Official Luthiers Forum!

Just had a guy drop his guitar off for a setup.
Not surprised.
The saddle's back to front.
Should I tell him?
Or just turn it round and charge setup price for a clean and polish.
Wouldn't want to make him feel bad .. ... ..

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ask him if he reads guitar forums before you decide Mr. North.

I would think absolutely not...

But,
I'm going to have to practice telling him, to make sure I can keep a straight face.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Make it right... Mr. and Mrs. Customer are not always right, this was likely unintended and resulted from the saddle falling out during a restring and being put back in wrong. That is if you mean the treble side of the saddle is on the bass side, etc. We see this frequently because people won't seek out a repair Luthier if everything was honky dory.... They only come to us when there are issues....

I would estimate that a very large percentage of electric guitars that come into our shop had someone go nuts with a screw or hex driver and mess it up even worse before the decision was made to seek out professional help.... Truss rods too, we often see the ravages of a client armed with a truss rod wrench....

Consider it job security!:)

Personally I tell em everything related to why their instrument was not right before we fixed it. I avoid topics that would shame and belittle because after all we've all been there....

In my days as a mandolin builder, I would see this quite a bit. Don't know why you just didn't spend 5 minutes with him and tell him the saddle was in backwards. The guy is obviously new to all this and didn't know. That you took the instrument in without telling him is the joke. I would have had a satisfied customer out the door in a few minutes, and he would have been a return customer.

Kidding aside.
No brainer.
I would check the relief, nut slots, intonation, and frets w/ the saddle flipped right. Then call him. Tell him no charge to flip it around, but you'd be happy to do the full set up if he would like on any other issues you found. Most folks are looking for one thing in a luthier. Integrity!

Thanks for bringing up the integrity concern - very, very true.

Many of our clients see their instruments as if it was their child and care about it accordingly. We have one client who we thought was going to have a heart attack at the prospects of 1) leaving the stinkin.... thing with us, and 2) if anyone was going to do any unnatural acts with their instrument when they were not present....

I'll add that since there are no professional certifications or subjective measures as to a Luthier's chops many folks who have had repair work done in the past had bad experiences. Sadly the rest of us have to overcome the damage done by the hacks in both the physical instrument and the psychological perspective of the true value add that a good Luthier can bring to the game for the client.

Trust is a pretty important thing in our business, an understatement... and reputations matter.

I personally find it hard to deal with all of the misinformation that tends to afford some players with a view of what's true and what's not that is often off the mark. The misinformation is not the difficult part for me but letting my "shields" down for the next client who may not be a know it all with wrong preconceived notions I find to be difficult for me. I need a "reset" button each time I deal with a different client perhaps and I am working on it too. It's actually a self-improvement exercise that is important to me. I may be getting crusty..... and I am certainly old too....

It's likely that the instrument can benefit from the other dozens of things that we do in a basic set-up so I don't see it as a biggie that the reversed saddle was not spotted and disclosed during triage. If it comes to pass that you do not need to tweak a thing and as such are not providing any really value I can make a case for charging or not charging the client. You still had to find the problem, you took it in and had to heat, light, and secure it and there was and is an opportunity cost for the time that you spent with this instrument and client that you could have been making money doing something else. I'll add the administration of writing the thing up and the ongoing costs of bookkeeping for your business. For us we will pay a bookkeeper and later as accountant just to enter the sales receipt even if it's no charge.

Luthiers tend to be some of the worst business people on the planet. It's not because we don't care or are ignorant or stupid etc. It's because many of us make a tragic and fatal mistake in our approach to the market and business in general.

We believe that we have to be all things to all folks.....

Wrong.... It's OK to turn away work and/or not charge for minor things but it's also very ok to understand that you have to keep the lights on and that costs money. For me if and when we provide real value to a client we don't lose any sleep over charging them an appropriate rate. We also do a lot of no charge work simply to help humanity and keep the music playing.....

Anyway there are lots of clients who won't know or care that they may be unknowingly hurting our businesses or wasting our time. That's when we need to find a pair and be free to say things such as "I have to get back to work now" or "I'm on a deadline, nice talking with ya" etc.

If that fails throw them out....

PS: We deal with lots of Ivory Tower academics who can be absolutely oblivious as to if they are sucking and wasting our time. My take is that we are the professionals, this is our life and business and it's up to us to establish where the limits are and what the expectations could be with our services.

This is one of my favorite subjects by the way, running a Lutherie business AND providing real value to our clients every single day.

