Members Texas Noise Factory Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Better prepare to not see that Les Paul for a while then Texas. I mean really prepare, as in you mentally ready yourself for what will probably half a year without your precious Paul. Make sure touch it, feel it. Remember the texture, remember the warmth, remember the taste, remember the goddamn smell. That's right, smell it. Good and hard my friend because anything less will have you thinking crazy thoughts while your baby is gone (such as buying another guitar).Well, Cpt. I understand. Since it's currently broken, all I can do is smell it, touch it, and feel it. Not PLAY it! I've got other geetars to play, so I'm more concerned in getting it put back together before I accidentally broke it. Anyway, thanks for the response! I appreciate you posting your experience for others to see. Definitely an eye opening experience! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dcindc Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Craftsmen take time. And are often type A non communicators. This is a fact. Try and get used to it, to get the best work. I refurb vintage electronics, and tell everybody expect it to be 3 to 6 months. Less than 50% of the people actually absorb that fact. There are times when working on things that delays happen. I often fix things when working on cars or amps or whatever that the customer never even knows about, just to make it right. These do cause delays along with any other delay you can think of. From previous forum posts it seems you waited as long as Carvin takes to make a custom model, so I'd say the wait was appropriate. It looks like the work is commensurate with the wait, also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sylvesterlowery Posted February 15, 2011 Members Share Posted February 15, 2011 Lone Star guitar shop in Pasadena (Spencer) does excellent, thorough, and timely work. He's reasonable and appreciates repeat business. Is Al still there?Great guy and an excellent tech! Didn't know if they were still in business, glad to hear they are still around! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cpt Albatross Posted February 16, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 I refurb vintage electronics, and tell everybody expect it to be 3 to 6 months. Less than 50% of the people actually absorb that fact. Atleast you give them a realistic date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fiveoclockhero Posted February 16, 2011 Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 I love Mr. Whomper Bottoms. Is he a Himalayan? Where did the name come from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crunchtime Posted February 16, 2011 Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 Great looking guitar but for the amount invested I would have ordered a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cyprusg Posted February 16, 2011 Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 Honestly despite the quality of work waiting more than 6 months for a guitar is ridiculous. I've got to believe that you can find a luthier just as good but with better customer service. Anybody that would go to him after reading this thread is a sucker in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Argh! Zombies! Posted February 16, 2011 Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 Am I the only one who sees the weird Floyd routing? Are you guys playing a joke on me to see if I go insane, like that time you glued my furniture to the ceiling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BG76 Posted February 16, 2011 Members Share Posted February 16, 2011 When I build a guitar for someone I tell them upfront that they have to give me 10% non-refundable if they cancel the order for any reason. That 10% covers the cost of the wood/materials to get started and also covers my time. I am very, very selective about who I will build a guitar for and I am upfront about the fact that it will usually take a while. However, I send photo updates and will do minor changes, etc... without any problems. Plus, I'm not really in the guitar making business to make money, so a Honduran mahogany guitar with a one piece body and a Brazilian rosewood fretboard will cost about $450 plus hardware/electronics. The last few I have done I have sold as 'body cores' meaning someone has to install the electronics and set the thing up - or I'll do it if they provide me with everything and add $100 to the price. That being said, I was building guitars to sell for a while and the price was very low. I was selling higher quality PRS singlecut style guitars with Brazilian for $400 or $350 for plain top and LP Junior SC styles for $350 - this is with no electronics. I had some people who would call me 3 + times A DAY to see how their guitar was coming out - and I had a private site with photos that was updated once a week. It got to be such a PITA I just decided to get build customers from a well known, respected dealer who pays me $1400 a guitar and sells them for $2000. I never have to deal with the customers and I can take as long as I want. Perfect situation for me. The repair dude should deliver when he promises unless the job requires more time due to more work being discovered, changes or a back order of parts. That being said, while the guitar is in the initial time period (which it sounds like yours is not) you shouldn't call the dude every 10 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cpt Albatross Posted February 17, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 17, 2011 Am I the only one who sees the weird Floyd routing? Are you guys playing a joke on me to see if I go insane, like that time you glued my furniture to the ceiling? Might be weird because there was a wilkinson there originally. I haven't had any problems with it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members heritage80elite Posted August 17, 2011 Members Share Posted August 17, 2011 Ron Pace has refretted five guitars for me over the past 15 years, and he's the finest luthier I've ever met. It typically takes Ron 2-3 months to complete the job, but his craftsmanship and attention to detail are second to none. He is difficult to contact via e-mail or phone, so I generally just swing by his house if I want to check on the staus of a repair. Ron Pace is simply an amazing craftsman. I will continue to take my guitars to him in the future, as he's definitely worth the wait in my opinion. $1000 in modifications to a Carvin? Really? