My GMW experience,

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

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I guess I'm also in the minority here. If I had a guy contact me about a guitar I had built for him months ago and never heard about any problems, I wouldn't be all open arms about changing all kinds of things either. No offense but you should have called Lee first before taking it anywhere. I imagine it was at one of those places overnight for the fret work right? How do you know they didn't open the board up when they pulled frets or doing anything else to it for that matter? How is Lee supposed to know what they did to it?

I remember when you posted initially about getting the axe back in August. It looked great to me. And I don't recall you mentioning any problems with it. Every custom Jackson I have has shark fin inlays that aren't perfect. There's fill around all of them. The sizes aren't quite perfect going down the board also. I'd imagine its a hell of a lot harder to get ebony against maple to be perfect as well. And maybe I'm wrong but I recall hearing about plenty of bolt on axes that use shims to get the neck angle correct. To me it seems sufficient to fix the frets, the inlays and recess the Floyd, and do a complete refinish because of it, so you don't have to live in torment knowing the neck is shimmed.

And if you think your going to get perfection from Jackson you can think again. I have a laundry list of imperfections on my Warrior. But it is all nit picking stuff. If there was a huge problem that affected play or a huge defect it would have went right back immediately.

If the frets were bad you should have just sent the neck back to Lee. That would have been less shipping cost. As far as Lee being gruff all I can say is that its obvious he's not a people person. I'm the same way so I can understand it. He's always addressed my concerns even though he may have been short with his responses at times. And he has always emailed me back quickly.

He's been tunring work away because he is balls to the wall deep in orders. And because he won't do certain headstock designs as well a few other things. I know stuff like ding repair and partial refinishes don't happen anymore because they are time consuming. It's a total strip and refin or nothing. And what happened to the JCF rule about bashing someone that isn't here to defend themselves?

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It's easy for you to say, that I should have contactd Lee right away, but being half a world a way makes a big difference with this sort of thing. Was I in Utah, I would have packed it back up the same day I found out it needed a fret level. For a new guitar of that caliber to need a fret level is rediculous, but I had to deal with it.

So far I have heard NOTHING from Lee accusing anybody of butchering the board, he met the guys himself, he didn't ask them anything about it. It was at their shop over the weekend, from Saturday morning till Monday afternoon. They took their time and were meticulous in trying to fix the frets.

In case you hadn't noticed, Lee is NOT fixing the frets, nor the inlays. He's only recessing the Floyd and hopefully giving me the correct case, and the whole guitar is not being refinished due to the recess, but I trust he can make it look great, it's GMW after all right?

I know you don't get perfection from Jackson, but filler notwithstanding, their sharkfins are full, and the edges of them are straight. This has been brewing for a while, I asked a while ago to see peoples guitars with ebony sharkfins, so I could compare.

Guitar companies do make mistakes, I've seen some bad things from Gibson guitars just here locally. The difference is in what they do about them. Tell the customer, no, that ok, or take the guitar back and make it right?

I didn't mention any problems with it when I got it as I'm not the kind of person who bags out something without trying to get it rectified. Nobody needed to hear about how my GMW played like crap when I got it. The paintjob did look nice though. I gave Lee every chance to make this right before I told you guys. Had he been as worried as me about the issues you would never have known about it.

[~K~]

Re: My GMW experience,

Well say what you will but if Lee told Vic he was going to ebay his guitar take 10% off the top and give him whatever was left over that's a bush league move... this is beyond the reapir issues and imo totally inexcusable ..

[dinkyjacksonman]

Re: My GMW experience,

Does Lee do the lnlay work?
I think there is somebody else outside does the job for him.

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

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Genebaby-

I'm not taking sides here, but when I read through your first post, I thought many of the same things Soloist1 wrote above. That's not to say that the guitar wasn't actually completely f**ked. Only you, Lee, etc. know that for sure. But, for many of the problems you mentioned, I could also think of things that might've indicated that they were normal and/or not uncommon minor issues.

The fret buzzing: it's a birdsye neck, correct? It's common for figured necks to move around quite a bit. This, along with the climate changes of southern Cali vs. Australia, might've been the culprit. Or, at least, a contributing factor. Perhaps it wasn't poor fretwork at all. I immediately thought of this when you mentioned getting fretwork in the buzzing area, only to have the buzzing "move" to a different part of the neck.

- The second shop: Repairing and maintaining guitars can be like autos. Bring it in for a simple oil change, and a less scrupulous mechanic will immediately tell you that a tune-up, new filters, and brake pads are "needed". When all that's really happening is he's padding his workload for more $. Worst case scenario, the fret issues may have even been caused, or made worse, by them.

