When kits go wrong - replacement arrives

TheOtherDennis

Just to prove that my previous efforts with a Martin jumbo acoustic kit and a StewMac dreadnought kit were beginner's luck, I've had a complete nightmare with one I bought in January.

I ordered a supposedly "Master Grade" kit - an OM kit, with walnut back and sides, and a Western Red Cedar top, and a bolt-on neck.

First, the sides were properly cut and weren't the same size. So I had to get a replacement set sent. Then the back was too small, and that had to be replaced, too, with a new set of back braces.

Then the top and back didn't fit. StewMac provide a cardboard form that you make the guitar around the outside of. That was fine, I used all the clamps I could to get it to the right shape, but I had to tweak and cheat a bit to get the top and back onto the sides on in a way that was acceptable. There were very small gaps, but I thought with the binding on they wouldn't be noticeable.

Then I spotted that the neck block was at a weird angle, and seemed to have a hunched shoulder - if you look at the guitar from the front, the left hand shoulder was higher and more angled than the right. I tried to scrape it level, but got frighteningly close to scraping the entire side away.

Then the neck angle was all over the place, both up and down and side to side. I tried to adjust the bolt holes in the neck block with a round file so that the neck would sit right, and worked away at the join, but I'm not happy about the angle that the bolts will be at when I tighten the nuts inside. I jut think that as I tighten the bolts, they'll change the angle again back to the original incorrect angle.

And on the subject of the nuts, they're incredibly difficult to get onto the bolts, because the top brace just inside the sound hole gets in the way of the higher bolt, and the back brace opposite does the same for the bottom bolt. My hands aren't that big, and I've definitely put the correct braces in the right places according to the plans and instructions.

Anyway, I then routed out the channels for the binding, glued the binding, and now it won't stick - it keeps coming off, leaving a layer of hardened glue that's a killer to remove.

All this on top of the ridiculous expense of importing the bloody thing.

First up, I was charged £170 in duty on a kit that cost roughly £670 with shipping. Then I was charged another 50 quid duty on supposedly free replacement sides, then another 60 on replacement back and braces that were also supposed to be free.

So over 900 quid on a kit that's the polar opposite of @Andyjr1515's self build acoustic (which is genuinely a work of art).

The only thing I can think about the binding coming off is does TiteBond go off over time? I've had this bottle for a few years, but if it does go off, the braces and back and sides are all glued down pretty solidly, so I don't understand why the binding should keep coming off.

Anyway, even for me this is a disaster. StewMac did their best with replacements, but nothing else has gone right.

It's a lovely day, but I'm in a dark mood. 

ICBM

It's unfortunate when that happens. There comes a point where it just isn't possible to salvage something that wasn't really made right in the first place and make a good finished product out of it. I don't do acoustic guitars, but working on customers' kit-built electrics can often be a frustrating experience.

You should not have been charged import duty on replacement parts, but Customs & Excise are a law unto themselves. I have been more than once too...

Yes, Titebond does go off - the consensus seems to be that 2 years is about the maximum shelf life. Even then it seems to stick some things and not others - I keep my old bottle for 'household' type repairs where strength doesn't really matter, and it seems to be OK.

Andyjr1515

Commiserations @TheOtherDennis on your trials and tribulations with the kit. 

Supply of wrongly sized components from a company such as Stewmac (or with their branding endorsement) is more than a bit shocking!  And yes - I've also been stung by customs and VAT mis categorised either by the sender or HMRC.  It does add insult to injury...

It's odd - given that you have experience of Martin and Stewmac kits - that you have had such difficulties.  It might be worth dropping Stewmac h/office a line (often that is a different to the trading contacts) as surely these are issues that they should be aware of.

And thanks for your kind words.  But there is a but.  Your phrase of having to 'tweak and cheat a bit' to get things to fit is a perfect description also of every acoustic build I have done.  My own description of acoustic builds is that they are a series of compromises held together by hope.

In terms of practical help.  There are two things that struck me from your description.

Neck fit.  Yes - it's a b**l aching process of filing, sanding, flossing, checking,  bolting, unbolting and redoing it all over again.  Took me a whole day (I'm talking 8 hours) to just change the neck angle by 1 degree.  And my fingers were seriously frayed by the constant and difficult process of fitting the bolts.  BUT - don't worry too much about the bolt angles.  As long as there is enough play so that the bolts aren't literally pulling the whole thing out of line, then the thing - the only thing - that is holding the angles in the right position is the joint itself.  So as long as the bolts can tighten to fully close the joint of the heel against the body block, it will be in the set angles.