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cpt Albatross Posted August 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 21, 2011 You say a Carvin, but I say my Carvin, so yeah, it was worth it. One day I hope you too will feel the same way for an instrument. Anyways, I agree, obviously, the quality presented was fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DarthElvis Posted August 21, 2011 Members Share Posted August 21, 2011 I love Mr. Whomper Bottoms. Is he a Himalayan? Where did the name come from? Yes, a freakin' awesome cat. Looks like he's waiting for you to play your new/old fine instrument so he can experience the warm fuzzy guitar case the way only a cat can. Btw, very nice guitar. Who's to say how much to spend on something you love, what I see is money well spent. Absolutely stunning. You have something of custom shop quality, with a midrange sticker on the headstock (a good thing, just wait). You want to ask yourself, will the junkie/crackhead steal that guys Gibson Les Paul (studio, standard - doesn't matter) or my "midrange" Carvin? Do the math, Junkies are not totally stupid. They'll jack whatever they can turn over fast and leave the unknowns (learnt through a couple hard lessons). Of course, not a big concern if you don't gig, but if you do its something to think about. Then again, if you have to sell, you'll never get what you put in, but you said that's not your motivation. I would have done the exact same thing for a great instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hockeyron Posted February 28, 2013 Members Share Posted February 28, 2013 Ron Pace does AWESOME work. Bottom line!!! He painted my Fender Jaguar headstock in surf green to match the body and it looks amazing!!! Only took about two weeks. Let him do the work for you and you will not be disappointed. You can't rush these type of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cooltouch Posted November 5, 2013 Members Share Posted November 5, 2013 I came across this thread when I was doing a google search on 'guitar repair houston'. And I thought I'd add a bit to it, even if the last response was about 8 months ago. I had Ron Pace do one piece of work for me and this was about 15 years ago. I had a Kramer Focus 1000 that I had bought shortly before then and I wanted to hotrod it.The guitar came with a single humbucker in the bridge position and had a Floyd Rose. It also had a volume and tone control for the single pickup. What I decided I was gonna do would be to put a P90 single coil in the neck position, but I would need to have the body routed for this. Well I already had the P-90, so I removed the strings and set the P90's cover down on the body exactly where I wanted the pickup to be, and with a Sharpie pen I traced an outline of the cover while holding it in place. I had decided that I was going to do all the wiring work myself, and that basically all I wanted from Pace was to have him route the opening for the P90. So I drove out to his house and dropped off the guitar. It was finished a couple of days later and the routing job was perfect. No paint chips or nothing. I don't recall anymore what I paid him to do the route job, but as I do recall, it didn't seem to be an exhorbitant amount. So, with respect to the time it took him to finish my guitar, I dunno, maybe I got lucky? Once I had it back, I installed the P90 and began running wiring. As I had the guitar apart, I noticed a curious thing -- this guitar's lone pickup had a coil tap. Well, since it was there, I decided to exploit it. I had already obtained a standared toggle switch for the two pickups so I decided to go with a mini switch for the coil tap. I bought a 3-position micro switch from radio shack. The guitar had only two holes in the top, so that was gonna have to change. I decided to move both controls down a space toward the butt of the guitar, and use the "top" hole for the toggle switch. So I drilled a new hole with slightly tighter spacing next to the "bottom" hole, and this would be for the second control. I then drilled a smaller offset hole for the coil-tap switch. To keep things simple and also to insure that everything would fit in the control cavity, I decided that, since I never use tone controls -- I always set them to "10" and leave them there -- I would just dispense with them altogether and instead I wired both controls as volume pots, the "top" one for the neck pickup and the "bottom" one for the bridge pickup. The Kramer originally had metal control knobs, and I got rid of them in favor of the ice-cube looking ones. The finished gutar gave me three settings on my bridge humbucker -- humbucker in phase, out of phase, and single coil -- plus with the pickup selector switch in the middle position, I could combine any of the bridge pickup's sounds with the neck P90 and vary the amount of each with their volume controls, and then I had that pure wall-of-sound of the P90 in the neck position. So not only did I have a guitar with quite a bit of flexibility, sound-wize, but I also had one that I thought looked pretty cool with its hot rod good looks, thanks to Ron Pace, and its new switches and all. So, whatdya think? Not bad, eh? She's always been fun to play 'cuz she has a nice fast neck on her. But she's really a blast to play now, with the new pickup arrangement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaveAronow Posted November 5, 2013 Members Share Posted November 5, 2013 This has to be a troll post. Nobody can really be this dumb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 DaveAronow wrote:This has to be a troll post.Nobody can really be this dumb. First of all, nothing I see in that post (or that user's profile) indicates that he's trolling. He expressed his POV, and provided details and pics. Secondly, please watch the personal attacks and name-calling. That's uncalled for. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members traveler9491 Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 I wouldn't know how good his work is because I got tired of the run around and lies. He never touched it. I finally picked my guitar up & sent it back to Gibson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Virgman Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 Guy shouldn't be taking on new work if he can't get it done in a timely fashion. Just be upfront and tell people you're to busy for new work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 Pretty old thread that dates back to 2010.Repairs can run into complications.I know some builders who can take up to a year for a custom build from scratch because they have that much demand. They might want to expand and hire some apprentices. It all comes down to whether you want that guy to do the work himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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