Horror Stories

All things guitar, Les Pauls, Strats, Teles, Tokai, Ibanez etc. etc. etc.

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telefiend
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Horror Stories

Post by telefiend »

As suggested, a thread for horror guitar repairs or botch jobs put right tales.

Here's one from me: about 10 years ago (before I knew diddle about such things) I purchased a 1970s Maton dreadnought sight unseen on the Tard. Was very excited. However, when it showed up, I knew it was not as great as it was made out to be. I didn't know much, but I knew guitars weren't supposed to be this hard to play. Took it to my local luthier and indeed it had a lot of problems. Needed a neck reset, had loose braces, deep gouges in the fingerboard around the cowboy frets (how do people manage this??) and low as low frets. Seller disappeared and the effort of it all meant that I just flicked it on at a loss with the problems explained. Buyer was stoked and I believe got it up and running just nicely.

Live and learn I guess :thumbup:
Last edited by telefiend on Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by NippleWrestler »

I'd include my whole thread about a certain luthier in Auckland who totally absolutely did everything wrong to one of my guitars. And a dream guitar at that as I had everything commissioned as lefty explorers don't appear too often.

But, the thread was deleted, along with all the evidence, as the guy who ruined my guitar is a member here... One that never logs in but they still have an account somewhere.

I then took the guitar to Warren at audio zephyr where it needed $500 in repairs to undo what the first guy did. He looked it over and said "what the hell happened to this?" I explained, then also explained that the guy had allegedly made 400 guitars, to which he replied "I'd be surprised if the guy could even spell 'guitar'".

I guess there's more to being a guitar tech than a Facebook page and some business cards.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by foal30 »

Fairly recently I made the foolish mistake to clean the Music Room
I had some gear on the deck including an MTD in a stand and a roller chair...

A wind as foul as if it was emitted from Satan's anus took sudden arise turning said chair into a bowling bar and said Bass into skittles

Luckily Alan F repaired...
Genuine Old Frontier Gibberish

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by codedog »

olegmcnoleg wrote:I can start us off with a horror story, and it is about a dreadnought. A few years ago I was on sabbatical in California. I saw a lovely dreadnought cutaway on EBay, the most beautiful woods and all handmade by a luthier in Colorado. I struck up a conversation with him and we agreed a price. I drove from Santa Barbara to Denver to pick it up (!) Tried it out, it was lovely, paid in cash, drove away.

That is, of course, when the trouble started. The guitar would not intonate, action was terrible, the awesome tone had completely vanished. Sent the guitar back, he made some adjustments--said he could not really see a problem, but it was no better when I got it back. After a LONG, protracted exchange as to how this could happen, it turned out that he had built the guitar in his shop with the humidity controlled at 20% (which is higher than the normal humidity where he lives, which is 10%!). All his previous clients lived in the area and so I was the first one he even had a problem with. Even at 50% humidity in CA, the guitar was a mess. Back in Auckland...no chance at all.

Which might explain why I am am anal about controlling humidity as a way of getting the best out of my guitars. But setting the humidity at 20% is completely impractical as it would damage my others. In the end, I just sent the guitar back, did not get a refund, there was no point in trying to keep it, all swelled up like a ballon, it clearly needed very dry air to survive. Chalk it down to experience :eh:
I'm including oleg's post here because he inflicted his anal-ness about humidity on me. I now have a hygrometer next to my acoustics... thanks oleg. Admittedly, for the most part, I'm fine. However, there were times of 70s to high 80s humidity. They usually last only a day or two. I'm guessing at those lengths and levels it shouldn't be too detrimental? Please say "yes, it won't be too detrimental"... or I will be a mental mess...

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by Bg »

NippleWrestler wrote:I'd include my whole thread about a certain luthier in Auckland who totally absolutely did everything wrong to one of my guitars. And a dream guitar at that as I had everything commissioned as lefty explorers don't appear too often.

But, the thread was deleted, along with all the evidence, as the guy who ruined my guitar is a member here... One that never logs in but they still have an account somewhere.

I then took the guitar to Warren at audio zephyr where it needed $500 in repairs to undo what the first guy did. He looked it over and said "what the hell happened to this?" I explained, then also explained that the guy had allegedly made 400 guitars, to which he replied "I'd be surprised if the guy could even spell 'guitar'".

I guess there's more to being a guitar tech than a Facebook page and some business cards.
NippleWrestler wrote:To be fair to the guy with some hindsight, he did the routing well, just some communication breakdowns on both our parts causing a bit of a mess. I don't wish him bad, I'll just be calling someone else in the future. And again, he's apparently super good at refinishing and setups and whatnot but maybe not too familiar with Gibson stuff.
As you left it with this comment, one would presume you'd sorted it out with him. We're not here to take sides, he also had lots of excellent reviews by other members - this isn't really a forum for naming and shaming which is why the thread was removed to the naughty step. If you feel strongly about this, feel free to have a word with any of the admin/mod team in private.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by telefiend »

foal30 wrote:Fairly recently I made the foolish mistake to clean the Music Room
I had some gear on the deck including an MTD in a stand and a roller chair...