Binding - is it plastic binding?  And if so, does it actually say use Titebond?  If so, I'm surprised.  Most builders seem to use acetone or UHU plastic cement which melts the plastic bond with the wood.  That too has its moments, but, whatever, I would doubt that Titebond would hold it.  Titebond works by the absorbtion of the glue into the grain - which it can't do with plastic.  If it's wood binding, ignore me!

Hope this helps.  And I think you should be making a real big fuss about to Stewmac about the incorrect components and the oncost to you which, in my view, they should be refunding you.

**Edit: Martin changed to Stewmac in above.  Realised you are building a Stewmac kit.  Same sentiments

Danielsguitars

Ruderer l530 is one of the best glues I've used on plastic binding so far

If you're using wood binding titebond is definitely the one to use, even clamping a certain portion in place and waiting till it dries before moving round helps, that's how i approached mine anyway to try and minimise any gaps, using a thick 1 inch rubber band is also a great way to hold it in place 

TheOtherDennis

Thanks for that @Andyjr1515, I wasn't aware of any of those points. I genuinely believed that when the nuts were screwed on, they flattened themselves against the neck block, realtering the angle. If it's the neck that flattens itself, then fair enough, I'll have another go (or three or four). Oh, and I do know that I need to work hard to get the neck angle right - the first StewMac kit I did also has a bolt-on neck and I had to work on that too, but nowhere near as much as this one, I was genuinely taken aback by how far this one was out, which is why I was worried.

As for the binding, yes, it is indeed plastic, but I used Titebond on the previous two with no issues whatsoever. On the Martin kit, it's been there for 11 years! Initially I thought the same as you, it's a wood glue, it won't work on plastic and so I used another glue for plastics, I can't remember what, but it didn't work, the binding didn't stay on at all. So I used Titebond on it instead and that DID work, bafflingly, on both kits.

Hmm, I'll need to have another think at that then. Think I'll take a look at @Danielsguitars's suggestion of Ruderer.

Cheers for the help and encouragement, guys, I appreciate it.

Andyjr1515

If it's any consolation, @TheOtherDennis ,  on an acoustic build I find fitting the neck - even a bolt-on mortice and tenon - the most difficult bit of the whole process bar none!


I did do a dovetail joint once...but concluded that those should be reserved for folks who ought to share the same wards as the criminally insane.  Honestly - great kudos to those who can, but it's completely beyond me to do one and not end up with deep psychological trauma....


But even on what should be straightforward - a mortice and tenon bolted - I find it challenging.  

On my present build, I used a jig and template to cut the tenon and mortice square and true.


Having the advantage of not putting the back on yet, I trial fitted the neck; checked the angles; then put a (good) brad point drill in the holes to spot mark the drilling points on the firmly clamped neck.  I drilled the inserts holes to a 100th of a mm accuracy and fitted the inserts true and square.


So when I fitted the machine screws, it had to be exactly as I had clamped it - right?


You can see here HOW UNBELIEVABLY FAR I've had to open up holes and recesses to get the neck to bolt up at all!!!!



And then, fitting the neck heel block so that it is flat against the body block - AND at all the right angles - and when the gap won't close up just where is it fouling?  Is it the tenon itself sitting proud?  Is it the corners rounded somewhere?  Is it an unseen and unseeable lump somewhere?


But - once that is all sorted, you can see here that if the joint is closed, that neck can't go anywhere else except at the sideways and vertical angle it's currently at, right or wrong:



And the bolts are just holding that joint tight.

Just a couple of tips that I'm sure you are already aware of.  

It makes it a LOT easier if you relieve the inner part of the heel, so you are only having to sand and floss the heel edges to get it to fit gap free and at the right angle:




Secondly, when I am flossing the joint to get a lump free joint at the right angle, I use some emery cloth sheets from Wilko (£4 for a mixed pack) which are nice and flat and are easier to be able to pull through without inadvertently rounding the edges.  Emery paper or sandpaper rips too easily - you have to pull really hard! :



I generally very loosely bolt - so I can still lift the neck away from the body a couple of mm, but the bolts are broadly holding the neck in position - then, pull the sheet through parallel to the body sides.

Then, I'm afraid, you have to now and again tighten the bolts properly and recheck the progress of gap closure and neck angle accuracy.  

This is the bit that took me a full day and left my hands 'mechanic shredded'.

Hope this helps

 

  

TheOtherDennis

That's all really interesting, thanks very much, Andy.

However...

You did the very sensible thing of putting the top on first. In the instructions for ALL of the kits I've worked on, the back goes on first and then the top and you adjust the neck angle from there. That's why I've had such issues - I'm not able to make recesses like you have, because I can't get in there. That's why I've been worried about the angle of the nuts and bolts.

I'm also a bit rubbish at the join between the shoulders and the neck. I haven't done mine the way that you did, but I've not finished the walnut kit, so I'll maybe have a look at your technique when I've sorted out the binding.

