Luthier gave me bad news about my Gibson ES-335

[Greentone]

I had a chance to purchase a '68 ES-335-12 in the mid 70s, NOS, in a dealer's inventory. The neck had a bad up-bow from being tuned to concert pitch--a horrible idea, 12-strings from that period SHOULD be tuned to "D" and capoed. The dealer offered the guitar to me for an unbelievably low price ($275). Turned out that the truss rod had been "feedaddled" as George Benson would put it. A young tech in the dealer's shop had tried to pull the bow out using only the truss rod--with the strings under tension.

More truss rods are ruined each day by this senseless action. People should understand that any _significant_ bow must be relieved by removing the strings, loosening the rod, and applying heat and pressure, FIRST. Once the neck is roughly straight, the truss rod should be tightened, then the guitar restrung. THEN, the remaining relief can be set using the truss rod.

Truss rods aren't intended to be used to remove gross up or back bows.

+1 on truss rod replacement on the 335. It is a plenty good guitar to warrant such treatment. Replacement is a do-able procedure and is to be preferred to the "Martin" treatment--which is reserved for guitars that either lack truss rods, or have non-adjustable truss bars.

[LtKojak]

If you can explain the actual cause of the OP's symptoms

You have the whole neck thing explained in Dan's "Maintenance and Setup for Electric Guitars and Basses Vol. 1 DVD, starting at 5:45 and finishing 9:26. As I've said before, this is a very common issue.

(and how someone thousands of miles away will specifically repair it for 600 USD),

Never heard of a price list? When you know what it needs to be done, you ask for an estimate. After several hundreds of those, you kinda start to get a feeling, you know? As for the thousand of miles thing... you know... there's the telephone... the fax... the Internet... E-mail... Facebook... do I need to say more..? Also, having family in Athens, Ohio doesn't hurt either.

I would be certainly most educated.

You're most welcome.

[Jabberwocky]

You have the whole neck thing explained in Dan's "Maintenance and Setup for Electric Guitars and Basses Vol. 1 DVD, starting at 5:45 and finishing 9:26. As I've said before, this is a very common issue.


Never heard of a price list? When you know what it needs to be done, you ask for an estimate. After several hundreds of those, you kinda start to get a feeling, you know?


You're most welcome.

Brilliant

[LtKojak]

More truss rods are ruined each day by this senseless action. People should understand that any _significant_ bow must be relieved by removing the strings, loosening the rod, and applying heat and pressure, FIRST. Once the neck is roughly straight, the truss rod should be tightened, then the guitar restrung. THEN, the remaining relief can be set using the truss rod.

Truss rods aren't intended to be used to remove gross up or back bows.

I'd use heat on the most extreme cases only, but for the rest, I completely agree.

HTH,

[PTChristopher2]

Great stuff. I definitely understand.

If we start with a sincere description from the OP regarding what the tech said,

Then add zero actual observation of the problem,

Plus no analysis as to the cause,

Blending in a convenient assumption that is must be exactly as described in a sincere book - that also has not seen the guitar in question,

Then top the mess off with no accountability to the customer (or seemingly to reason),

Then,...

It all equals both 100% certainty, and at a known $600 cost in Ohio.

It is a web-miracle.

******************

But seriously, as common as one may wish for the situation to be, the description is sincere but specifically incomplete. Best of luck to the OP with his decisions.

And certainly best of luck when a player goes to a luthier/tech wanting them to look for detail, apply analysis - and maybe even take a breath and think before deciding it must be the obvious.

I mean no criticism of the techs who have (gasp) actually seen the guitar.

I just feel for players who just want the guy at the bench to actually stop, take a breath, observe the details, and then proceed. It seems like a good idea, yet also is reportedly not so common.

Chris

[PTChristopher2]

As Patrick mentions how some may react to being too busy or otherwise unmotivated to do certain jobs:

I was talking with some luthiers in Boston recently about neck resets and finish repair. The conversation ended up along the lines that you just can not charge what it really costs to do a great reset. I mean you have the work itself, but also the situation where you "own" the guitar for some warranty period thereafter. This means that in our very changeable climate in the North-East, you have now significantly reconfigured a guitar, and the owner may be less than amazing in handling and storing the instrument. He will have spent lots of quatloos (and you still only made $15 per hour doing the work) and now figures absolutely anything that happens is covered.

For finish repair, it is more that you can do incredibly good blends and fills if you really take the time both for the actual work and for the drying time. But what you can reasonably charge vs. the actual cost of the guitar makes for a real squeeze.

There is a guy who got into the bizz later in life (around 50, I think) who does superb work on both finishes and some specific types of resets. But for the life of me I can not see how he makes anything. Of course, he is like me in age and kids-out-the-door-ed-ness. So we both need far less than we did 10 years ago.

