Official Luthiers Forum!

That's a sloppy X brace joint and it looks like one brace is cracked. And what's up with that extra hole on the bridge plate?

Is that even a joint at the X intersection?!

Looks like they just cut one leg of the X in two, and just butted them up to the other....

_________________
Pullman, WA

The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

trippguitars.com
OR
Find me on Facebook

Ninety% of the buyers are too over awed by the shiny outside to think of looking inside.

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

...but if it was a tight, capped joint and not cracked it would be way too stiff!

I'd say I've seen joints like that from every decade of their guitars since the 1950's. But why just pick on Gibson?

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Aren't manufacturers of everything covered under the "Friday Model" clause. Or is that a "Hangover Monday" model.

In the first photos, are those braces spruce? They look to me more like flatsawn maple than quartersawn spruce.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

When I was at Guitar Center (back when they had independent contractors as actual guitar techs) I actually saw quite a few catostrophic structural failures from major manufacturers. Gibson was the worst offender with lifting bridges, bad neck angles, warped necks, and the occasional popped brace, STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!

Breedlove and then Martin, and Taylor had the least. (I'm not talking about foreign manufacturers). The last three were occasional and rare, with Taylor having only one or two my entire stint there, but Gibson failures were almost routine, with bad guitars monthly. The bad braces and lifting bridges were repaired and then sold as new perfect instruments while the bad neck angles and warped necks were setup and sold with nary a word said. If the customers asked me, I of course had to tell them that it was set up as best I could but it had issues, but the salesmen typically isolated me from the customers for that reason.

Now they have salaried techs under their thumb that have to lie to the customers or face the wrath of the coprorate home office.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

Maybe your GC is better than mine, but There isn't much technician in their techs, whom don't get paid much buy the hour either. But I love em! They drive work to my shop at times, their shortcomings sure make me shine.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

This is a 2008, 4 yrs old and by the look of the bridge plate I don't think the instrument ever saw strings.

This is a case of quality control and likely was never intended to see the market place.

Anyway of finding out how it got into the sellers hands.

Also if its new, wouldn't it be covered under Gibson's warranty. Maybe sending it back would be the best course of action.

_________________
Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Funny how much the difference of workman ship is between the gibs and martins

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I always look inside if it's a rare or old guitar.
Or if there is a interior buzz/rattle.
I restored a 1850s Martin with the signature of the real C.F on the top.
It blew me away!
His workmanship was incredible -for that time especially.
I've fixed 2 guitars (classicals) sighned by Angel Romero-inside on the top also.
And a Barbero (Flamenco) with a dedication to someone-but a bad repair years ago
made the name un-readable.
Ya never know what your going to find inside a guitar!
Mc

_________________
Mike Collins

heh heh, exactly what goes thru my mind when i see PRSs...

Gibson has been known to do X braces in exactly this fashion.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

forgive the ignorant question, but what am I missing??

The brace looks well quartered with straight grain across (little/no runout). Of course I can only make this supposition from the small section of the picture. What other criteria would there be? A bad brace is a bad brace and unless you load every brace prior to gluing up, is it possible to predict failure if it meets acceptable criteria?

Sorry,
Steve

Thanks Todd,

I flex, but don't load. Perhaps I'll build some type of jig with a consistent weigh and begin keeping measurements.

Steve

This is my favorite "inside the box" photo. A guy brought this "handmade" guitar in for a pickup installation. The builder had apparently marketed himself as quite a stud luthier. I am guessing that the intended scale length of the bracing plans and the scale of the purchased neck and fretboard didn't quite jive.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Very cool!

Perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on the big guys.




But, then again... ...at least he capped the X.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

No, that's exactly what I'm talking about. A "certified Tech" that is certified by Guitar Center after 3 days of training, getting paid 8 bucks an hour. Their main function is to be a sales tool, so that when somebody looks at a guitar and asks "Has it been set up by a certified tech?" the employees can say "Sure it has!" And when the prospective customer goes and asks if the guitar needs anything, they can reassure the customer that no, everythings perfect! It's been set up!

Needless to say, they're not letting them spend the necessary time to level frets (even if they COULD, which most can't) or even give the guitar a really good once over, and I'm sure that they still don't send the lemons back to the factory, but the techs aren't allowed to tell the customers that they should get a different guitar without PO-ing the store manager, and since they've filled out a "checklist" card and initialed it, they have to back it up with talk or they look bad.

Thing is, they look REALLY bad when someone brings me a guitar with the checklist showing "frets checked", and they're still not level.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

That guys working way outside of the box - wow what an innovation - this guys light years ahead of the pack..!!
Cheers
Charliewood

It's been several years since I saw that disaster and as I think about it I think I decided that he used the StewMac 12 fret 000 plans and put a 14 fret neck on it. I do remember the owner paid $1500 for it. It had other issues. The builder later skipped town for parts unknown. Probably working at Gibson.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Well...I still like Gibsons, but I almost bought a L-00 Custom once...and happened to put a mirror in. The string ends were sucked into the top missing the bridge plate altogether.

M.

I am myself a GC tech and Roberto Venn Graduate.... Maybe i shouldnt go into this but I got pretty pissed off reading some of your
comments about the Gc Techs.... for starters I dont have to bow to any corporate big guy telling me I cant tell a customer what I
think of any guitar. Obviously I dont bad mouth companys just to vent my opinion but neither would anybody else here that owned a music shop and sold that brand..... Also for somebody who wants to start in Luthiery as a carrer after spending $10000 on schooling for it would be stupid to turn down an hourly pay + commison (hourly pay is not $8 for graduates). Especially sense the only reason to turn it down would be for fear that some hot shot luthier would look down on him and asume he dosent know what hes doing because hes employed by a certain company.....i could go on for days but wont..... Im proud to make a living and support myself doing what I love and get upset when I see people who really have no idea how it works tearing it down.


Also I subscribe to the classifieds here just to help out this site because I come to this forum alot for help on my own building projects and really love the helpfull people on it. I thank you all for that help but if I am just a "guitar tech" and not a "Luthier" maybe I dont belong here.

Don't blame you for getting PO'd. I've dealt with folks at GC in several parts of the country and, like most stores, I've run into folks that run the gamut from totally clueless to happy to give you bad advice, to very knowledgeable. You know the old saying - it only takes one aw crap to wipe out ten attaboys I, for one, am glad to have you here and hope you'll stick around.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Todd's great pictures inspired me to get a web cam with LED lights so I can document what my mirror shows me. It is a cheap offshore no name ( $8.00 ) with ability to manually focus and control the LED lights. My web cam program is not the greatest so now I am looking to improve on it. Made a cool video clip tour of the inside of a guitar I was working on.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

I like GC...and respect the people that work there. I think you belong here....maybe more than some, that consider this their stomping ground.

Enjoy your craft, and skip the politics.

Michael