The Martin kit, btw, is a dovetail neck and was just as much a pain in the arse as you think it would have been, only MUCH more frightening, because I only had one chance to get it right. Thankfully, I did, but the 'join' with the back and sides was awful because I couldn't find any metal card scrapers until several years later, because I had no idea what I was looking for, so the binding sits proud of the back at both the top and bottom, and the neck join is unclean as a result. So I padded it up with mahogany shavings from thinning out the neck radius and it's a lot better than it was.

And, incidentally, all of the kits came with neck and block joints all cut and ready to be micro-adjusted for fit and angle, so I haven't done nearly as much work as you have, nor to anything like the accuracy and skill that you've used. (And no, it's not false modesty or any form of attempted humble-bragging - if I thought we lived reasonably close to each other, I'd bring them over so you could see for yourself.)

Here are the two kits I've already made in their original forms - 

StewMac

Martin (they no longer export these kits due to CITES)

Danielsguitars

For finessing the neck joint and shoulders i use a really flat piece of aluminium or thin ruler maybe an inch wide with whatever grit paper you want to use, hold the neck in place while sliding the ruler with the paper facing out to the tenon etc and slide back n forth, this is how i do all my joints with shoulders to get them tight fitting, can take quite a while though 

I only got taught to do a tapered dove tail on acoustics which can be very trying, haven't done one in along time now but I'd be using it again, a router is used now apparently, much easier 

earwighoney

Danielsguitars said:

For finessing the neck joint and shoulders i use a really flat piece of aluminium or thin ruler maybe an inch wide with whatever grit paper you want to use, hold the neck in place while sliding the ruler with the paper facing out to the tenon etc and slide back n forth, this is how i do all my joints with shoulders to get them tight fitting, can take quite a while though 

I only got taught to do a tapered dove tail on acoustics which can be very trying, haven't done one in along time now but I'd be using it again, a router is used now apparently, much easier 

You really have to make another acoustic Darren.  

@TheOtherDennis good luck with getting your kit sorted.

Andyjr1515

Danielsguitars said:

For finessing the neck joint and shoulders i use a really flat piece of aluminium or thin ruler maybe an inch wide with whatever grit paper you want to use, hold the neck in place while sliding the ruler with the paper facing out to the tenon etc and slide back n forth, this is how i do all my joints with shoulders to get them tight fitting, can take quite a while though 

I only got taught to do a tapered dove tail on acoustics which can be very trying, haven't done one in along time now but I'd be using it again, a router is used now apparently, much easier 

Good tip

TheOtherDennis

UPDATE on the neck alignment saga

Having allowed this to gather dust for a year or so, I thought I'd try to ask a professional what he thought.

I found a guy who's in Lincolnshire who makes his own acoustics, and used to run a course in Nottingham on it, and asked his opinion.

And he reckons that when I had to squeeze the waist in so much as I did because the top and back were so small, and had virtually no spare wood around the edges at all, I pushed the neck block out of true. As a result, nothing I will ever do will straighten up the neck unless I take the top and back off the sides and reglue them. Because I've already routed the sides for the binding, he thinks that only a pro could do that properly and safely without causing major damage, and that would cost several hundred more than I've already spent.

Bugger.

A grand's worth of dead posh matchwood then.

I emailed StewMac about this (making clear that whatever the problems with the kit, it was me wot made the crucial error, not them) and they came straight back within ten minutes reiterating that they'd be happy to refund the cost of the kit or give me a credit note of equal value.

So a not very good kit from a company with first class customer service.

Not sure what to do next.

jaymenon

Take StewMac up on their offer - but defer shipping of the new/replacement kit until a friend or a relative is visiting the US. Have it shipped to the US address and they bring it back with them when they come home to the UK. 

WezV

Do you want to build another kit, or has this soured the experience too much?

Do you trust Stew-mac can supply a kit without issues?  

Are you willing to pay another postage/customs bill?


if the answer to any of those questions is no, take the refund.

Stew-mac kits are usually very good.

TheOtherDennis

jaymenon said:

Take StewMac up on their offer - but defer shipping of the new/replacement kit until a friend or a relative is visiting the US. Have it shipped to the US address and they bring it back with them when they come home to the UK. 

I'm going to take StewMac up on the refund/credit, but I don't have any friends heading for the States to bring it back for me.

@WezV has got to the nub of it with his three questions.

WezV said:

Do you want to build another kit, or has this soured the experience too much?

Do you trust Stew-mac can supply a kit without issues?  

Are you willing to pay another postage/customs bill?


if the answer to any of those questions is no, take the refund.

Stew-mac kits are usually very good.

I really don't know the answers to these questions. In order...

