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I had a to-be-client come by Sunday. He was really interested in one of my guitars but it had a buz when he hit it hard. (And he hit it HARD) So I told him I'd take care of it. I raised the action a bit at the saddle (cut a new one) and thought I had it good. He came back yesterday and the first thing he did was hit it HARD. And, yes, he got a buzz out of it. So I spent the day trouble shooting. I went through and made sure every fret was spot-on level. checked and rechecked all of my measurements like the nut height, relief, saddle height, etc. He came back last night and couldn't get it to buzz. GREAT! I thought I had the sale right then and there. But he started playing with checking the intonation. We checked it on the tuner and I was 1/2 cent off on the e and b string. I didn't have any nut left to compensate so I had to fill the slot and cut a new one. Got that done this morning and just deposited the check. Happy customer.
Bottom line. Some of the most difficult, demanding clients can be those that teach you the most about building. I'm looking at it as a glass-is-half-full experience.

Dead on Paul. A simple fact is you best work goes to the pickiest clients. Don't look a them as pains in the necks but rather as your best QC man.

it doesn't take much skill to keep the undemanding clients happy. for whatever reason, be it lack of skill, knowledge, a close enough is good enough attitude, what ever, they are often happy with less than outstanding work. let's face it, they really should be buying factory guitars, not that we want to let them know that. and often when they begin to play a superior, custom made instrument their degree if discrimination becomes more acute, they begin to learn to tell the difference and appreciate the qualities of a hand built guitar and will tell their friends how the better instrument affected them.

but if you can make a picky client happy the word spreads even faster. but doing it does keep you on your toes. this is one of the reasons i always want to see a prospective client play, find out what sort of music they mainly intend using the guitar for, etc., before i will discuss the specifics of an order. at the same time i take notes of any idiosyncrasies in the player's style or technique which could affect the design or setup.

it will be interesting to hear how long it takes before someone is on your doorstep referred to you by the picky client.

Thanks for sharing... in the end it worked out great and another happy customer!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Paul, I think your attitude is very healty both for your business and for you to improve as a builder.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Very nice Paul.

I think it's great that you did everything you could to get just what the customer wanted. And in the end he proved it buy buying it.

I can only hope that one day I'll have the knowledge needed to do as you have done.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Your patience clearly won the day. And you both reap the benefits. Kudos.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck