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Wu is not an uncommon Chinese name. There are certainly many Chinese men named Wu. The luthier we know in the forum is one, and he was part of the original Eastman factory and has been building guitars on his own for several years. He would not have been involved in any Yunzhi or Musoo project that you commissioned. Like others, I think your business plan is fatally flawed, and complaining about it here will not increase your odds of success. I own two guitars built by Wu. Both are excellent instruments which display top quality craftsmanship. One, which I bought second-hand off ebay, did require minor fret leveling. The one I commissioned needed some nut work, nothing else. The electronics in the ebay model were a mess, with some retaining clips under the pickguard obviously being cut from tin cans. A new pickup and pots solved that issue. My own came with no electronics at all per my instructions, and after I mounted a DeArmond Rhythm Chief pickup it's probably the best guitar I've played, replacing my Benedettos almost entirely. But buying a single guitar and being willing to invest the time and money to do a proper pickup installation and setup is not the same thing as ordering a small volume of custom designed instruments from a factory used to selling via Ali Baba. Making money by selling Chinese made guitars, of any quality, in small volumes, is a losing proposition.
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12-28-2019 01:20 PM
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Hi Big Mike,
You are saying: "?no, someone else."
Is this the answer to my question: "Is this here the same Mr. Wu?"
If so: I am wondering why that 15" archtop on the homepage of Dejawu Guitars: JAZZ 15" (J1701DS) — Dejawu Guitars
looks exactly the same as the same type of guitars Yolanda team is offering. (exept the Häusel pickup).
Does Lora / Yolandateam represent more than one "Wu-workshop" Are they copying each other or shifting stuff around as in the good old days in Germany back in the 50ies? (guess history is repeating...)
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I don’t think anyone can answer who jfilipow was actually dealing with. That is precisely the peril of doing business on the other side of the globe with people you don’t even share a language with. You just don’t know.
While I’ve never dealt with guitars, I can tell you that unless you are a big player with the potential of multiple repeat orders China can be a very wild and lawless place to do business. I’ve had clients order custom items only to receive similar items that appear to be the tail of someone else’s order. They have been given a tour of one state-of-the-art factory only to discover their product actually being made in a different city at a far less clean facility. Their custom product has been offered on AliExpress a few month later by a dozen different vendors (using publicity fotos from their own website!)
So, yes. Someone could have figured out that Mr. Wu carries some marketing value and just claimed to have his involvement. They could have presented jfilipow to a “Mr. Wu.” They could even be using photos scraped from the Yolandateam site.
In defense of jfilipow, I have no doubt he thought he was dealing with the same Mr. Wu that Big has dealt with. I also suspect that they did, in fact, way over promise. They maybe even showed him examples of work done purely to get his order made at a premium facility by much higher skilled craftsmen or not even really produced by them at all. I am sure this was all a very expensive and shocking lesson.
Thing is, it seems unlikely his experience with “Mr. Wu” is with the same “Mr. Wu” as the OP’s Mr Wu.
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No they are not affiliated at all, Wu is a very comman name in China. Mr Wu/Yolanda team make guitars very similar to many Eastan guitars. And with Ms Lora’s very diligent process customers can order special one off models. I’ve done it many ties. A few of my Wu threads have survived here.
Originally Posted by alteklampfe
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I appreciate your detailed response. My intention of my initial post was to bring awareness to the questionable quality of the instrument I received.
Given the fact I live in China, I felt I had a chance to really dig deep and find out if it was possible to turn this into any kind of business. It was something I needed to investigate for myself and safe enough to say I have gotten my answers.
It also appears I have chosen the wrong channels for this kind of order. I should have vetted my agent in a more thorough manner.
Originally Posted by sgosnell
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Thanks for taken the time to clarify many of these matters. My agent was not as thorough as Ms.Lora might have been. I agree with you in regards to my preparation being poor.
Originally Posted by BigMikeinNJ
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I’ve known Ms Lora since 2009, I ordered a Eastman John Pisano copy and she was my order writer. We wrote a lot. I got a great guitar, I believe Mr Wu was their best guy and he built it, it has a floating pickup which I prefer.