- The sharkies: Those look pretty acceptable to me. Damn cool looking, too. ...Could've been better? Perhaps. But show pics of 100 different inlays that close up, and some are bound to show minor gaps and glue. As to the size being slightly off vs. Jackson's, sorry but IMHO that's nitpicking.

Neck angle: It is perfectly acceptable for OE manufacturers to shim necks, nuts, etc. I once found business card-material shimming the nut of my then-new PC1. Would it have been better to have an angled neck pocket? Yep. Could GMW have used a better material than a piece of plastic? Sure. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (BTW, my own non-recessed GMW has a visable gap in the neck pocket that's probably caused by a shim. I don't care what's in there, as the guitar plays great and sustains killer.) And it sounds like Lee went the extra mile here, by recessing the trem, etc. for you.

Again, Gene, I don't disbelieve anything in your experience. Nor am I taking sides against you. But there might've been other reasons or contributing factors, such as above. Just trying to give you a different point of view, in the hopes of keeping an open mind about it all.

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Thank you for your opinons Shreddermon.

Yes it's a birdseye neck, here's another birdseye neck. You probably remember it.


It's got tons of birdseye and pretty good flamage too and it's just oiled. I haven't touched the truss rod in over 18months of extreme Canberra weather. It gets hot here, it gets cold here, this guitar soldiers on. I've played over a hundred shows with it, it's my main guitar. I even did a show outside not undercover and it started to get a bit dewy as the night wore on. All is still good.

Would you like to have a chat to the guys at the second shop? It's run by a guy called Craig Upfold, his integrity is second to none. He's a personable guy and he's friends with Grover, they keep in touch still. I understand how you might see it that other way, but these guys are great, when I went to pick it up I way overstayed my welcome talking about guitars and stuff. They are honest guys. Hell, I'd only met them the once and I sent them my $4000 guitar to take over to the States, they just wanted to help me out.

The sharkies aren't great dude, but I think I've said before that was the guitar the awesome GMW player, and solid as a rock I wouldn't be bringing them up, it's because I need a new neck that I would like them done better this time, the way everyone who orders sharkfins from a Jackson/Charvel specialist to look, that's all. Just let them be done right 'next' time.

Imagine how much better your GMW could sustain if it had a nice, tight neck pocket? Ordering the guitar as a floating, non-recessed one and getting a shim as big as that is just not on, I'm sorry. Thankfully, that's getting looked at.

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

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P.S.- Another reason GMW may be digging their heels in about replacing the neck is because they CAN'T do pointyhead-style necks anymore.

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Interesting point. I think most of us beleive here that if a manufacturer has to "cease and desist" in making a certain design, the headstocks in this case, that they are able to fullfill their previous orders. Thus those that got an order in before the cut-off, are good as gold. This does appear how things worked.

The Luthier guys who brought my guitar back went to see PRS while they were there and they saw the stockpile of single cut-away bodies and associated literature to go with them, that they are not able to sell. They can't even advertise any guitar with a single cut-away until the issue with Gibson is resolved in court. There is no lee way to use up the stock they've got or fill any orders. The guys were suprised Fender allowed Lee to finish any of his work, but it seems they did. Going along with that, they would be able to replace the neck of a guitar they had made in the past. It would be a bit like the logoing deal. NO Charvel logo on your strathead, but if it was an original Charvel that came in for work, they would logo it back up for you if need be. Does that make sense?

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

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Worst case scenario, the fret issues may have even been caused, or made worse, by them.



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Having a second shop perform fretwork is enough to void even a factory warranty.

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Thanx Jim, but if someone wants to take that side, though I know the fretwork sucked bad, I want a whole new neck because of the bad nut/truss installation. Have you seen that? It looks like this:

http://www.jcfonline.com/ubbthreads/...fpart=1#392833

Imagine that was what you got on your new guitar?

[charvelguy]

Re: My GMW experience,

[ QUOTE ]
Well say what you will but if Lee told Vic he was going to ebay his guitar take 10% off the top and give him whatever was left over that's a bush league move... this is beyond the reapir issues and imo totally inexcusable ..

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yup, that is precisely what got my goat in this mess too.
One can assume whatever, but it sounds like he said it just to force Vic to take the guitar back aftee the last bit of agreed upon work was finished.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: My GMW experience,

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Does Lee do the lnlay work?
I think there is somebody else outside does the job for him.

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I don't think that matters, Vic paid Lee at GMW the money for the guitar [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I knew this would be a touchy thread only because the outstanding rep that Lee has. I am happy customer but with anything, there will be some issues. I only know of one person other than Vic in this deal.

I do agree that Lee should have been informed ahead of time before a different shop to do the fret work; he may think that they screwed up the neck. Nonetheless, its not cool way to treat a customer and I hope he takes care of you Vic and this gets resolved.