It hasn't really soured the experience that much, but it has made me think twice about another go.
I'm not sure about that, because although I agree that StewMac kits are usually very good (I built a dreadnought one a few years that sounds great and plays really nicely; it's still my go to acoustic), I'm not as confident as I once was.
And that's a big one. I'm really not sure about that at all, because if I get another kit, that'll be another £170 in duty, and even if I get a belter of a kit that comes out as good as my dreadnought, it'll have wound up costing well over a grand, and I could get a half-decent second hand Taylor 314 or 414/Martin OM for not much more than that. BUT if I take the refund and put it towards a second hand etc, that'll still have been several hundred quid for nothing plus the extra necessary to get the secondhand etc. Or I'll get roughly £550 quid back and lose out to the tune of roughly £450.

Then again, I've just been on their website and they have this -
https://www.stewmac.com/kits-and-projects/instrument-kits/acoustic-guitar-kits/wsx-le-aaaa-monkeypod-om-guitar-kit-bolt-on-neck---015.html?pref_currency=P

Sigh.

I used to be indecisive but now I'm not so sure...

WezV

If its purely a financial decision, take the refund and offer the kit on ebay/reverb as a project with the issues listed.... might still get a bit back for that.   You will have lost a chunk, but you should also end up with a nice amount towards something else.

That does assume you haven't already used it for firewood. 

TheOtherDennis

Well, on the basis of hope rather than experience, I chose a replacement kit, because I want an OM shape in my collection, for reasons I'm simply unable to articulate. I just do, really, more fool me.

Anyway, when I hesitated re the tax/duty issue, they offered to repay that too if I send them a receipt. 

So I picked one of the kits I mentioned above.

Let's see how it goes. I can't help feeling that I'll have exactly the same issues re the back and top fit that I had on the first one, but we'll see when it arrives. The top and back of the dreadnought kit I had from them before were cut generously enough to allow room for being unable to squeeze the waist of the sides in far enough; I reckon that was the real issue with the kit I had the problems with, and I'm worried it will be again.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but if not, I'm not sure what I'll do, really. We'll see when it arrives.

TTony

https://guitarmaking.co.uk/course/build-acoustic-guitar-online/

Sorry to read of your "experiences".  But, always an opportunity to learn something!

The link above is to an online course that'll take you through building from absolute scratch (rather than a kit), but the first parts of the course will essentially be making the bits that you've bought in the kit.  The subsequent  parts are about how to put it all together.

You might not be able to follow the course step-by-step (because your kit will likely be different), but I'd bet that you'd get a lot of useful insights into how to put the kit together successfully.  Mark being Mark, I'd also bet that he'd be happy to  help course followers with any problems they might encounter putting a kit together, even if they didn't buy the kit from him (he also sells acoustic kits!).

It costs £19/mth to get access to all of his courses.  Watch any of the lessons as many times as you want.  The content is there and available for as long as you pay your £19/mth (ie, pay once for a taster month, see if it might help you).

Don't  trash the first kit.  You never know if you might want to cannibalise it for parts for another build, or you may even fancy another run at it once you've got a successful build under your belt.

TheOtherDennis

What's so disappointing about the fuck up is that the kit comes with a pretty good dvd, that helped me get through the dreadnought kit pretty successfully, but I'll give that course a look anyway.

And the first kit is dead. I sent some pics to the guy I mentioned in my earlier post about it and while he said a pro could probably revive it, it would be seriously expensive.

I have learned from it, mind. I hope.

enjo

TheOtherDennis said:

What's so disappointing about the fuck up is that the kit comes with a pretty good dvd, that helped me get through the dreadnought kit pretty successfully, but I'll give that course a look anyway.

And the first kit is dead. I sent some pics to the guy I mentioned in my earlier post about it and while he said a pro could probably revive it, it would be seriously expensive.

I have learned from it, mind. I hope.

Sorry to hear of your woe's - it would be a shame to waste the wood though - could you convert it to a parlour or even a posh ukulele/guitalele?

TheOtherDennis

According to the luthier I sent my pics to it would take a serious amount of work to rescue it. It is, apparently rescuable, but he reckoned that it would take an expert to manage it.

I doubt very much I'll do anything with it at all, it'll just sit there gathering dust, to be honest.

TheOtherDennis

So my replacement kit has arrived, and I don't know quite how Fedex managed it, but I've not been charged import duty or tax! A definite improvement on my previous experiences.

However, I've had a quick look at the back and top, and once again, they've been cut really tight. Placing them against the cardboard mould leaves very little room for error, so I'll need to be very careful with those once again.

Nevertheless, I can't fault StewMac's customer service, they've been excellent all round.

Still, here I go again. Fingers crossed I can get something out of it this time...