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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | I took my Elite 12 over to the shop this afternoon.
Unfortunately they have a different guy working on guitars there now. Nice enough guy I suppose, pretty young, seemed to know what he was talking about, but he was a tad condescending & I wasn't very impressed with the way he was handling my brand new guitar. Right off he tried to lay it down on it's back with the head laying on the counter with nothing under the neck. I didn't let him. I hope he got the message.
I know it didn't have a mark on it when I took it in there, if it has a mark on it when I go get it Thursday he's going to be glad it's a super shallow body. The super shallow won't hurt as much a deep bowl when I shove it up his ass. We'll see how he does.
I didn't leave my Gibson. I did buy a set of D'Addario 12's for it though. I'll clean it & change the strings myself. The Elite can be replaced if he screws it up, the Gibson can't.
I'll report back on how the 12's on the 175 work out.
Nils (with his fingers crossed) |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Nils
He'll be glad you didn't have him working on a stand up bass if he screws up. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | Well he didn't screw it up. Actually, he didn't do a damned thing.
Fortunately I called before I drove the 80 mile round trip to make sure it was ready to go. Good thing I did. It wasn't ready. I got the kid's home phone number from one of the guys there & called him up. It seems he didn't have a "special wrench" to adjust the truss rod & I'd have to wait until Saturday. :rolleyes:
I called the shop again & talked to the boss (Steven, the guy that ordered it for me). I asked him what "special wrench" the kid needed because there was a truss rod wrench in the case that came with the guitar. Steven said he'd do it himself & it was ready when I got there. All it needed was a small adjustment of the rod & it plays great again with it tuned to standard pitch. He didn't even need to remove a shim. He smoothed the little sharp spot on the nut too, much better.
I told him what I thought about the kid's attitude & how he'd handled my Elite. I also told him he cost him some money, because I wasn't about to leave my 50 year old Gibson with him.
Steven said he'd "Take care of it." I'm not sure what he meant, but I don't think that kid is going to have a good day when Steven "takes care of it".
At any rate, everything is hunky in the dory again now as far as me & my "Sweet Elite" is concerned. :)
Nils |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | I was about 19 and bought a 1934 duolian national from a junk dealer for 50 bucks. I still have it. it was in bad shape typical neck bow It needed some tlc the tuners needed a screw and it needed a nut since it was cracked.
I took it to a local store and the guy wanted to buy it from me. I told him no. He told me 25 for the nut and the screw for the tuner and one other thing that I forgot maybe a brdige saddle. He told me to call in one week .
In a week I called and asked if my dobro was ready. He got on the phone and screamed at me that he told me 2 weeks and that I should not bother him I have a lot of nerve etc and he used a lot of profanity.
I did not call for 3 weeks. I finally called and he screamed at me telling me that the guitar was ready 3 weeks ago and why didn't I call and he was ready to sell it etc etc etc. I realized I was not playing with a full deck here. then he tells me my total was 50 bucks.
I was not happy. I went to pick it up and asked what it was about and he told me that he had sooooooooooooooo much work to do to the guitar and that I could leave it and not pay if I didn't have the money. I never got a straight answer why I had to pay double (aside from being a dumb young kid with a cool guitar he wanted to steal from me)
Well I paid him the money and told him that I would never be back and that I had many friends in the area that were players and that I would always bad mouth him and NEVER would he get any business. at that point he just screamed profanities at me and threw me out of the store.
I got home to find that the only thing done to the guitar was the nut and that is when I started to do my own guitar repair.
epilogue: for years I told people not to shop at his store and I became a local guy know for vintage gear and this shop owner would meet up with me from time to time and ask me to bury the hatchet and stop in. I was always polite but declined. Well eventually he was arrested by the feds for tax evasion the contents of the shop sold and his whereabouts unknown... |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15677
Location: SoCal | Not unknown Al. I'm now out in Calif. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | you BASTARD!!! |
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Joined:
November 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Yeah, Al, but did you profit from the stock liquidation? After all, its "just business", right? |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | Yeah it is all just business. When the guy went out of business unfortunately he sold everything to a place in Boston. BUT
The guy that was doing "repairs" for him at the time was running stuff out the back door at an alarming rate. I did not know of this but later got some parts and other items that alledgedly came out of there this way.
If I knew I would have bought the inventory since he did have some very cool stuff there but I would have had to change the name of the biz and maybe the location he had such a bad reputaion that no one would go there anymore.
Example 1981 he was charging $5.95 for a set of gibson 740xl guitar strings (they were my favorite at the time) that was LIST price plus. He would argue and scream about how the big stores were putting him out of business etc and make you feel bad so you would pay the price. Well lets say you did it once and then never went back.
He tried to change he was way too late. |
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New tech :/
