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March 2007
Posts: 843
Location: CA | It strikes me that a large appeal of Ovations, at least by the folks who frequent this site, is the amazing restorations the Mothership is so skilled at. I mean, to the point where someone might go through with a deal that they NEVER would otherwise, simply because they know that a few weeks or months with Mom and all will eventually be well, if not like new. From my limited time on this site alone, I now suspect there are dozens if not scores if not scores of scores of Ovation guitars that are still among the living simply through the knowledge that the mothership can heal their various maladies.
So my question is, does any other manufacturer do this? Can you RELIABLY send a Fender or Taylor or whatever back to that factory and have them do quality work comparable to Ovation? Perhaps I'm asking the wrong crowd (a tad biased), but I'm just curious. |
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September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | Not that I've heard of... When I told my friends that I sent my Pacemaker back to the factory and got a new guitar built out of it, they were kind stunned. These are people who swear by Martins and Gibson, but I don't think that you would be able to send them back for a rebuild.
I think they would tell you to take it to a luthier or buy a new one. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | All manufacturers have a responsibility to their customers under the terms of their warranties, but out-of-warranty rebuild or restoration is a whole other thing. Ovation seems to do a fair amount of non-warranty work at very reasonable prices. Not sure which other of the bigger companies would do that, but I suspect not too many. |
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October 2007
Posts: 2711
Location: Vernon CT | Great Question Oddball! Ive only been playing for 8 years, but have never heard of this kind of service before from another Manufacturer. Maybe some of the members here who also frequent some of the "other" sites (Tak,AGF,) can ask or may allready know. |
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Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Martin wants to outsourse this work. I had a clear warrentee item and was given the name of three shops that would do the fix. They didn't want that guitar coming back to them for anything!
can't address the others |
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May 2008
Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Bill's right, Martin oursources as much warranty work as possible, but they'll take custom stuff and referbs back in house depending on what exactly it is. Probably depends how much work it is for them vs. how much they can profit on it. I sent one back to Naz and had the neck gloss finished. Price was about the same as Ovation charges but it took a long time (3 months). I asked about sending one back to have the eclipse blend installed and the sent me to a local guy in Phoenix. If you do have to contact them ask for Carmine. He's been very helpful to me on a few occasions with questions and stuff.
Dave |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
very reasonable prices That's the truth!
I did read of a lady that had her heirloom Gibby severely damaged during Katrina. A friend sent it back to Gibson for a surprise restore. Came out beautiful but an expen$ive and time extensive operation.
I have a Balladeer that will be heading up to visit the MS shortly. Wish I could go with her! |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | I dropped a Collings once and they did a grat job on fixing it. They replaced the top and you can never tell it was done. The guitar was less than a year old anyway so no big deal loosing any tone that had been played into the top.
I have a 1934 Martin C-2 arch top I wanted converted to a flat top and Martin wouldn't touch it. Sent me to TJ Thompson outside of Bahsten and he did it, Took 10 months but turned out great. Later when I had Martin troubles on my OO-41 Martin-Bruno I went to TJ for the warrentee work. |
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November 2004
Posts: 1330
Location: ms | 2ifbyc, that lady with the Katrina Gibson is a news anchor person for wlox tv in Gulfport MS. Her name is Karen Abernathy. She used to live just a few blocks from my sister but her house washed away in the storm. They had the guitar story in acoustic guitar mag. |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Thanx gc. I can't remember where I read the story (web, I think). But it was an interesting story in what can be accomplished by master craftsmen/women and good friends. |
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November 2004
Posts: 1330
Location: ms | If they showed the before and after pics you can see just how good those guys a Gibson are. |
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March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | A customer of mine had an old Gibson that needed work The top was cracked badly. It was very expensive, and when he got it back it looked like a totally different guitar. Not just new, but DIFFERENT. It sounded good though, so he kept it. After almost a year he brought it in with pictures of the original. I knew right away something was wrong, and suggested he get back in touch with Gibson. Somehow they had lost his name and address. They were very glad he finally called them, as the original owner of "his" guitar was very anxious to get it back! Yep, they had shipped it to the wrong person, then lost his address! He shipped it back, and they then sent him HIS guitar. He hasn't brought his real guitar in yet, so I don't know how good a job they did. I imagine they did fine, but with that kind of mix-up, I would've been so mad I would've STRONGLY requested at least a partial refund on the repair price! |
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March 2007
Posts: 843
Location: CA | Good story, CanterburyStrings. Reminds me of a friend of mine, Rob, who had a electric guitar custom made. This was years ago during his 'goth' period so of course one of the specs was that the body had to be black. After months of waiting he gets the call from his local shop that the new axe has arrived. He goes down there and the guy says, "Play it before you flip out." They open the case and there is the guitar he's always dreamed of . . . except the body is like this metallic salmon/champagne color. Okay, it's pink. WTF? He starts to complain but the guy at the store (not the one who built it) says "XXX (the luthier) was going to make it black but by the time he got done, the guitar didn't want to be black. It wanted to be this color." Rob was getting pretty incensed at this point, as he'd paid beaucoup bucks and waited for months for this freakin guitar and here was this PINK thing. But the store guy says, "Just play it."
So Rob goes in the sound room and plugs in and about 20-30 minutes later comes out, puts the guitar back in the case and tells the store guy (and everyone else who he has since entertained with this story), "He was right." Rob says he fronted a band for years with that guitar, it never let him down, and he still regrets letting it go. |
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Posts: 270
Location: Yorkshire, England | I never knew my Mother - (just in case anyone was interested) |
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February 2004
Posts: 1634
Location: Warren,Pa. | : ( |
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July 2003
Posts: 3111
Location: Nashville TN. | Originally posted by Mauvais Beal:
Martin wants to outsourse this work. I had a clear warrentee item and was given the name of three shops that would do the fix. They didn't want that guitar coming back to them for anything!
can't address the others I was not happy when I found out Martin has no factory service. That was after I bought one.
Ovation spoiled me. |
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October 2006
Posts: 5575
Location: big island | gibson, martin, taylor, takamine and many other makers all have "authorized" luthiers around the world for warranty work. does Ovation "authorize" other shops for work or do they handle it all in-house? |
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October 2005
Posts: 803
Location: Avondale, AZ | According to the folks on the Gibson fan site, Gibson does a wondereful job with restorations. However if you'd ask those Gibson fans how they think Gibson's service compares with Ovation's, they would say "who's?". |
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Do Other People Have Moms?