OK, before this gets out of hand guys.

I thanked Hesh for making me realize that my original post could be taken seriously.
The guy literally, as I said dropped it off. i.e. phoned me, I said I'd have a look.
He came and it was "here you go, I've got to rush, I'm late already".
OK, so I've got a funny sense of humor, so hang me.
Haans, that's what would have happened if we had time to chat.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

As my post below.
And yes, it's a no brainer.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Well, you didn't say that in the first place. Dropped off usually means you at least took a quick look.
So, instead of making light of it, call him up, tell him the saddle was in backwards and settle it.
I'm not long on words usually...

Hesh,
as per my post above.

And we do have in UK a "professional" body http://www.namir.org.uk/


The objectives are -
• To encourage a high standard of workmanship and customer care
• To provide a means of information exchange on techniques and parts availability
• To publish a journal known as ‘The Intrepid Repairer’
• To arrange social and technical meetings
• To appoint an arbitrator in the event of a dispute between member and customer
• To maintain a website
• To provide bursaries at the discretion of the committee to selected student members
in the form of provision of specialist tools, equipment and/or literature.

A recent acquaintance of mine, making and repairing bowed instruments, has encouraged me to collect photographic evidence/write ups of repairs and client testimonials as to quality and value, of which I have as many as I have had clients.

And just to be ABSOLUTELY Crystal Clear on this, I had , and have, no intention of ever ripping anyone off.

I hope my posts help to clear up any mistaken impressions caused by a misguided attempt to give someone else a smile at the end of what had been a long, busy day.
I'm tempted to say it won't happen again........but I can't promise

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

This has been kind of suggested already, but I would flip the saddle (after inspecting it for damage from having the wrong strings in the wrong slots) and see if it could still benefit from a setup. The guy brought it to you to make it play better, right? After making my determination, I'd call the guy and ask him how he'd like me to proceed. If it stopped there I don't know if I'd charge him anything or not. If I did, it wouldn't be much. If the shoe was on the other foot, I'd expect to pay something for the correction, and I'd sure appreciate the honesty. I believe this is a business where there's value in goodness and honesty.

And I didn't get the impression you were intending to rip anyone off.

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"Real guitars are for old people, Mr. Marsh."

Eric Cartman

Colin thanks for that, I got fooled and took you seriously....

We have professional trade association(s) as well, GAL, ASIA but these are not accrediting bodies with objective standards and requirements for one to call themselves a Luthier.

The reality in the US is that any hack with Craftsman 22 piece socket set can call themselves a Luthier..... and at times it shows, sadly. That was my point.

So instead we often describe our chops in terms of accomplishments such as I built X number of instruments or at times I studied with that guy or this guy or this woman, etc.

Anyway I have to get a feel for your sense of humor..... I do have a strong feeling that you would never rip anyone off as well! Notice too that I was the one advocating for some kind of charge because after all it did take some of your time, space, patience, etc. and that's value.

Charles Koch, a controversial US billionaire says that it all boils down to value and if a company can't make their clients lives better they are not providing value. I agree!

Thanks for your post Lyle. (and now Hesh I see)
That's pretty much the way things go with me, especially when they come in for setups (or a buyer for a guitar)
I ran a "guitar clinic" when I was exhibiting my wares beginning of September - if I could make it better during the 12 days of the show, no charge.
I normally do an initial assessment when an instrument comes in and then ask the owner to play a bit. to get an idea of his style, left hand grip, use of the right hand too. How much does the player dig in, vary dynamics, which part of the strings are utilized, etc.
This gives me an idea of what kind of setup may suit them best..
As the repair/whatever goes on, things may come up that I hadn't seen or expected - practically every job so far in fact, I've called the owner, let him know, and we discuss the way ahead. Sometimes it's good news, sometime not so good.
In a way, maybe I spend a bit too much time on this, not the first time I've spent a good hour with someone, 3 hours minimum initial planning a build.
But I do this because firstly I suppose I'm people person, and secondly because I want to give them the best service/instrument I can, returning to them in a state they can really enjoy playing it, which will perform to the maximum potential of owner/instrument combination.
Not necessarily giving them the lowest action possible, or just "my standard" setup, but trying to give them my best.
All my work is fully guaranteed (and insured), and any changes requested within a reasonable time frame ( several weeks, not when it next needs a refret!) are free of charge.
I want to see the same client returning with their other instruments (one has 32 already, and wants one OM then a Parlor from me) and sending their friends to me.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.