The Incredible Exploding Tailpiece

[ooglybong]

So I open the case of my (nearly mint) D'Angelico EXS-1DH and...
what?! At first I think that the guitar had popped a string but
immediately realize that, no, all six are awry. Then I see the entire
tailpiece simply lying there flat on the face of the guitar, just a
bit off its normal position...

$@#&%! What happened?!

Mind you, this guitar is basically still new, bought a few years back
during the D'Angelico blow-out feeding frenzy; I had picked it up at
the time because it was such a great deal, it played really well, had
a nice (but different) tone to it, and well, I liked it. However, as
it's so happened, I apparently seem to prefer my other archtops a bit
more and tend to not take this one out too often, and therefore, I'd
estimate certainly less than thirty hours playing time on it to date.
I did take it out for a few moments about two months ago, and it was
perfectly fine. Yeah I know, not much playing time put into it, but
that's why I've been resolving to take it out and play it some more. I
always enjoy it when I do.

Well, not right now. Thankfully, there was no more damage to the
guitar, even though the ragged edge of those four curving "hinge fingers" at
the very tip-end of the Art Deco top piece of the tailpiece itself are
now simply sharp, jagged pieces of gleaming metal. Looking very
carefully, there is one nearly subliminal not-quite-a-scratch on the
top near the edge, certainly not visible unless you're really looking
hard for it.

So this is just plain weird. The guitar has been sitting in its case
since last use, standard tuning with roundwound 11-gauge strings
installed. It has not been dropped, not even in the case. The room is
stable and ideal temperature and humidity. (I have left my Townsend
days behind so that's not it, either. ;-) Really, I've owned way too
many guitars in general, and for years, but nothing like this has ever
happened to me before.

I'm stumped. Has this ever happened to anybody else here?

Larry

[high]

i had the same issue with my ibanez af125.She had 12 gauge strings and the tailpiece just gone....

cheapy materials

[hot ford coupe]

Epiphones with the Frequensator tailpiece were famous for this. About half of the Epis I've been fortunate enough to encounter had cracks in the tailpiece and were just waiting to pop at some unfortunate moment. That should not happen with a relatively new axe.

[SamBooka]

Ditto on my Gibson es165. On the Gibson quite a few people have had the problem. Gibson blew me off and said go to stewmac or allparts...we dont sell replacements for that (the Canadian rep later said that Gibson used the same offshore parts as Allparts stocks, unfortunately mine was a 96 and the original was a different fit that the replacement). I am still pissed...

[ooglybong]

Well, I've decided to simply email D'A, explain what happened, and expect them to do the right thing and back up their product, no matter what the warrantee was. After all, a tailpiece falling apart spontaneously should simply not happen, and I would think that they'd still want to stand behind their product, even five or six years after the purchase. You would think so, right?

Unfortunately... I've been looking online this morning, and I actually CANNOT find a working website for D'Angelico! What the?! There's... D'Angelico New York but it's only a black screen with their logo showing. Nothing works, nothing clickable, no menus. Have they gone out of business? Did I miss anything lately? Whoah.

All I can find this morning are dealers sites that still seem to be carrying the D'As. Huh. Well, I guess that if nothing turns up, I'll give Jeff Hale a holler. I've bought an Eastman El Rey and an AI Corus from him, and he was great to do business with. At least, I'm pretty sure that he could advise me on what to do next...

And, by the way, for the record and besides this tailpiece issue, I have found the EXS-1DH to be a really fine guitar in every other regard. This was just plain weird.

Larry

[cutnstuf]

try here:
D'Angelico�bVestax

[ooglybong]

Thanks. D'A of USA is still an inert, black webpage with but a single floating .jpeg of their corporate logo. That's it. However, I did manage to find a working phone number in NJ late Friday; that went to voicemail, but at least it was D'Angelico of USA. I'll be calling there again this morning.

The link you gave me leads to Japanese and UK distributors of the Vestax D'A models. From what I understand, they're a rather more high-end product and a different line than what I bought, so I doubt they'd be interested in backing up my expired one-year warrantee themselves. Still, I'll bookmark it as a last chance scenario. They sell some nice stuff over in Vestax-land.

Thanks for your help!

Larry

[ooglybong]

So, I finally managed to call at the right time and reach someone at
D'Angelico of America in New Jersey. (In all honesty, I've been busy
otherwise and didn't make as many attempts as I should have. My fault.
Oh, yeah. Their currently inert website is "under construction", but
it should be up and running again soon.)

The guy was immediately familiar with my problem and admitted right up
front that the tailpiece had since been redesigned and that the
original one had had a problem with "metal fatigue".

He informed me that they were charging $90 for replacement tailpieces,
and that mine was past the one-year warrantee. I paused and calmly
asked "You're kidding, right?" Then I told him about the stories of
the same thing happening with others here, and that, surely, they must
still want to be supporting any unlucky customers who were using their
(admittedly) faulty gear. (Actually I phrased it in more gentle terms
than that, but the guy got my meaning.) Next thing he says is that
he'll "try to get it out to me by the end of the day".

Well... I was stunned to find the big, brown truck the very next day
and getting handed a small box. (I'm in upstate NY, but a one-day
delivery still sounds like a priority delivery. Thanks, D'A!) Oh,
yeah, I also got a bunch of picks, some D'A stickers and a cool D'A
postcard saying that he hoped all went well for me and to contact him
with any more problems.

I swapped tailpieces the next day and restrung it with D'Addario
Chromes (it had had roundwounds on it). I've since put in a couple of
hours on the guitar. VERY, very nice and even better than ever!

Thanks, D'Angelico.

Larry

[stevedenver]

larry
it is obvious
attitude is everything
well done

[brad4d8]

Originally Posted by ooglybong

I swapped tailpieces the next day and restrung it with D'Addario
Chromes (it had had roundwounds on it). I've since put in a couple of
hours on the guitar. VERY, very nice and even better than ever!

Thanks, D'Angelico.

Larry

I hope you expressed that thanks directly to the helpful employee.
Brad

[Patrick2]

Originally Posted by brad4d8

I hope you expressed that thanks directly to the helpful employee.
Brad

You mean the same guy that tried to hammer him for $90 ??????

[ooglybong]

Yeah, I did email to thank him. (Thanks, Dad. )

In all honesty, the guy sounded a bit embarrassed to be towing the company line with the price, and he never even came close to "hammering" me. He also mentioned that they were under new ownership and that this was the new policy, all that time sounding somewhat like he knew that wasn't too cool. At first, he was going to ask someone higher up. Then, after I asked him a few questions about the metal fatigue issue generating the new tailpiece design (it looks 99% the same but the logo is very slightly in a new position), that's when he told me that he'd "try to have it out by the end of the day". What I really didn't expect at all was the next-day delivery.

So thanks to the guy from D'Angelico.

[Makani]

I also recently had my Eastman 910 tailpiece explode off its end an startle everyone in the guitar shop with the noise. My guitar shop called the local distributor and he told him that this was a common occurence and that in fact they had a box of spare tailpieces sent to them by Eastman in China that we could use to repair the damage. In examining the break it looked like metal fatigue with the metal twisted off at a 45 degree tear.