Official Luthiers Forum!

I lurk here quite a bit but seldom post anymore, however, still love OLF and the vast source of information it is for the beginner.

Even though I'm not really a beginning luthier I have a repair question that is new to me as I have been very blessed to have had almost zero warranty issues to deal with. Did have to replace a bridge that cracked along the saddle slot once but that is about it in the last 8 years.

My situation is this: I have a dread I built and finished about 7 years ago. A really nice guitar. My first attempt at a varnish finish and surprisingly it turned out great. Unfortunately, just the other day the original owner contacted me saying the bridge is now pulling up. He sent a picture and sure enough it is. My question is would you guys go ahead and repair it out of good will as it was fine for 7 plus years til now.? Or would you charge standard repair fees?

Thanks guys.

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

I'd fix for free and also make sure he knows not to leave it in a hot car.

Did you have a warranty policy that he agreed to when he bought the guitar?

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Evan McCartney

My warranty would fix it.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

7 years is a fairly good indication the job was done right in the first place so it could be that environmental issues have come in to play. But at the end of the day it would be better to have the guy still walking around in another 7 years time saying nice things about your work. If it were me I would suck it up and fix it for free but would leave freight cost up to the client. I think the customer would see this as a more than reasonable response on your behalf and you would be left with a walking, talking advert for how well you stand behind your instruments.

Cheers

Kim

I agree with the above sentiments. The cost of potentially losing the continued good will would be much greater than the cost to effect the repair to the bridge.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

+1 to all the above!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Thanks guys. I did have a warranty in place at the time of completion. I was leaning toward doing the repair for free but was just wondering what y'all would do. It's a pretty easy fix but if it were something more substantial I would have to rethink things.

Thanks again for the replies.

SR

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

I was a small claims judge(many more duties than that) for 16+ years. There were 6 others. Over the years, as we would inevitably discuss the cases we heard, the small shops in auto repair who took the "half-step" beyond the minimum, consistently fared better than the "absolute minimum" shops. Those kinds of cases got assigned to me more often because of my life as a motorhead/racecar builder-driver since 16 years old. There were way too many for me alone though-one of the larger litigation topics. The reputation for customer service that shops would develop over time stood them in good stead when weighing initial quality of work and credibility on level of effort to please a customer.

Believe it or not, we also had small legal malpractice claims tried before us. The lawyers who showed that extra effort at client communication-the returned phone calls on small, but important to the client matters, without that ". 3 hrs.- tele conference w/ client" entry sprayed all over their bills( instead "brief conf. w/ client--N/C), were rarely found to have neglected the needs of the clients.

The small professional courtesies by almost any small or large business(actually it is more compelling when shown in a larger business context) went that same long way toward successful outcomes for the provider.

Your gut reaction to do the fix tells you something that is human nature speaking-best to go with that "gut." That customer and his/her buddies will not forget. The "Golden Rule" really works in life. On the practical side; that one extra service can generate 3 new commissioned instruments.mt