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We saw a fair number of custom builds through the shop, and materials and workmanship errors were not as rare as I would have expected. Reputable builders fix the issue without any fuss or bother. Builders without those tiresome scruples do not. I have been in the shop when one of the fellows contacted another builder on behalf of a customer, and the conversations usually proceeded along the lines of 'when may I expect the guitar back from the owner?' or similar. But not always, and that is illustrated by this thread's content.

Greenridge has performed warranty work for several European and UK-based builders where - understanding the cost of shipping to and from France was on the customer - the builder provided a more cost-effective, lower risk approach for repairs. This reduced costs all around, and Greenridge charged a business to business rate for that work.

I have already discussed a couple of situations where a custom builder refused to make good on what was clearly a warranty situation, citing the international border between himself and the buyer as some sort of insurmountable obstacle to either honoring his warranty or paying someone else to make the work right. The boys were justifiably critical of those builders that offered a hundred dollars (CAN) and best wishes to their customer with a faulty, poorly designed bridge that ultimately cost the owner $500 or so to make it right.

My real concern is with those that seem to be incapable of learning from their failures. A recent check on the subject builder's site revealed the same old failed bridge design and the same insincere offer of a lifetime warranty on materials and workmanship.

On the topic of refusal to offer repair services, I suspect most of the repair-focused luthiers here have done exactly that, if not explicitly, then certainly by pricing the repair out of the realm of financial feasibility. So let me emphasize this point:

In the eyes of your customers, to repair an instrument is to own all of the related problems of that instrument.

It should not be so, but that is how most customers see the issue, and the better your shop's reputation, the more likely your customer will be to assume that all problems and issues will be revealed and necessarily addressed.

The fact is that some problems lack easy or - more likely - affordable solutions suggests that short of willingness to foot the bill for any and all things found (e.g., the bridge-related intonation issue when fixed highlights the poor first fret compensation), you may be on the receiving end of that dreaded question: "I don't understand why you only fixed half the problem... you did tell me you would FIX my guitar, right?"

Another way to look at this - and I suspect this is where Messrs Breakstone and Collins have drawn the line - is that given a badly executed collection of compromises masquerading as a custom-made musical instrument, repair people must necessarily assume ownership of the outcome, which in turn requires an assessment of whether the instrument may be brought to a state of being satisfactory to the owner. Already disappointed once if not twice (i.e., by the problem and then by the lack of builder commitment), disappointment usually attaches to the closest target... the shop's repair staff.

Summary: You touched it... you own it.

Not fair, and certainly requires some very human mental gymnastics to project that sort of blame on the people attempting to address the issue, but it is what it is. Some jobs should be refused, and some customers should be fired. Shops should maintain the financial freedom to avoid jobs with exceptionally dire back-end downside just as they should know when to cut their losses, tear up the bill, and hand the instrument back to the customer with a smile and a request to never darken their shop's door again. I would say that if you claim to be a repairman and have never passed on a job or fired a customer, you simply have not been at it long enough or stung badly enough to know better.

Further emphasis: Do not sign up for a repair unless you wish to own the outcome and any other related outcomes the customer might associate with your efforts.

When that misplaced bridge is corrected, expect that the customer really does want all those other issues which then manifest - nut compensation, worn tuners, poor fit of inlay, that bit of Titebond under the finish - to be resolved, as they are most definitely now YOUR problem. Smart shops cover this by noting that the estimate and condition report may be amended where disassembly is required or where the instrument is presented for repair outside of playable condition.

And in some cases, the customer makes it very evident by their actions that a continued business relationship is unwise.

PS: Let me say that by 'all issues' I mean exactly that... not just the reason the guitar appears on your bench, but all those other issues that are inherent to the guitar... tone, cosmetics, construction flaws, etc. It is a challenge to tell a customer that their $8K custom guitar is just not that good of a guitar in terms of some of the things which matter to buyers: cosmetics, tone, etc. Short of a full refinish and rework on the sort of details that matter, cosmetics are stubbornly resistant to much in the way of improvement. Tone likely is something which - absent some readily resolvable issue such as a loose bridge - is not something that will be changed in a dramatic fashion once the obvious issues, string selection, etc. are done. It always surprised me that we were expected to work miracles in addressing core material, design, and workmanship decisions made by the builder in sort of an applique approach . Don't mistake my complaint for a final assessment... I did see absolutely amazing things done by the boys, but it was often at a cost to the customer which weakened what I saw as the value proposition inherent in the repair.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Woodie brilliant post thank You!!!

