gmw's fit and finish

[jonsgon]

this is on a side note, i was just at gmw today and saw first hand the guitar that was in question here on this board a while ago, a red flamed reverse head maple board with ebony sharks, and it looks killer and playes even better, i could not see anything wrong with it in the fit or the finish, the nut was strait and the sharks look killer, i would not have compained at all but thats just me.
i would not hesitate to make a gmw order, it may take a while but it will be well worth the wait.....

thanks
jon

[Souldigger]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

I remember that thread. Good to hear some other views on that guitar. I think some people just have higher standard than others. I have no complaints on any of the GMW's I've owned or played.

-Jason

[paddok]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

I got the call from Lee about this guitar a few days ago. I'm going to check it out as soon as I am back in SoCal.

[RacerX]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

Jon, you need to find the original thread and look at the "before" pics. I think that axe has already been worked on. So you saw the "after" [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[VitaminG]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

sounds like they've got Vic's guitar properly sorted now. Good to hear.

You're not wrong about the wait time, Jon. I believe Vic was convinced to go with GMW instead of Jackson because Custom Shop wait times were around a year and a half then. GMW was still a Jackson dealer at the time. But GMW could build the same guitar in about 9 months (from memory, Vic mentioned timeframes to me when he first ordered the guitar). Some 24 months later, he finally gets the GMW. With problems.

[danhops]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

My only complaint about one of my GMW's is that you can clearly see quite a bit of glue residue near the binding. I dont know how that got by, but its quite a lot on the bottom near the strap pin, and in a few small spots on the side. I can take pics to show you what I mean. The guitar sounds and plays amazingly though, but I was quite surprised since it was pretty obvious.

[jonsgon]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

racerX, from what i understand the only thing lee did was recess the floyd for vic, the nut and the inlays were the same, as far as the inlays being a different size than the original jackson the only way you could tell is if you miked' them and i'm sure one of the other reasons he went for gmw instead of jackson was the price, it had to be less expensive than a custom shop jackson by about a grand....
i did sit down and play it and it's superb...

jon

[VitaminG]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

Lee did play with the nut. That's what he told Vic was a "15 minute fix" when he first received the guitar back. Neal has had a play with the frets, so those have been worked on too.

The price wasn't the only consideration. I know Vic did consider getting a Jackson, but the much shorter build time was a major carrot in getting a GMW instead.

[Genebaby]

Re: gmw\'s fit and finish

Cool stuff, the guitar is getting close to coming back, that's nice to hear. I'm sure it will be a lot better currently than it's first incarnation.

I've said it before but I'll say it again, I ordered this kind of guitar from GMW, when I could have had a Jackson simply because I already HAD USA Jackson's and wanted to expreience the quality GMW were said to put out for my one big custom order. Lee was the defacto standard for Jackson and Charvel, it was well known, so I ordered from him in the hopes of getting an even better guitar. As I and others before me have found out, Lee doesn't always get things right, and things a Jackson/Charvel guy takes for granted, slip by and things aren't always as you'd hoped. When you take into account dealer discounts, it wouldn't have been too much different in the end getting it from Jackson, but coupled with wanting to taste a GMW and Lee being optomistic and give 9 months for completion, it sealed the deal. The Jackson Custom Shop was running waaaay late back then, lol.

Jon, no disrespect but if you're a Jackson guy, like me, you know your Jacksons and you know what sharkfins are meant to look like. Cort, Samick, Epiphone even, they've all put sharkfins on guitars, but none of them look as good as proper Jackson sharkfins. These are worse than those in that they are not cut very well, and they do not change size in a uniform manner. ALL my Jacksons, from an 87 Soloist to a 91 Rhoads Pro, have full, crisp sharkfins. It's all in the other thread, you can see the size comparison chart I made up, just to show myself what I was talking about.

Anyway, it should hopefully by now have a form fitted custom case and Less is probably close to sending it back after Paddok checks it over.

I'll be looking under the nut to see what is going on there, and if the frets show one more sign of instability, the entire fretboard will be removed and I'll get one from a place that knows what a sharkfin is supposed to look like, and we'll look at fixing the truss rod/nut problem then too. I'll probably end up doing this anwyay, as this was my one and only dream guitar custom order.

Neal has told me he didn't do much more on the frets other than mill/dress them. This is ALL he ever does for GMW guitars, they come to him with the frets already installed.