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Patrick2,
The photo was taken in late June 1968, at the end of the 7th week. Fort Polk, Louisiana in May and June is BRUTAL, but most of the fellas were being trained to head straight over to VietNam... That was the first time I'd even been allowed away from the company street of my outfit. It was the first burger and shake I'd had in 7 weeks. Believe me, they worked me VERY hard, I weighed about the same as when I went it but I was rock muscle, the D.I.'s loved making me do pushups. After about four weeks it was funny, they'd say "drop down and give me 25 Hale..." and I'd give 'em 50 and smile. Ask them if they wanted me to do more, or do "airborne pushups" for them. They messed with me for a long time. But at graduation I was held back, awaiting orders, actually waiting for a Secret Clearance to come thru. I did a lot, I actually operated the very IBM 360 Mod 40 they were using to process personnel data back and forth to Nam... Did that, then Tet happened and I got reassigned to 2nd Armored 2nd of the 67th armored infantry. Was a jeep driver for the company commander (I had scary good night vision), then was a cooks assistant in the field out of a Deuce and a Half for 3 months. I spent my spare time on the other side of the base making jewelry in a Special Services Arts and Crafts center, trying to stay outta trouble. Wasn't much else to do unless you went to Austin or Waco... I landed a very plum assignment teaching jewelry making, that was my duty, did that 14 months and then ETS'ed... When I was clearing post I started running into guys from my Basic Unit, I got caught up on all the friends I made, and unfortunately lost. I hated it. But looking back on it I'm really glad I did it. My Dad told me "son ya can't ride the bus for free". He got the Bronze Star at Bastogne, 101st...
My Dad Bill, someplace in Europe early '43
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05-23-2014 03:17 PM
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Must have been a year later ? Early 1943 the allied forces were still in North Africa not landed in Europe yet I think. Sept 43 in Italy and June 44 Normandy of course.
still great what your dad did my deepest respect
in my area ("Bridge too far") we see a lot of veterans visiting every year still, and we cannot thank them enough for the freedom and prosper that western Europe has had in the last 7 decades. I never miss the liberation day and also teach my kids, went with my 10 year old this year.
2,000 allied forces died in Bastogne, 17,000 at op. Market Garden. There is a list of names on the bridge - all young boys 19, 20, 21 etc. Half my age. They never got home had a career , family, or got to indulge themselves in hobbies like playing the guitar
Makes you realise how lucky we actually are to even be fussing about nut width , a brand of strings, or shade of sunburst
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- A used Yunzhi is 1/2 the price of a used Eastman
- Xuoham posted some nice electric clips on his Yunzhi running an Armstrong 12 pole
- I agree with jzucker that things are getting heavy handed in this thread . And yea.. we're lucky to be able to discuss things that are, all things considered, not very important at all.
Gejodi seems to be a very amicable guy. While we all get some vicarious enjoyment of his new guitar, I don't think he'll mind if we talk about Yunzhi versus other stuff a bit.
While I'm a fan, I don't think Yunzhi's are guitar nirvana. Their electronics absolutely suck, their ebony tuning pegs fail, their cases are marginal, they need to improve their 'as delivered' nitro finish, and I've found various tool mark and materials issues that should not be on a new guitar. Yes.. this is more than made up for with the ability to name your own specifications (close to a custom instrument), price, and the woodwork. Also, for me at least, the quality of the sound puts these guitars past everything short of high end production archtops. Still, not everyone can or wants to work on their own guitar and tech's can be expensive even if a good one is available.
As for Yunzhi versus Eastman, even if they sounded exactly the same, Eastman has a completely different business model. Yunzhi builds to your spec's (nut width, scale, finish, bout, depth, binding, et al). Eastman doesn't. Combined with the price difference, that ends the discussion for me as I'm willing to fix Yunzhi's minor flaws. Of course if you don't care for Benedetto style guitars, maybe you won't like either. (non-Benedetto designs are available from both, but that's a different discussion)
As for Gibson or others being overpriced, they are priced for the market. They make their clientele happy and offer generally high quality. For their customers, obviously they are worth it. Would I buy a Gibson if I wasn't filling the house with Yunzhi's? Maybe. But I wouldn't buy half a dozen.Last edited by Spook410; 05-23-2014 at 04:25 PM.
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I have a very hard time imagining this given the quality of contributors in this forum and to be honest, I'm dubious of what the 'several other folks' told you and have to wonder if they were exaggerating a bit. I would hope that if anything resembling this occurred, they would contact the moderator (Mark) so he can take the appropriate action. In my mind any kind of threatening message would justify an outright ban.
Originally Posted by jzucker
Last edited by Spook410; 05-23-2014 at 05:57 PM.