The first time was in reference to future people making adjustments to guitars I built, and especially the less experienced/knowledgeable among them who would need the notes. The second time was in reference to my hypothesized nut maker, meant to differentiate between the work of amateurs and professionals such as yourself. I would never call you a mere "tech"

As for understanding the situation... well, I did ask. Your responses implied that the bridge location was as I supposed, but against your philosophy to fix as intended ("Nut compensation should never be necessary on a conventional steel string with conventional tunings"), hence my other responses.

I appreciate your reply Dennis and thank you for it.

Wanted to add one more possible fix for a bridge located .120 away from the nut on a 17 year old guitar that has not had a bridge reglue.

Instead of removing the bridge, refinishing the top and regluing the bridge which would show because of the UV aging of the top over time plan B might be better.

Plan B: Remove and reposition fret board. But first do any neck reset that may be beneficial so that we are not syncing up to a guitar that is going to need a neck reset in 5 years anyway. So neck reset, reposition fret board, refret, new nut, maybe saddle. Might be a $2K+ job had the client wanted to invest in the thing.

Yea .12 is quite a space to be off. Fixing it with an oversized bridge would probably make it look dorky and might even be too heavy for the top. I did one job like this on a classical guitar from a very well known maker in the 1950's era. It was incredible. Not only was the bridge, in this case, too close to the nut but the frets were all spaced wrong and cut at angles. It was known that this luthier liked to drink wine on the job So I made an entirely new fretboard with a scale length that matched the original bridge location.

I'm about to deliver on 3 guitars that took me a year to build and after reading this tread I'm going over it with a magnifying glass

Of course I don't charge top dollar because I don't have the name and my fit and finish is never perfect but functionality is. There just cannot be excuses for that.

I had one of my early guitars (#12) come back in on trade. I figured I could check the setup, throw some new boots on it, and send it back out into the world. I started checking it out and immediately noticed that the saddle fit very poorly; in fact it was leaning well forward, as one would expect. Ok - make a new saddle for it… I made a nice snug-fitting replacement, went to mark it for initial setup and realized it was sitting about .120” sharp: . Well that wasn’t going to fly and I couldn’t recut the saddle slot cuz the pins were too close. The only option was to remove the old bridge, fill the pin holes and make and install a new bridge, so that’s what I did.

At this point in my building career I couldn’t sell it and put it out in the world again - I had a good friend lamenting the fact that he couldn’t afford one of my guitars anymore, so I handed it off to him. It’s a sweet little box!

00.14.25 Sitka over Peruvian walnut.

Best, M

If you make enough stuff, eventually some of it will not be entirely correct…

Wow this is my first exposure to that idea as a possible repair solution. Nice!

I will remember that as an option if I ever encounter a similar situation. Thanks Hesh!

Plan C: remove and replace fretboard with one having a custom scale length to match the saddle location

My thanks to everyone who contributed here. Observers like me get exposed to a lot of reasoning and analysis that we otherwise wouldn't see. Watch and learn.

Much obliged!

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Peter Havriluk

Thanks Peter that was what I intended.

Yep good idea Mike it is indeed an option. Thanks

Second thoughts. Post deleted.

I painstakingly;) tried to read through all the posts. Sounds like the builder has not been contacted unless I missed it. Seems like that would be a minimum thing to do.

Not to play armchair $10K luthier, but it's hard to believe that a guitar from a reputable builder could get out the door being that far off. And if it did, that they wouldn't want to fix it.

Pat

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Pat

Contacting the builder is not anything that I would ever do and I wonder why some of you think it's necessary. Many of the more well known builders are friends with us and we see them at Northwoods, etc. But what I should be seeking is "value" for my client. I don't see how the builder can add any value to this situation when the client does not want to jump though any hoops to even get it fixed. The guitar is gone now and back with it's owner who is going to flip it.

I have a legal contract with the current owner of this instrument and as such it belongs to him not the builder. There is nothing I need from the builder, the bridge is in the wrong place, this is not the original purchaser, there is no warranty involved and the client is so pissed that he wants it out of his life.

FYI with no disrespect intended there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of small builders who are all over the place on the quality spectrum. Some people build kit guitars and sell them and they are what you would expect..... We even will reserve judgement on if we take a small builder instrument in unless we know the builder and can see the instrument with no commitment some of them are so.... bad.

I'm also not in the business of calling builders when I see one of theirs. We do around 1,100 guitars annually and some of these are from small builders and if we had to contact a builder when ever their stuff breaks we would be out of business.

Tomorrow I will work on a small builder L-OO that has a low nut slot from playing and enjoying wear. I'm not calling the builder of this "Black Tiger" because I am the builder.

So Pat not trying to be difficult but when you take your car in for service how often does the service dealer contact the manufacturer...... We can handle anything we take on and all that comes our way the builder could not add any value to this situation under the constraints that we must operate under because of who our client is.