[j2379]

Re: My GMW experience,

to me if your paying custom prices for a custom guitar you should get what you ordered & paid for not what the builder thinks is acceptable. if this wasnt GMW who already had a very good rep, this wouldnt even be an arguement. we would all be argeeing that this thing is wrong. & that the builder owes you at least a new neck, & should route the neck pocket with the proper angle.

[BigDaddyD]

Re: My GMW experience,

To me this story sounds like 95% of the HC reviews for Ed Roman. I don't know Genebaby, but I would think that he has zero reason to make this up. If half of what he says is true, and Ed Roman built this guitar, or he ordered it from ESP you few guys swinging from GMWs jock would be on a warpath. I don't think this one episode is enough to discredit all of the great instruments that GMW has put out, but it is appalling nevertheless. If I bought a misrepresented guitar off of Ebay for $300 and got the problems that GB received, I would be pissed. Imagine waiting 2 yrs for your dream guitar, or not (since GB had to agree to compromises just so Lee would build it) and then get that guitar. I like how imperfect inlays are acceptable from GMW and Jackson, but any other manufacturer would catch hell for that. I mean isn't this where people jump on ESP and Ibanez for there inlay work?

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

To keep it in the one thread, this is what the nut area of the guitar looks like:





I've come to realise the Floyd nut platform is not there and with the truss rod 1mm off centre and being as big as it is, the nut can't be centred like normal. Unless you angle one of the screws like "Mr Burn's Slant Drilling Company " on the Simpsons, the screw on the left has nothing to dig into when the nut is moved to the centre.

[Soloist1]

Re: My GMW experience,

And I thought I was OCD about my guitars. Face it Genebaby you'll never be satisfied. Does the truss rod adjust the relief? That's all it is supposed to do. But I guess since it is a kunt hair off under everything you can't see it still eats away at you that it's not dead nuts perfect. Maybe you should try building your own guitar. 5 years later you may come up with something that's 100% perfect. Every picture I have seen has been consistent with work the Jackson custom shop puts out. As is he recessed the trem and refinished the body. Something that didn't need to be done in my opinion. Personally if you can't afford shipping you should have bought a guitar that was made in Australia. It's basically a lesson in life. You didn't call Lee immediately after receiving the guitar and not being pleased. Instead of contacting the manufacturer YOU made a bad choice in taking it to other shops and had them do whatever they did to it. Also instead of shipping it to Lee from yourself you have people show up at his shop and leave him a guitar telling him its fukked up. Basically your total disregard for not following normal warranty and service procedures got you where you are. I would suggest you cut your loses and not follow this path again. And your right, if it were me it would be different. I would have called Lee immediately.

[Genebaby]

Re: My GMW experience,

[ QUOTE ]
And I thought I was OCD about my guitars. Face it Genebaby you'll never be satisfied. Does the truss rod adjust the relief? That's all it is supposed to do. But I guess since it is a kunt hair off under everything you can't see it still eats away at you that it's not dead nuts perfect. Maybe you should try building your own guitar. 5 years later you may come up with something that's 100% perfect. Every picture I have seen has been consistent with work the Jackson custom shop puts out. As is he recessed the trem and refinished the body. Something that didn't need to be done in my opinion. Personally if you can't afford shipping you should have bought a guitar that was made in Australia. It's basically a lesson in life. You didn't call Lee immediately after receiving the guitar and not being pleased. Instead of contacting the manufacturer YOU made a bad choice in taking it to other shops and had them do whatever they did to it. Also instead of shipping it to Lee from yourself you have people show up at his shop and leave him a guitar telling him its fukked up. Basically your total disregard for not following normal warranty and service procedures got you where you are. I would suggest you cut your loses and not follow this path again. And your right, if it were me it would be different. I would have called Lee immediately.

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Thanx a bunch Soloist1. Show me your Jacksons with a nut area that looks like that? I would like to see it. I've said all I need to say about what happened in regards to not calling Lee first.

[rhoads56]

Re: My GMW experience,

Just so you guys have a bit of an idea.... shipping one way from Aust to USA is more expensive than a refret in Australia.

Throughout this thread, it amazes me that GMW dont even make their own necks, i mean, seriously, are they just a warmoth parts assembler shop or something?

[Jim Shine]

Re: My GMW experience,

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Throughout this thread, it amazes me that GMW dont even make their own necks, i mean, seriously, are they just a warmoth parts assembler shop or something?

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You would be amazed if you knew the Boutique builders who buy bodies and or necks from OEM suppliers. Places like Warmoth, USA custom, and Musikraft do not thrive on sales to project builders. They supply components to other companies, some small and some very well known and respected.