Rambling on about wood and income:

I am currently doing a custom interior that will take me about 1/3 the time and materials vs. a nice guitar. I will get $12,600 for it. So if I made an archtop and sold it for $37,000 I'd be in the same ballpark.

(Granted, this is work for a high-end and motivated client base. But isn't luthiery also thus?)

And if I could charge $5,000 for a neck reset (incl. great finish restoration vs. some of the hack jobs one sees), I'd happily do that as well.

It is a tricky business, particularly if one has options that are also pleasing as work.

Chris, a.k.a. "The Hoff" - the second stupidest TV character ever.

[PTChristopher2]

Oooh. Up way too late here doing paperwork that should have been done long ago.

I understand your annoyance, so sorry for that.

>>> For all I know you may be full of shit and re-channelling internet wisdom as your own

Har-har. Yes, I understand. Funny, but in my opinion that is rather my own source of confusion. Why on earth would anyone want to do that - especially considering the odd advice and conclusions to which it often leads. Nonetheless I see your point.

But yes indeed, I think you are right that a forum is best as a very scattered entertainment, and surely there is only added value in that direction with the free-flowing speculation meant as a sort of help.

For me personally, it would be far more interesting to actually know what is going on with the guitar. It is somewhat frustrating to not get to the root cause.

Thanks for the reminder, and best to the OP as he sorts through this. I'll drop off now to avoid furthering the discussion vibe you reasonably want to discourage. Well, and to go to sleep as well.

[Jabberwocky]

Sorry, PT Chris. Off my rocker there. I deleted it but too late as you caught it.

I must really talk to the doctor about the new meds that he's been prescribing...That or it is something they're adding to the water.

[LtKojak]

I deleted it but too late as you caught it.

It's in the-mail of everybody subscribed to this thread.

Ah, the Web...

[PTChristopher2]

Staying away from the original, and later derived, topic:

>>> Sorry, PT Chris. Off my rocker there.

Not at all Jabber. Sure, it was freely and interpretively stated - and overly estimating the IQ in the Boston area (at least in my mediocre case). But definitely a valid and useful opinion in my view. Nothing wrong with a little direct criticism in my direction.

I do not have to 100% agree to make it a very valid point of view on your part.

Chris

[PTChristopher2]

And to your reasonable question about qualification: Since I also call it into question when I criticise the apparent sense and experience in some seemingly ill advised views,...

I am 56. I bought the Hideo Kamimoto book about 45 seconds after it came out (1978 I think), then built from scratch the first guitar I ever owned. It was an extensively chambered solidbody. Making and slotting the FB was some work, also designed my own PUs.

Anyway, this led to a run of similar chambered guitars the next summer (I was still in school, straining that limited IQ,...). Those were rather fancier with fine wood binding and headstock inlay work. I made a new PU design that worked quite a bit better than my first.

I was in a music store on Newbury St. in Boston and they saw one of my guitars. I was hired to work at Berklee the next week.

Stayed there for a while. A real baptism by fire with lots of work, lots of variety, pressure to produce volume, and more than a moderate share of tricky repairs to flat-tops, archtops, tons of solidbodies, violin soundpost resets, a Soviet-built cassette player, a bazouki here and there, and I even got into tube amps. I still have the amp I made from scrounged materials from the odd Oliver amps Berklee used until the late 70's.

While I have strayed off into other fields at times, I have always stayed with guitar work as well. I still have a few customers from 35 years ago. I am absolutely not soliciting work here, or anywhere online at all. Frankly, old-time word of mouth has me right where I want to be in terms of modest volume.

And as sort of mentioned, I can work about 60% of the time on other woody projects and make 200% vs. what I can make with full-time guitar work.

In my opinion, there are many fine techs and luthiers out there. There are also a staggering number of ham-fisted hacks.

For hand-eye ability, I suppose it can be developed. I made stuff from wood since before I went to grammar school. I'd gash my hand working on something and my father would note that letting it drip for a while would actually help clean out the mess.

But surely anyone can get their act together anytime in life. I remember seeing a video from Curt Wilson working on a Gretsch guitar and I showed it to my wife noting that in 3 seconds you can see that this guy has it. If he has his head screwed on straight (and he does) then I'd gladly hire him to do something he had never even heard of before.

Other guys use experience to dig a deep tedious rut than makes nut compensation, or even a simple desire to listen and learn from a customer a major hurdle.

It's weird.

Anyway, thanks again for your earlier, and perfectly fine erstwhile post. Nothing wrong with some thorny rhetorical flourish now and then. I consider it an opportunity for improvement on my part.

Chris

[Patrick2]

Sorry, PT Chris. Off my rocker there. I deleted it but too late as you caught it.

I must really talk to the doctor about the new meds that he's been prescribing...That or it is something they're adding to the water.

