Official Luthiers Forum!

Good luck my friend and give 'em a lesson of courage!

Serge

Hi John too bad about your computor. That's a real nightmare. You should look into some sort of back-up system so that you can restore all that info. Have you tried or considered trying Priority Mail? Stuff arrives much quicker. Maybe as an alternate to parcel post.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

John I ship priority mail every day. Of course my packages don't weigh as much as your billets. One thing I found that buys peace of mind is for 50 cents I get confirmation and a tracking #. No more guessing where the wood is or if it was delivered or not.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

John,

I have to agree with Bob,

I am in Terrace, about 100 miles to the south east of you (You have to know Tim Clepper, a good friend of mine in Ketchikan). I ship all of my goods expedited post and every shipment is insured, I don't offer anything less. It is not worth my reputation or out of pocket to have to replace wood that people are expecting. That is the minumum, I can get it there overnight also if someone wanted but I won't send uninsured.

Good luck and keep at it. We need the good producers to stick around.

Shane

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Canada

The tracking number is not always that accurate. I have an item I sent to the states recently that took over a month to get there and the Tracking number still says it is in Winnipeg. The guy has had the wood for over a week yet Canada post's website claime it is in Winnipeg. This has happened to me a number of times where the item is delivered but the postal service website says it is still sitting somewherearvey38732.9625578704

I have an order for some of John's wood. I don't use P-Pal so John was gracious enough to allow me to send a money order. Thanks John.

I have a package right now out to an OLFer and the post office says that they have been notified it was comming. That was 10 days ago. They said it's not considered lost until 30 days, even though it should have already been it the customers hand. Live & Learn.

Well unfortunatly the USPS does not offer tracking outside the US as far as I know.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I cannot speak highly enough about the USPS. This week they charged me $4.80 for a $4.05 flat rate envelope. When I (faciously) asked how long overnite mail takes, she replyed (without missing a beat), "depends on where it's going...sometimes three days".

I ship a lot international airmail USPS. Got a 41# package on the bench now headed for France today. True, they won't accept lost claims for 30 days and the customs number and insurance number is all that's available for tracking.

They just started offering FREE insurance on international shipments this past week. I don't understand it yet, but when I mailed a package to France with a declared value of $20.00 the clerk told me it would be insured for $75.95...go figure.

Heh..

well, short of one almost-nightmare with half a shipment from the ZootMan (it's Not Fun when 12 backs decide to show up a month and a half after the package with sides, which were sent off a day later), I've been happy with USPS. Even ground shipping has always gotten here. Slowly, but it gets here.

[QUOTE=Alaskatonewood] I will ship the wood anyway the buyer wants. Its just a matter of money and how much the buyer wants to spent on shippment. Prioridy mail costs up the Yazoooon. So much so that buyers are not willing to pay it. One buyer let his wood sit in the local PO for months before the Post Master relized he was using the bolt for his door stop. In the meantime the luthier called me every name in the book. On my end of things there are guys trying to figure out ways to jip me. I have a 100 stories of them trying to do this. A few have. Not everybody in this business is honest. A few of the bad apples make it miserable for the rest of us. Maybe we should start a sight that tells everybody to watch this guy or that guy. Then what do we have? The same guy starting another business under a different name and sight. With a different set of lies. I have had that happen. My beauitful wife has a missionarys heart of gold. That keeps me sane in all of this. I am just an old fashion mountain man with a few BS's and six kids out in the world. I love the senerity of the deep woods and am a devoted bird watcher and lover of wild animals. But I can also kick behinds at times. I am just trying to make an honest buck putting saw dust in the air and ground. John of Alaskatonewood.   [/QUOTE]

I just received some back and side sets shipped from Brazil. Once again, they don't weigh what the bolts do but the global priority was happily paid by me just for the piece of mind.

Regards, Steve

PS I just got the first season of "Northern Exposure" on DVD for Christmas. I can relate to your love of the great north. Good luck with the restart of the business and I concur with the backup thing. Hard drives are cheap. I use an external harddrive for backups of my pictures as I take a lot.