Heads up on a bargain- Relic Strat neck

meltedbuzzbox

Iamnobody

I'm not a luthier and I don't pretend to be. I'd struggle to call myself a fucking guitarist...

But I have eyes that can see poor workmanship and displeasing aesthetics and have been on this planet long enough to smell bullshit a mile off.

What I see from you is badly finished guitars with descriptions and price tags that are not representative of the goods on offer.

Hats off to you for sticking to your guns though and if you can find satisfied buyers you are doing very well.

I think a lot of comments directed at you or about you have crossed a line. However I think you have dismissed some good advice and probably not been able to recognise it among all of the shit we have given you.

I'm not part of a gang on here (as you seem to suggest we all are) I speak as an individual and my opinion is not influenced by anyone else's.

WezV

its alright to talk about the love of guitar and all that - but wouldn't you expect that love to come with a bit of tender care

I have no issues with pictures of badly cut nuts and poor workmanship as long as they represent part of a learning curve.  There are some in my past and they make me wince to look at them, but i know i did better the next time and even better the time after that.  And i know when i reached the point i was happy to sell them to someone.  My guitars are not perfect but the general trend is that they have got better along the way to a point i am happy to send them out the door.  Perfection is always the goal etc...

I love guitars.  I play as many as I can (quite badly), when i am not playing them I am building or fixing them.  When i can't do that I am reading about them.  This week i tried a new method for glueing on a fretboard based on what i had read from others.   Its different to the way i normally do things but thankfully i am not so stuck up my own arse i can't adapt my approach and try new things, at the same time i am developing my own techniques to try something truly unique.  Its a small thing but its all part of that ever on going learning curve

and i have absolutely no issues with putting a tele bridge pickup in the neck position of a les paul, as an experiment yours is fine.  as a peice of work to sell (at any price) it really should show a bit more loving care 

I know this is pointless, i guess I am in the mood to bash my head against a brick wall

Gassage

Mark

As I have been one of the main protagonists here, I have to say you're a nice natured guy.

I think that, if you become less defensive and pick a few brains then you could make a leap that would add a little more finesse to the finished articles you are selling.

 Clearly you're passionate. The best way of learning to listen and experience. Channel your passion and learn.

I've played 35 yrs of high level cricket. Every time I play I learn something new. Life is like that.

Best of all, everyone on this forum would gen wish you the best if you did this....

 

TheOtherDennis

Just a few quotes...

"This site seems all about snobbery"

"sensible people a few years on have little respect for phoney luthier sites like this"

"everyone here seems desperate to pump up their own importance... the biggest cheese luthiers act like the high priests and the others bow to them but try to absorb some reflected glory.

"To me I am sorry but they all come across as phoney air-guitar luthiers because I cannot believe anyone with a real love of music or guitars could be so far up their own... well you know what I am saying Guitar Monkey!"

"It doesn't worry me, at least it tells me the sort of jerks I am dealing with!"

And you wonder why people on here are rude to you?

Rox

mdphillips1956 said:

This site seems all about snobbery: the previous mailer who calls himself Rox... to him made in Japan only means made in Japan if it is the guitars he says are the right guitars to be called made in Japan... everyone here seems desperate to pump up their own importance... the biggest cheese luthiers act like the high priests and the others bow to them but try to absorb some reflected glory.

I said nothing of the sort, not sure how you got that idea.  There are all sorts of MIJ 'Les Pauls'. What I said was:

I think when you're talking about 'MIJ Pauls' you're talking about bolt-on plywood efforts (such as Satellite).  The proper MIJ LPs are an entirely different beast.

A guitar made of plywood with a bolt-on neck may be a Les Paul shape, but it isn't really a Les Paul.  A Les Paul is made of solid mahogany and a thick maple cap (with some exceptions, such as the Custom). 

A gold bar made of lead and sprayed gold is not a gold bar no matter how much it may look like one.  I'm reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?  Four - a tail is not a leg."

What I was saying was, the ones you seem to have experience of are very much at the budget end of the scale - and were built accordingly.

I was just trying to explain that there's a world of difference between the different types of MIJ Les Pauls.  Quite why that elicited your rather odd rant against me when I was just trying to point out the difference so you could look yourself (or even try some of the excellent MIJ Les Pauls for yourself) is beyond me.

If I had attacked you, or you were responding to criticism of you where I had been rude, I could have understood your response, but I did not.

Ah well.

Gassage

Rox

 

Ijn fairness it should also be pointed out:

 

A REAL Les Paul has binding that bears no relationship to the neck groove where it sits.

A REAL Les Paul has overspray over any plastic or bone part

A REAL Les Paul weighs as much as Belgium

A REAL Les Paul is painted by Stevie Wonder.

I trust this clarifies.

Rox

Gassage said:

Rox

 

Ijn fairness it should also be pointed out:

 

A REAL Les Paul has binding that bears no relationship to the neck groove where it sits.

A REAL Les Paul has overspray over any plastic or bone part

A REAL Les Paul weighs as much as Belgium

A REAL Les Paul is painted by Stevie Wonder.

I trust this clarifies.

Don't forget the neck cavity looks like it's been chiselled by Stevie Wonder...! 

mdphillips1956

Hello Rox,

Sorry if I bit back a bit hard! I thought you were saying the sort of MIJ Pauls most Joe Ordinaries can afford doesn't meet your standards of what is an MIJ Paul?

I very much believe in trying to make nice playing guitars for the bloke in the street who is lucky enough to have a couple of hundred quid in his pocket to spend.

I know there are some super wonderful MIJ Pauls that scared the pants off Gibson with the rather average stuff Gibson were calling a Les Paul in the seventies... and I dare say still are! But I am not in those circles and to be honest I am fairly disinterested in those guitars, both super Gibson MIJs and Gibson proper.

Lately Pauls have started to feel like fiddly toy guitars to me; Fender string length I can tolerate, but my real favourite is the older GFM Black Knights with 48mm nut and a 26.5 inch scale.

The GFM Denver is okay but not as nicely finished and just a 25.5 inch scale.

Thanks,

Mark.....................