Official Luthiers Forum!

Maxwell Smart might have said what I titled this thread as if he had been a Luthier... He might have also had not only a phone in his shoe but a fret rocker too....

The really nice thing about f*ctory.... guitars is they make a huge contribution to our business when clients want things made right.

"I asked ya not to tell me that..."

Had to make room for the .32 caliber truss rod barrel?

My dad always said "Close enough for government work", so maybe it's Close enough for factory work?

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As my mother in laws' husband would say ... "We ain't building a church here, 88 degrees is plenty good."

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Ha ha, that's pretty bad. QC must have been out to lunch.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That must be the new progressive/regressive combo spacing. That's some next generation stuff.

I actually know of a couple "luthiers" who cannot make a nut for a left handed axe. Perhaps that's the problem here?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Maybe the guy had one fat finger.

I'm sure if you stick with it you can learn to play that guitar real well. So whats the big deal?

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"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
Mark Twain

Looks to me like an amateur aftermarket attempt at making a L/H nut. What korporation$ would send out a guitar with pencil marks all over the nut and F/B?

"I asked ya not to tell me that..."

Maybe they had to make room for the .32 caliber truss rod barrel.

Pencil marks could have been from the user. Was an old trick to use graphite (pencil) to lubricate nut slots when they would jump while tuning. I learned it in the '70s and did it that way for about 20 years.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Must be a super-dopey customer. It couldn't have been playable with that nut off by ~1/4", but he bought it anyway. Then instead of returning an obvious defect, he pays more money to some other guy to get it fixed.

Hesh...soak him for all he's worth!!

Yea, we all know that trick, but it's doubtful to me. Strings 4-6, the pencil marks are quite outside the slot. Strings 1-3 are fatter and a sharp pencil would get around the max diameter. Whatever it is, looks very amateurish.

No argument there. Maybe an inebriated amateur.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Close enough for shareholders too.

Thanks everyone.

We often refer to our work as "completing the manufacture of the instrument." What we mean by this is not only are many if not most new guitars not set-up or not set-up at all well at the time of purchase some things are so far off but not considered defects by the makers that we are asked to step in.

Another very common AND profitable thing that we see with nearly everyone's work (speaking of the f*ctories) is too much relief on the treble side and not enough on the bass side. Or, very common in the bolt-on, electric neck world is a ski ramp where the neck bolts on to the body.

In both cases the maladies are the single most limiting factor to getter reliable low action. As such and since many players want low action they pay a Luthier to do fret work. This is a fret dress and we can easily correct where the relief is, how much and nix ski ramps in the process too. When that's said and done a new set-up takes the action way down or can if that's desirable AND if the player style can do low action.

Nut slots are something that f*ctories long ago started ignoring likely because it requires at least semi-skilled labor that costs more to do nut slots well AND there is associated risk of going too far and then spending time replacing a nut. On a new instrument the nut should be replaced unless any fill is equal to or superior to the original nut material in hardness and longevity.

Hope you don't mind my ramblings here. Just giving interested parties a view of our world from the repair bench.

As always, Hesh - you are on point.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince