler.

Seconded and I've been using him since the 80s