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FWS6
You know that photo of my Dad might have been in England before D Day. He was pretty busy after that. His sister Jessie was a nurse in the Army during the war and they got to see each other in England. He was a radio operator, one of the really few times the talked about the war it was what he did during Bastogne, he and some other fellas were trying to get decent coordinates on where the German artillery was and radio that in, hoping that when the skies finally cleared the Allied bombers could send the Germans a little Christmas Present as it were. He had a tiny notebook he carried in his shirt pocket that he had used to mark money he sent back to The States to my Ma. When things got pretty bad at Bastogne, he started writing in it. I THINK he thought he wasn't gonna make it and he wanted my family and my Ma especially to know what was going on day to day. I have it and have always treasured it as one of the few family mementos I'll always be glad I have. My dad's been gone 12 years now, I'd give up all my guitars to have five minutes with him...
Love you Pop
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So Yolandteam works with what company?
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Educate yourself.
JAZZ GUITAR - HOTMAN HANDMADE GUITAR - China - Yolanda Team---Your
Originally Posted by edh
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I was under the impression yolandateam was a recent business venture...are all of those models they built, or pics of yunzhis?
Good to see an actual website. Wouldnt be surprised if that alone allows y-team to grow far beyond Yunzhi....
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I think I said it before in this thread:
Original partners that formed Eastman split, one kept the dealer network model/the other chose to go sell direct to the customer via the web model (save the customer the middleman's cut). Half the wood stock of the original Eastman and many of the employees went to Yunzhi. Later more enterprising experienced builders and "salers" started their own businesses. Many started building on the side in their spare time when working for Yunzi and Eastman. Eventually they started a little company. Actually knowing Lora as long as I have she was trying to go independent as far back as 2011 as is reflected in the email addresses. So Yoland has their own TEAM of builder who have their own shop. If any of you ever watched the old Eastman factory videos on YouTube you'd see there are VERY few power tools used, a band saw, the spray booth setup, the rest is all pretty much totally made by hand. It's not some big factory with CNCs and all. It's HAND CARVED, hand cut...
Here's another, more of a chance to see the workbenches and crew. A far cry from the factories that crank out a lot of American guitars...
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Well, that doesn't actually answer my question, but cool videos...I love watching people work with wood...its something im so bad at, I really admire those who can.
Not sure why you need to keep comparing to american companies, though. There's only one big american company touting hand carved guitars anyway, and the Gibson solid wood archtops are not made in a "factory" either.
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I'm dropping out of this thread. It's reminding me of a woman I dated, she'd complain about one thing, you'd take care of it and it'd be something else... I've tried to be helpful and informative. But really ya'll if you really want the info, go search on the web for it like I did.
For a few fellas that mentioned my comments about my Dad being in Bastogne: I dug up his little notebook that originally was for keeping track of his paychecks and the money he sent home to my Ma... When things got tough he flipped the little notebook over and started writing on the other end of it. If interested can hook you up with a few more of the pages that followed this one,
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Can't be bothered to answer a simple question?
Sometimes it's nice to get the info from someone who clearly knows rather than go on google goose chases.
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I've written Admin asking them to delete my account. Nice knowing all of you.
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Really?
All I wanted to know is if yolandateam had been in business long enough to actually make the guitars on their site or if they were hold over photos from yunzhi.
Ive been interested in trying one of these budget x braced archtops for a while, maybe even trying a seven string, but I got soured on Yunzhi after they did the Monteleone copy, which was kinda tacky imho. I was interested when Lora left Yunzhi and it was maybe looking to me like yolandateam had a better (again, in my opinion) business model and were approaching doing their own thing...it seemed cool.
And you seem to personally know Lora. I ask a question and get treated like a pest. What a bunch of bullshit.
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Mr. Beaumont,
You are not a pest. Just look at this thread and some of the other Yunzhi threads. I get a vibe that people aren't "curious" but more interested in knocking the Chinese made arch tops. Questions like "did they make those or did they borrow the photos", which was inferred. They can and will make you one of those guitars. Let me run the process by for you step by step...
You look over the site, pick the model you want. Contact Ms. Lora and lay out in most careful detail the model number, the body width and depth, the finish, and any extra details (inlays, no inlays on the fingerboard) but do it most plainly. If you want inlays that look like what's on an L5 supply photos of the L5 to her. Lay down about half the price once quoted by Ms Lora (use PayPal, it worked great for me) and they will start the build THEN. So figure roughly $1100.00 to $1200.00 delivered EMS with a case. They'll start sending you photos of the back and top and so on as it's building develops. If you spot a problem IMMEDIATELY and most carefully explain to Ms. Lora what is wrong and what will correct your problem. She's Great at (literally going) to the factory and explaining to the builder/builders what has to be corrected. Do not us slang, try to be most generic in your use of English. It's amazing she does so well but be kind, when it all comes together and is in the finish process you get more pictures from Lora. Again look them over most carefully and give her a yes/no. Then when it's in the finishing stages you pay off your balance due and after it's amply dried you get the guitar shipped to you EMS... It takes about 10 weeks to build, maybe a little more. The EMS from the factory to your door about 4-5 days.
