Official Luthiers Forum!

I have on my bench a Cort acoustic. Decent wood, solid top, back, and sides, except for the fact that the area where the cutout for the electronic wasn't reinforced at all, leading to cracks.

There are other problems, like the string spacing on the nut and saddle does not agree, so the string almost falls off the fretboard at the 20th fret, the fretwork is horrible, you can actually stick the high E string under some of the frets, and the ends of the fret were not properly dressed from the factory (it's either that or the fretboard shrank for whatever reason causing the frets to stick out, but with the high humidity in Taiwan it just doesn't seem likely).

The guitar looks gorgeous from the outside but upon closer examination you can definitely tell this was a cheap guitar. It even came with a certificate saying it's a "custom guitar" and had the signature of the "luthier" who built it.

Now back to the damage, something (could be a slight pressure from the look of things) caused cracks to form starting from the corner of the electronic cutout, three corners are affected. I don't know about you but am I right to assume that if anyone builds a solid guitar that does include these kinds of cutout, that area should be reinforced with a patch of wood that has the grain running in the opposite direction? Does any higher end guitar come with electronics that requires such cutout?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Been there, done that, got the tshirt.
Hang in there, bro!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Those onboard EQ's are popular with players who play live in bars and such.... It gives them instant control to make up for a poor sound guy in the back....

As you say - it's like it was installed as an afterthought... as that big hole in the side should have been reinforced...

Ultimately - surely, the guitar is a testament to the Player who did not know much about guitars when he bought.... Likely there were others to choose from that did not have poor fretwork and such sloppy construction....

If it truly was custom ordered - he should have sent it back!

On two of my guitars I was talked into installing "onboard" controls...I talked to a guy at Taylor about what they do and decided to emulate...glued a 3/32" piece of BB ply onto the side before gluing the top on and routed the hole for the onboard thru both the side and the patch at installtion time...that was 9 years ago and no reported problems from the owners...as for fretwork, you'd think that since the whole guitar was stamped out in less than an hour they'd spend time on the fretboard to make the guitar playable...seems like all the time goes into inlay and finish appearance...the "shiny" things that make a $500 guitar appealing when hanging on a GC wall...

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

When I read the thread title, I assumed you had been peeking in my shop. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

you are faced with an everyday repair shop peobem, i.e. the relatively inexpensive instrument with relatively expensive problems.

depending on where you are in your career it seems you have two choices:

1) offer the client your fair price to effect the repairs, cracks, reinforcement, frets, bridge plate repair, new bridge and let him decide whether it is worth it to him, or

2) do the work at a discount commensurate with the value of the guitar. the client should go away telling everyone he knows how you saved his guitar, and/or you may build you chops/learn something.

either way i recommend you invest in the stew-mac bride saver tool kit, cat no 5240. it is expensive but it make this sort of job a snap and should pay for it self in short order.