Nahhh . . forget the meds. Go for the Amarone . . . or at least wash the meds down with the Amarone. It might not help, but, wash enough meds down with enough Amarone and you really won't give a shit one way or another.

Very gentlemanly of you to recognize an inappropriate post and call it back. Equally as big of PTChris to just blow it off as not having any malicious intent or effect.

This has been quite a long thread, with mine being the 136th post. To be quite honest, I really think there has been far more good that has come from it than there has been bad. It was started as a question from someone with little knowledge on the subject . . and a request for guidance . . and morphed into a lengthy discussion. A discussion which has led to a whole world of info on the matter, from some very knowledgeable people, which has helped many to learn along the way. In addition to the helpful info . . there were a great deal of opinions. Some of them were good, some maybe not so good. But, none were wrong . . for an opinion can not be wrong (as I see it) if it's stated as such and not as fact.

Hopefully it will end (the matter at hand, not the thread) with a decent resolution for the OP . . and also hopefully, he'll let us know the eventual outcome.

My own personal opinion on not giving up on this guitar, is far more rooted in my mind set of being more of a passionate guitar lover/collector/historian/fanatic . . . than someone who looks at a guitar as an inanimate tool of the trade. I do tend to get emotionally attached to some guitars. (how's THAT for needing meds?). The OP expressed, or at least I interpretted his comments to mean, that he had made a connection with this 335 and that he was seriously stressed about the probably of having to part with it. For me to give up on a guitar with which I've made that special connection . . . and might have developed "issues" of any type . . which I know can be corrected . . . . would be similar [to me] to giving up on one of my children who might have been brought into this world with some sort of a defect . . or who might have developed a serious physical issue somewhere along his/her life. I'd not want to rid myself of my loved one. I'd want to address the problem and do everything I could to correct it.

Anyway . . it was an enjoyable thread, for me . . and there was no blood. So, it's all cool.

[Jim Soloway]

My own personal opinion on not giving up on this guitar, is far more rooted in my mind set of being more of a passionate guitar lover/collector/historian/fanatic . . . than someone who looks at a guitar as an inanimate tool of the trade. I do tend to get emotionally attached to some guitars. (how's THAT for needing meds?)..

I guess that's why I find much of this thread so incomprehensible: I am not a collector and I view guitars only as tools that I can use to make music with no real emotional attachment at all. I suppose that's made it difficult for me to fathom why someone would go to greater lengths to preserve an instrument than it would take to replace it.

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks, Chris, for your generosity. The only thing that moves faster than light is the speed of my mouth. And the brain struggles to catch up.

I hope you took no offence. I am somewhat bipolar as you may have guessed by now.

[PTChristopher2]

No need for generosity Jabber. You had a perfectly valid point and made it clearly enough. I suggest we move on.

Chris

[LtKojak]

I suggest we move on.

What, no group hug...?

[peterbright]

What, no group hug...?

Only if 6 luthiers agree...I think that means no.

[LtKojak]

Making this thread coming back from the dead to publish this link:

STEWMAC.COM - A sign of truss rod trouble, and an easy solution.

As you can see, is the same problem revisited, with the solution, this time from a place everybody can visit.

HTH,

[Skip Ellis]

I guess that's why I find much of this thread so incomprehensible: I am not a collector and I view guitars only as tools that I can use to make music with no real emotional attachment at all. I suppose that's made it difficult for me to fathom why someone would go to greater lengths to preserve an instrument than it would take to replace it.

I agree, Jim - some guitars are just not worth fooling with - if an instrument doesn't work for you, move it and get something that does. A major repair probably means that it'll never play or sound like it did anyway. My first guitar was a 1936 Martin 0-17 that had belonged to a dear uncle who taught me my first chords on it when I was about 14 - he passed in 1960 and my grandmother gave me the guitar. I hung onto that guitar for about 50 years and picked it up once in a while, but it needed work - he carried it around in a sea bag on a ship during WWII and it needed a neck reset, frets, a hole in the side repaired and a few other things. I finally decided that I could not afford to pay for the repairs it needed and, even if I could, it would never be a gigging guitar - SO - I sold it to a gentleman who was really into that type instrument and would have it restored and brought to it's former glory and would enjoy it for, maybe another 50 years. I took the $$ from the sale and bought a 5 year old Martin D-18v that more than fills my need for an acoustic flat top guitar that functions flawlessly and will probably not need anything other than strings and the occasional fret dressing for as long as I'll be around to play it.

[lpdeluxe]

I can't believe I read the whole thing! But I own a 2002 ES-335 which is perfect, and I understand the OP's feelings. Here is a pic of it with my beloved Silvertone 1484 that I picked up in 1974 for $40. Music is love, guys, go with your emotions.