Do not be turned off by the Monteleone guitar, they were trying to show what they could do. I have a friend who is a big Phish fan. So much so he wanted to get him and his sons, also fans, guitars made just like Trey plays. He went to great lengths, extremes actually, doping out the specs for the guitar. Yeah he'd seen the 10k Langeudoc's and the 5k Equators, but he went with Lora (and back then Yunzhi) and with computer generated plans they proceeded. It came out pretty nice. They did very well considering they never actually and one IN HAND...
Anyway I hope by explaining the process you feel more comfortable. Contact Ms. Lora, she's a real peach and will be more than glad to discuss a possible order. Really good people...
So now you feel like I have corrected any disrespect you felt. I'm just tired of the lack of regard I see here some times.
Now back to my deck and my doggie, do take care. And same to all the other people I either befriended or p*ssed off...
Happy Trails Folks
Mike
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Thanks for clearing some of that up.
The source of those photos is important to me because I was under the impression that Yolandateam was a very new, as in a couple weeks old, business. Now, as we all know, sometimes a new business doesn't make it. So I wanted to know if I was mistaken, and yolandateam has already established themselves quite a bit, or if those photos were old. If the photos are not actually guitars they made, I don't care how much anybody vouches for them, I'm gonna hang back a bit and see how things look in six months, because that's a bit shaky to me. That's all I was getting at.
I'm not an anti-Chinese guitar guy, I own two, a Gitane and Loar.
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That is the same kind of thing people said to me some three to four years ago when I took a shot and went with Yunzhi.
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Well, I'm a guitar player, not a businessman, and 11-12 hundred bucks is still a lot of money to me. I'm not interested in risks or "getting in in the bottom" of anything...so I'm out.
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Doing business seemed "a little rich (or risky) to some folks when they first looked at Eastman also. It took guitars in hand and played for SOME of those folks to take a "gamble", they've come along quite a ways. Same thing was said about Yunzhi four years ago, how can you chance sending your money, what if they don't make your guitar and run off with your money. It worked out quite well. I am sure it also will for anyone, anyone who uses YolandaTeam. Restudy the process they use in taking your order and keeping you up to date all along the way.
Well take care Mr. B, and everyone else too...
Eastman John Pisano (left) Yunzhi YZ23 "BigMike" guitar
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Wow guys, there are an awful lot of weird vibes on this site. Not just in this thread
No axe to grind just noticing
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Huh? Thought we were talking about guitars.
I'm somewhat familiar with all of this. Let me see if I can provide some cliff notes.
- Yolandateam is not a guitar maker. They are a broker. I don't know what the business model is and whether their fee is paid by the builders they work with or by the buyer.
- Hotman guitars was started by a Mr. Wu and his wife who up until 2011 worked at Yunzhi. I don't know what the current relationship is between him and Yunzhi or why he is still building what appear to be Yunzhi models. There may be features that distinguish his product from Yunzhi but I've not heard what they are yet.
- None of this has changed what is going on at Yunzhi. I have ordered 6 of them. All of these were from their sales staff (Zoey Gang) and I have not worked with Lora before. I've been very happy with the service I've received and if I order another one I'll do it the same way again.
Jeff, I can't speak for him but given that he's a helluva nice guy, I bet Spiral would let you play his new one that's about to arrive.Last edited by Spook410; 05-24-2014 at 03:00 PM.
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Originally Posted by callouscallus
Sigh. Yea. And I can't even stand to be in the same room when my wife is watching the Bravo channel..
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Thank you for your astute observation. Are there any other contributions you'd like to offer? Or, would your commenting on the weirdness of our vibes be adequate for you? Originally Posted by callouscallus
Maybe your 42nd post will be a better one than your 41st?
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Gentlemen, gentlemen! As Strother Martin said, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."
I think a deep breath and a little Miles Davis is just what we all need about now.
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That's cool Patrick, point taken, no offense intended.
Interested in these guitars as I've recently bought an Eastman and became interested in Chinese production guitars and the quality price point. The yunzhi and hotman guitars are even lower price point and I'm just interested to see whats coming out of their factories. I'd love to visit one of these factories.
I just ordered a gypsy guitar built by altamira guitars that are great guitars by some accounts. Another small scale Chinese production company
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