A wind as foul as if it was emitted from Satan's anus took sudden arise turning said chair into a bowling bar and said Bass into skittles

Luckily Alan F repaired...
Satan's anus has a lot to answer for I bet :lol:

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by NippleWrestler »

Yeah I think I was going through a magnanimous phase but every time I pick the guitar it bugs me as there are some fundamental and inherent problems in its construction that are nobody's fault but his and rectification of which would pretty much involve just making a new guitar.

So, I don't mention names unless ppl ask me privately. I still have every email between us where he goes off insulting me and blaming me for his mistakes and saying it will be alright as I can pay him to do a solid finish and cover up his handiwork.

Fun times.

Anyway, this thread was asking for horror stories and that's mine.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by telefiend »

Hmm, perhaps this is a can of worms thread..

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by Single coil »

Mine are pretty tame.

Bought a cheap electric many many years ago for my then girlfriend.
It was a segovia.
It was advertised as mint and if memory serves it had a case too.
I think I paid $130 for it.

It arrived looking like it’d been in a high school music room for 30 years. Dinged, discoloured, and all manner of other shit to say the least.

I think I sold it at a loss about a week later because it was just ... no.

The guy I bought it off has since had his tardme user banned for doing things like that and claiming ignorance.
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Re: Horror Stories

Post by olegmcnoleg »

codedog wrote:
I'm including oleg's post here because he inflicted his anal-ness about humidity on me. I now have a hygrometer next to my acoustics... thanks oleg. Admittedly, for the most part, I'm fine. However, there were times of 70s to high 80s humidity. They usually last only a day or two. I'm guessing at those lengths and levels it shouldn't be too detrimental? Please say "yes, it won't be too detrimental"... or I will be a mental mess...
As I understand it, modern acoustic guitars are quite robust and are typically made to withstand wide variation in humidity and temperature. The price for this is a more robust (and weighty) construction, which is often to the detriment of the volume and tone of the guitar. Building a strong, stable and resonant guitar is what companies like Taylor excel at. The older Gibsons and Martins have a much lighter construction; when you find a good one, they really do sing to you. Hard to explain this if you have not experienced it. But when you have, there really is no going back :?

I'm sure that Guild can stand a fair bit of abuse, but it will not sound, nor play, at its best if it is full of water. If you can live with that, I'd say Don't Panic.

And if I'm wrong, then you will shortly be providing sustenance for some poor luthier's family somewhere...which is also good. 8)

If you want it to sound and play well each time you reach for it, get a dehumidifier and set it for 50%. And don't forget to empty the bucket every now and then... (that's a whole new story for another day :roll: ) . I swear this also makes electric guitars play and sound better, but you can tell me I'm dreaming!

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by telefiend »

You're dreaming! :wink:

But yeah, the old, light, stinky Martins and Gibsons I played whilst haunting London music shops haunt me. I know my little Taylor is more than adequate, but I still compare it to my memories of those lap pianos.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by mule »

Here's a real pants-filler. After getting sick of my tone deafness I finally decided to buy a tuner. The polytune mini seemed great because it wouldn't take up much space on my tiny wee pedal board. I saw a couple of them up on TM last week so pulled the trigger and hit buy now as I was rushing out of the house. Today it arrived and...
Image
... I bought the giganto standard size. What a munter. The worst part is it's not quite bad enough that I'll ever get around to replacing it with a smaller one, so this will just slowly dig away at me for the rest of my life.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by telefiend »

Your pain is our pain. Reminds me of that time I bought a 5 pack of undies a size too small and stubbornly stuck with them.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by Zaulkin »

I've seen so much, but its probably lots of little weird things than anything horrendous. Like a an electric I bought that had completely fucked intonation, and that had been given an acoustic string in place of the regular B string. And there were several other bits that were glued on an destined to fail if the guitar were probably adjusted - clearly made that way to look good enough to get a sale and thats all.

I saw a horrendous body that had been originally made by Ash and butchered by some guy on TM. Completely full of epoxy and several other weird arrangements. Ash actually made me a new body for free as a swap just to get it off trademe and so that he could destroy it.

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Re: Horror Stories

Post by Molly »

telefiend wrote:Your pain is our pain. Reminds me of that time I bought a 5 pack of undies a size too small and stubbornly stuck with them.
Life's too short for that. If you can't reach down to adjust your pedals without your spuds falling out then those pants need to go.

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