Long before I joined here I was sharing build threads on the ICW, Ibanez Collectors World forums. Via my threads I had many people reach out to me with very specialized custom jobs in mind. One guy was trying to replicate a Langeudoc like Trey Anastasia of Phish uses. He had highly detailed mechanical drawings, photos galore and drove the folks at Yunzhi nuts, he wanted the job to be ultra secret so nobody would steal his idea. A wee paranoid. They sent him constant progress photos and corrected things as it came along, they really tried. He finally got it but was furious because it wasn’t perfect. There are some folks you can nec=ver please I have learned. Now everybody’s selling cheap knock offs, even kits you can build yourself. You give a guitar idea to Yunzhi I assure you they or some entity will use it. Its China, they don’t care about intellectual property.
So hang in there, think about it a while, maybe take a second stab at it. Maybe just walk away knowing you tried your best.
Happy New Year to you.
BigMike
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Are they expensive? Originally Posted by JB108
Greetings,
Pleased to meet. My first post here.
Alright, i'm following some of the posts here on this forum specifically the ones about the Chinese made archtops.
I have recently received my custom build archtop and i thought it would be helpful to others here to share my experience. The guitar i have ordered is via the Chinese company Musoo. I found out about them via the marketplace Alibaba.com. I have been informed that Musoo have their guitars made by Yunzhi.
My aim was to have me build by them a no-cutaway ES-300/Super 400 model.
I came across this model:
Attachment 48583
A solid spruce, back & sides curly maple, 25.5" scale, 18" body, Super 400 style headstock, neck 3-piece Maple/Mahogany/Maple.
I then emailed then to ask if they could do a few minor modifications based on that model. Such as 2x humbucker pickups, 2x tone & 2x volume knobs. I also added a few photos of archtop guitars for color reference, i wanted something dark brown/red-ish. I play both amplified and acoustic alot.
I wanted a somewhat 'thinline' type of guitar. So i asked them to make the body-dept 65mm.
I ordered the guitar in June and i received during the production process updates which included photo's of the guitar build.
When the guitar got delivered in November i received this:
Attachment 48584
The guitar needed alot of work. I removed all of the electronics, wiring and pickups and removed the tuners and the tailpiece as well.
First impression. The work that needed to be done by a local guitar repair:
- Fret dressing, leveling and polishing.
- Install new pickups.
- Install all new wiring.
- Install new pot controls.
- Install a new tone toggle switch.
- Install a new jack-output plug.
- Removed the tuners and have it replaced by standard Grover tuners.
- Have a ground wire connected to the tailpiece (there wasn't a ground wire at all!)
- Have the neck straightened a bit and have a bit of general set-up work done.
- Removed the wooden bridge-top and have it replaced by a new wooden one and have the string slots made at the correct string width.
- The bridge-base needed a tiny bit of sanding to correctly match the curve of the top of the body.
- By the way, the truss-rod works perfectly.
- I did not like that Ebony pickguard at all. I removed it and ordered a standard pickguard for a no-cutwaway 'L-5' model at Allparts.
- Replaced the tailpiece.
Also: i noticed that the color paint job was done very well. However, i do see a lot of tiny surface scratches in the Nitro lacquer. I have no idea how that happened. Maybe the workspace isn't clean or whatever cloth they use to buff the surface isn't clean?
I'm on a tight budget, so at this moment i don't have the much money to spend on expensive pickups, so i ordered a Gibson 490T and 490R gold colored pickups which are relative affordable. I will most likely replace these pickups for other ones. But for now these work fine.
After the work done this is the result:
Attachment 48599
Pros:
- The wood/guitar build is excellent done.
- The neck is to my taste a perfect slim (but not to slim) neck profile.
- 42.8mm nut width.
- 18" body width.
- Shallow 65mm body depth.
- Its a 100% hand build guitar. And what i like about it, is the fact that i can see inside of the body tiny imperfections and pencel marks to the sides of the back of the body.
