Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[Hambucker]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

ok thanks [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[sully]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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I just cut the necks in half on all of my bound GMWs and all appears to be fine....no veneers or laminates on the fretboard!!!

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oh man, that was fuckin hilarious! i'll send you some jcf wood glue!

[btx109]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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This is just a thought, if Lee farms out his inlay work it is possible that shop did the veneer and did not tell Lee ??

edit: if lee did the binding then this point is moot.


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Yes.

I don't know that that happened for sure, but based upon what I know it is entirely possible IMO.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

thin fretboard laminates *bing* i think we have a new solution for those guys who want to ebonize their rosewood boards [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Tekky]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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I just cut the necks in half on all of my bound GMWs and all appears to be fine....no veneers or laminates on the fretboard!!!

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oh man, that was fuckin hilarious! i'll send you some jcf wood glue!

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Send him the lemon-oil scented glue just because he's a homeboy. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[hippietim]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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Not to get off-topic too much, but I never knew that GMW outsourced their necks and bodies. There's no way in hell I'd dish out thousands of dollars for a glorified parts mutt with a nice paintjob. There's nothing on the GMW site that tells you that they're just a paint/setup shop and don't mill their parts in-house.

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Sorry dude, that is an EXTREMELY common practice with a LOT of builders. I know for a fact that some very well known and popular brands all have necks and bodies made at the same shop. I've seen them myself.

[hippietim]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

Going back to the original problems with the guitar the story is still murky to me. Set aside the veneer thing for a moment - in my mind there is still a fundamental issue of whether this guitar should have been covered under warranty to begin with.

IIRC (please correct me if I'm wrong), Vic did not immediately return the defective guitar for service. Instead he took it to a local guy who tried to make it right and then said it was all messed up. At what point should Lee still be obligated to service the guitar? How do we know that this guy in Australia didn't mess it up and is covering his ass?

I think all of us know going into purchasing a custom guitar from a small builder that if any issues arise you're going to be stuck sending it back or living with it. It's not like he's Fender with authorized service centers all over the place. So ordering a guitar overseas is really taking a big chance. It is the very reason I have avoided certain builders that I was interested in.

[Oogadee Boogadee]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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How do we know that this guy in Australia didn't mess it up and is covering his ass?

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B/c Lee has actually admitted to the veneer thing. I don't feel like hunting down his email that was posted, but from what I recall, he never said specifically "no, that mod wasn't my work" or "that's not the guitar that left my shop".

Further, claiming it as a common practice (suggesting he's done it before) drives that last nail in his coffin, as far as I'm concerned.

[sully]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

but yes, tim is right; having unauthorized work done by a different party usually voids a warranty.

sully

[Oogadee Boogadee]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

I agree there, and am not debating it. I'm just on the side of those arguing that it should have been done right the first time (the "first time" not being the initial build, but addressing the return and second round of work, which consisted of gluing a veneer w/o the knowledge of the buyer).

It taking a 3rd party's work to discover the turd under the shine isn't the buyer's fault... Especially since it took a lot of badgering and time from the buyer to get Lee to own up to the veneer job, and especially since what was discovered can be considered fraudulent.

This may even have lawsuit potential. The dude didn't ask for or pay for wall paper, but in the end, he did so (unknowingly).

[Genebaby]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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I agree there, and am not debating it. I'm just on the side of those arguing that it should have been done right the first time (the "first time" not being the initial build, but addressing the return and second round of work, which consisted of gluing a veneer w/o the knowledge of the buyer).

It taking a 3rd party's work to discover the turd under the shine isn't the buyer's fault... Especially since it took a lot of badgering and time from the buyer to get Lee to own up to the veneer job, and especially since what was discovered can be considered fraudulent.

This may even have lawsuit potential. The dude didn't ask for or pay for wall paper, but in the end, he did so (unknowingly).

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I'm not sure, but I think you are thinking that GMW put the veneer there when it came back the second time. This is incorrect, it was placed there during the guitars initial build process, as a fix for the mistake they made during that time. That's what kills me. Knowing about the veneer and me telling him there's things wrong with the frets, they wont't stay still, he just tries to glue them in better and milled them flat again, which didn't last long again.

[Niccolai]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

Unfortunately, since I moved to America 4 years ago, virtually all of my dealings with US retailers and luthiers have been exactly the same. Maybe I'm a magnet for it, but no company I've done buisiness with based in America has a very high customer satisfaction threshold.

I was going to send out my ESP Horizon Standard to Lee for a respray but it doesn't look like I'll be doing that now. Not because I'm afraid of shoddy work, but because I hate paying rent for assholes like this. Whatever, his respraying isn't worth the price anyways.

[Oogadee Boogadee]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

Whoa. thanks for the correction. the long reading of this thread fatigued the memory a little.

so, looking ahead, what was it that you said you were going to do with what you have? you basically have a neck with matching head stock and body and everything.... are you getting pumped about finally starting over with a new board, binding, and inlay design?

[Rupe]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

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Going back to the original problems with the guitar the story is still murky to me. Set aside the veneer thing for a moment - in my mind there is still a fundamental issue of whether this guitar should have been covered under warranty to begin with.

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You can't set aside the veneer thing...it is the entire issue. Warrenty is irrelevant at this point because Lee agreed to do the fix. Once that was the case, it needed to be fixed correctly, whether under warrenty or not.

[Genebaby]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *?%$@

I just want to state some things broadly to address some queries.

The issue of warranty on the neck is null and void. Lee never said, "hey somebody else touched it, I'm not going near it". He knew I'd tried to get it fixed, and if it was made properly it would have worked, or not been needed, and he took it back, but wouldn't address the frets issue to my liking at the time, ie. a new neck.

Why I bought the guitar and my reasons for doing anything to it matter not one iota in this thread, that's been done to death before, and I stopped talking about it, but never stopped being unhapppy with the fretwork.

At no time during the build process did Lee give me any idea he was majorly pissed at me as a customer so that i thought he might do something so nasty to my guitar. If I had EVER thought that, you'd have heard about it before. He fixed up the shim/floyd issue with some compromise on my part and had the case form fitted like I ordered, but only became pissed at me because I continually asked for a new neck to replace this one I couldn't play on, that pissed him off and that alone.

Replacing the neck would have rectified the fins I didn't like (I offered to pay for good ones from Custominlay.com myself), hopefully the nut area could be done better next time, but most importanly it would fix the biggest issue of all, the frets which kept moving. Once it was on it's way back I knew it was my one chance to get that new neck, but it was to no avail. Bare in mind I had no idea about the lam(e) veneer at this time, Lee did.

He thinks I'm asking for too much, and thus am a whiner who should go away as he seriously is ok with how they made the neck, so he sees no issue to resolve. With the other work he could see some things to fix so he fixed them, but if he is ok with it, nothing will happen. Trying to get the new neck last time was bad enough, now telling him I don't like the veneer has worsened his attitude towards me.