Official Luthiers Forum!

Just got a guitar back that had been serviced at two different shops.

He brought it to shop 1 and asked for a new nut, as it had developed a buzz on an open string. They inserted a wooden shim under the existing one that left all the slots way too high, and charged him 80$.

So he took it to shop 2 and asked for a new nut. They left the nut as it was, 'leveled' the frets and didn't bother re crowning them, leaving visible file marks, modified the saddle to 'correct' the compensation (wrongly) and left the action at .050 for both the treble and bass strings at the 12th fret. And some shop monkey put heavy pickmarks in his previously immaculate top after telling him how great his guitar sounded. Then charged him 170$ to boot.

Boo.

Rant over.

Quite sad how commonplace this sort of hack work is in this field. Would be bad enough if it only came from occasional pop-up shops, but I've seen such work even from more established businesses (often tied to retailers).

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I see it all the time. Two years ago I restored a Martin that an "authorized" shop had botched a neck reset on, including breaking the rosette and top wood under the fretboard extension.

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It will probably be alright.

When I can't do a job, I tell the client. I don't think it's my place to take every dollar I can.

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

People are often torn between paying the rent and abiding by their principles. What are you going to do?

...try to find a good repair guy with low rent.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Hey, that's me!

Actually, I only take on minor repairs, setups refrets and such...

Was it the 2 big box stores that he took it to?

Unfortunately luthiery has no exclusive rights to poor workmanship, this is common across many of the trades. In the boom times it seems that anyone who owns a hammer is a master carpenter.

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Picked up another one this afternoon from the store... It's a parlor guitar, over a hundred years old - a family heirloom. Someone already butched the thing up before I could save it. Someone has yanked the original fingerboard, and glued a new one on - totally looks out of place. Cheesy plastic nut glued on with epoxy. The back of the neck now has big divots from being c-clamped with no cauls. The plate tuners don't match. It needs a neck reset badly. And some DORK glued the bridge on with epoxy and then drilled 2 holes through it. Underneath is an aluminum plate, with screws and nuts holding it on firmly. A limp set of classical strings are already tied on.

It was brought to me because the back is coming off. "Just reglue it so it can be played", was the command. I looked it all over tonight, shaking my head in sadness. Even if I did a good job, it could never be playable - nor will it sound good. Someone has to be the adult here, and that's me. I will NOT be a party to the further rape of this defenseless instrument. I don't need the money that badly.

Sending this one back. The client can go to hell.

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

It wasn't me, I swear.

Great work is hard to find and that's what makes it so valuable for players when they find a decent source for great work.

This is not only true for the repair side but the building side as well. We see it all and sadly..... so too do the customers who may have purchased an instrument where the builder was not ready for prime time. I am generalizing here, this is not directed at anyone specifically.

We had one Luthier built instrument that was so very poorly constructed with green wood too that before this guitar got to be ten years old it was toast. The neck reset, redoing braces, lifting bridge, poor fret work and a penchant for this guitar to crack from someone just looking at it made the owner not wish to invest any further than the over $3K they paid for this thing. It's wall hanging time.... AND the owner will likely never purchase a guitar that is not a national brand again.

In my way of thinking if one is going to be commercial with either doing repair work or building they HAVE to provide real value to the good folks who are asked to trust us with their hard earned cash. Provide real value and they will beat a path to your door.

Do hack work and just like that famous bar, Cheers.... everyone will know your name.... maybe..... It's the difference between the meanings of the words "famous" and "infamous...."

On a related note some of the better shops may decline on work needed to clean up a prior hack job by some screwdriver twister adding insult to injury for the instrument owner.

It's also fair to say that those who do provide the value, know what they are doing, have some understanding of their own limitations, and are able to predict and set expectations correctly with clients will do well. It's an opportunity of sorts but there is danger in them thar hills Will Robinson too.

Being a successful repair Luthier is a combination of knowing your stuff and having appropriate chops to make it so AND knowing when to decline and not get any on ya..... Because of prior hack work either in repairs of building knowing when to decline is every bit as important as knowing how to do great work. Not exactly what some might expect I'm sure.

For those of us who may secretly ascribe humanlike attributes for better or worse to the instruments that we see and work on it can be a real crying shame too..... because it doesn't have to be like this.

Ed here's a view of a different approach:

Because the symptom was buzzing and the likely cause was either a nut slot worn low OR especially this time of year.... a dry guitar going into back bow or a combination of both a new nut would not have been even necessary.

Taking into account that this is likely a fairly new instrument there is also the consideration of what's appropriate for this specific instrument.

With that being the thinking from afar not having the opportunity to see the actual instrument before it was disrespected as it was we might do the following.

1) Adjust the truss rod for proper relief and see if taking the neck out of back bow eliminated the problem.
2) If not the low nut slot(s) would have been filled with light cured dental fillings, as hard as bone and way harder and longer lasting than CA and dust. After raising the slot it would then be cut to ideal height.

Time to complete both operations - 10 minutes......

None of the ravages of an ill attempted nut removal with finish chipping, no scratches or pick marks (that's just malpractice....) and the instrument would play like new with no buzzing.

$80 to shim a nut is pretty high too when most shops would make a new nut from scratch for that amount of money.

Chris we can completely relate declining on certain jobs. So much so last year that Dave installed a counter with a tuning key that we now are pulling in 2016 to keep track of the number of instruments that we decline on. Mind you we are not second guessing the declining on certain, basket cases we just want to know how many instruments we turn away.

When I locked up the shop Friday evening the counter was reading around 1.5 instruments a day for every day that we have been open in 2016.... Too soon to tell but at the current rate if this holds that's 500ish instruments a year. 500 instruments annually and only in our market too that are so far past it that we don't think that we can offer real value to their current stewards.... OR they represent too much risk or will cost too much to repair making the repairs not make economic sense.

"It was brought to me because the back is coming off. "Just reglue it so it can be played", was the command. I looked it all over tonight, shaking my head in sadness. Even if I did a good job, it could never be playable - nor will it sound good. Someone has to be the adult here, and that's me. I will NOT be a party to the further rape of this defenseless instrument. I don't need the money that badly."

Sometimes the present owner doesn't value the guitar too highly and the skill level of the repairer (often the owner) is not too good. Botched repairs can be a pain to fix but at times keep the original pieces together. Gluing the back back on may not make the guitar playable, but would at least keep the guitar together. It is understandable you might not want to take the job on to avoid getting credit for "fixing" the guitar, but unfortunate for the guitar. Next time you see it it may have the back nicely epoxied on.

I fixed a couple of hack jobs myself... fortunately they didn't use any epoxy so the glue cleans off easily enough, and I was able to restore it to its former glory. I had to refinish one of them though because the hacking got bad enough that the finish was badly damaged (I'm talking white glue all over the finish that essentially became part of the finish)... birch doesn't refinish all too well unfortunately.

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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

If epoxy is used, it won't be "nicely".
And it will be just as worthless.

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

Repair can be a huge cost relative to an instruments purchase price. People need more coaching about it.
After I sign a death certificate. I tell people leaving my shop that when they go looking for a replacement, think in terms of cost over life span. Many instruments quickly overtake their cheaper counterpart in value because they are more serviceable. This is common practice in automobile buying. It's easy to obtain charts for cars that independently roll true costs over time into price.

In the original buzzing nut example, It's also important to ask ask if a customer has recently changed strings. Often people are unaware that putting on lighter gauge strings without a t-rod adjustment can change geometry enough to cause trouble.