- Beautiful binding.
- Beautiful f-hole shape.
- The neck profile (!!!).
- The sound and volume when playing acoustic is LOUD and bright. The sound and tone amplified is nice bright at the bridge pickup and very warm at the neck pickup.
- I noticed that the sound/tone at the low E string is very dark.
- Intonation is perfect and stays in tune perfectly.
Cons:
- Pickups and overall electronics and wiring/wires are really bad quality.
- The many many surface scratches and imperfections. Honestly, the guitar looks more like a mildly used 'vintage' one than that it is like new.
- The amount of work that still needed to be done. And the cost that comes with it.
- They installed the wrong pickup mounting rings. They placed a thick bridge mounting ring also at the neck position.
- The Ebony pickguard was not fitting correctly. Was useless and i had to buy a new pickguard.
- Wiring/ground wire.
- The cost of the guitar tech guy to do a proper set-up and fret work and re-wiring etc. etc.
Final judgement:
This is a gorgeous guitar. It exceeded my expectations. The sound, tone and playability is smooth and nice. The neck: very fast feel.
In the beginning upon arrival of the guitar, i wasn't so happy about the tiny surface imperfections. But now since i have played the guitar almost every day. I actually can't be bothered at all.
The extra cost was to be expected and although it was a bit much, i know it was worth it and the result is that it is now easily one of the nicest guitars i have ever owned and played. (i currently use a Gibson SG and i used to own a Gibson Les Paul Standard, a Dearmond X155 and an Eastman 405e).
Ok, so, i hope this helps a bit for those who want to know about these Chinese custom made Archtops. I honestly cannot tell if one company is better than the other. This is my very first custom archtop and i a more than pleased.
I currently have another similar model to be made by Wu/Yolanda-team. I can't wait to see the result in person.
Please forgive my poor English.
Kind regards.
J.
Ps.
It came to my attention that the guitar i had build is now advertised at their website and at various marketplaces. I guess they are proud of their own work when they created my custom order. Haha lol.
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Somewhere in the thread the OP reveals, he spent near $2000... Originally Posted by silvertonebetty
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Too much for my unemployed ass . Well I guess it’s not unemployed some days I forgot I have the other job still Originally Posted by Gabor
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Patloch, anyone that has studied the many build threads here and those on ICW knows that Yunzhi or Mr Wu will try to build you whatever you want. And at a reasonable price compared to some of the American and European master builders. The only problem is their skill was originally in making violins, violas and cellos... The Chinese have been making guitars about 18-20 years now and they've come a long way, kids to them. If you stick to the Eastman style bodies (copies of Benedetto Manhattans more or less) you'll get a good guitar. You jump into he realm of custom one off's (the scroll bodies, teardrops, Langeudocs and other shapes) they'll do their very best for you. BUT expecting them to build an 8 string arch top style guitar, that's a stretch for them. There's plenty of companies that make 8 strings.
Coming here to take pot shots at Yunzhi or Mr Wu for an 8 string, well the guys here know better... And you should too.
If you order one lets us know how it comes out.
Big
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I once had someone ask me to build a multi scale 8 string full hollow body archtop guitar. I turned them down. It would have been, at best, a total experiment. I think it would have been irresponsible to charge what I charge for a guitar I basically had never built and had no idea of how it would sound or play. It would have been fun, though!
There is nothing wrong with ordering an instrument that goes far afield from the norm. But from a builders perspective I would have fairly lowered expectations. Guitars are complex systems that don’t offer a lot of leeway before turning into guitar like objects.
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True. I have a six string that after some work, and six years of age has become one of my favorite guitars. Having them build an 8 string, to me, would be a risky venture. They will do their best but tension issues, neck configuration etc., make this a very touchy proposition. Having lived in Asia for 15 years, you learn that they never say, "we can't do it". That being said, my advice is to proceed cautiously. They are good people, and I would hate to see them trashed for taking on a very demanding build.
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In no way inferior or even better. Everywhere on this planet there is good and bad craft work. Originally Posted by JazzNote
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