This is a common thing that comes up here on forums the REAL world of Lutherie is not the same as the academic interest generated on a forum. So much so that another forum that is private and for mostly pros with a few exceptions has this same thread running and when someone asked about contacting the builder a well know Luthier pretty much laughed at them. We are supposed to know what to do and we do know what to do we do not need the builder for anything really.

My post is all about not letting things leave your shop ******-up. Develop a QC regime if you don't have one already please is the suggestion that I would glean from my post and one of my intents for posting. No one is trying to make anyone look bad and the builder will not be identified.

I’ll just say that if on some unlikely occasion one of my guitars crosses your bench with a major fault, I would take it as both a personal and professional courtesy to be informed of such. You might hurt my feeling but I’d rather that than have a bad penny constantly turning up in others people’s lives with my name on it.

The only person who should contact the builder for a warranty issue is the original purchaser of the instrument. As a repair person, no one is paying me enough to get involved in a potentially acrimonious or even litigious situation. I will give a quote to fix the issue in my own shop. Otherwise, there’s other valued customers to help, mortgage to pay, kids to feed.

I learned this the hard way in the first month I was in business. On behalf of a customer I contacted the builder of his brand-new custom archtop. It had arrived with an atrocious neck angle and unplayable high action. The builder ducked for cover immediately and cried owner abuse. This left me in the position of being the schmuck who had to deliver the bad news and bear the brunt of the customer’s displeasure. After that subsided I bid to fix the job and it was pretty affordable due to the archtop being a bolt-neck. But like Hesh’s customer, this fella felt angry and ripped off, didn’t want to look at the object of his disappointment and didn’t feel like he should have to spend further money to make a $10k guitar playable. He posted it for sale on reverb the next day. And of course I received nothing for my time.

We need to acknowledge also here that building instruments full time is in most cases a skin-and-bones business. Very few get rich, many, even well-known builders, survive instrument to instrument and there’s very little financial scope for them to be able to stop building a paying commission and spend a week on a warranty repair, or foot the bill for someone else to do the work. So the incentive is not always there for them to go out of their way on things like this, and in many cases some may find themselves in a situation where despite their best intentions financial pressures are pushing them in the direction of things going out the door in a less than 100% state…

Since those early days I have on a few occasions and after discussing things with a client, handled a warranty issue on their behalf - always with an established company and not a small builder - and it has always involved multiple phone calls, emails, sending photos and evidence of the issue and I billed the client for the time I spent organising the situation. Repair people do this for a living, not as a charity for customers or as a service to help salvage the rep of a builder who messed up in the first place.

If you buy a house with bad pipes, is your plumber going to call the original contractor who built the house 20 years ago and to let him know about the issue?


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For your viewing pleasure and to lighten the mood a bit I will offer an inexpensive solution which could work, but which not many would dare to use. It is the "Farm kitchen sink" saddle, a.k.a. the bone on bone solution by those of us with bad knees.
It could fix the intonation in a non invasive way and gluing a bone saddle to and in front of the existing one might not hurt the sound as much as one might think. Considering how many bizarre saddle solutions have been done over the years it may not be as outlandish as it seems, and is totally reversible when someone finally girds up their loins to do the job right.

The second picture is of an Osprey pair and a little bobble head between them who are trying again to raise a family. Last year they were at about this same point when a violent thunderstorm wiped out the nestling. I'm hoping they have better luck this year.

Osprey used to come around the little pond down the way (I’m lucky in that I live about a 5 minute walk from a trout hole), and it was amazing to watch them come steal the fish I paid for with my license, lol. Haven’t seen them in a while. It’s mostly cormorants now, who are much better fishers than us suckers standing on the dock.

Smart and economical solution Clay!

And I know you, kind of, Ed and will remember your request and I will contact you since you asked. But you owe me a beer and a joint

Who knew I could turn this into an extortion opportunity LOL JUST KIDDING...

Thank You Jesus thank you Lord I am SOOOO glad to have the perspectives of Josh, Woodie, Chris and others who do repairs in earnest not just dabble occasionally for something to do or don't do any repairs. It's very different for us trying as we might to keep that shingle hanging out there when old world business models like ours are seemingly constantly under attack.

Glad Josh brought up the concerns of builders in business too that does matter.

Remember too some of us are very experienced builders and know how to ****-up a guitar just fine on our own and don't need a builder to tell us how... Kidding of course, kind of...

Thanks Josh I appreciate the hell out of you man!!!

Thanks for this Clay I would post my Osprey pics but I would have to resize them and that takes time.

Changed my mind: Dinner time

The first, no problem, the latter, I’m afraid you’ll need to look elsewhere…;)