Quality control: Gibson vs the Rest

[newsense]

You may remember that a couple of months ago, I posted 2 polls which asked whether you were happy with the quality control on your last guitar purchase. There were two polls, the first specifically for Gibsons and the second for all other manufacturers' guitars.

Given some of the debates continuing in other threads on the forum, I thought it was about time to show the results side-by-side, for information and without prejudice.

Gibson purchasers: 42 participants - 67% happy, 33% unhappy.
Other purchasers: 48 participants - 92% happy, 8% unhappy.

At face value, the stats, albeit from a limited population, seem to support the hearsay evidence of multiple threads on the forum that that Gibson is releasing far, far more flawed product than is the industry norm.

There may be other interpretations of the data, which of course is not immune to be skewed, either one way or the other, due to the idiosyncrasies of the forum membership.

Please note that the polls were about quality control, not playability, tone or other aesthetic factors.

[TH]

Uh oh. The G word again. Hey, which way to the nearest bomb shelter?

David

[ptchristopher3]

Indeed.

Brace oneself for the Gib-fan splooge-fest.

[Skip Ellis]

It might be wise to stipulate 'new' guitar purchase. That would be the only way to really compare QC from various manuf's on an 'apples to apples' basis.

[viccortes285]

Gibsons quality Control is poor these days. I have older Gibsons Les Pauls, and I went to GC to try out new ones, but brought nothing, I felt the sound and quality was no better then Ibanez. I feel they are charging more but there QC is there biggest problem.


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[rio]

The stats won’t matter for some people who won’t be convinced and will just reinforce the others’ opinions which they already believe Gibson is sending out guitars that should never leave the factory. It’s like modern politics, or religion where there isn’t much discussing and people are just going to believe what they believe I think. I’m still not sure why Gibson is so polarizing but I guess it is the prototypical jazz guitar so people are going to feel stirringly about it.

Interesting stats though and it certainly does line up with the general quality control I have seen looking at archtops and other guitars suitable for jazz in stores.


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[ptchristopher3]

Agreed that it is a faith based discussion for some.

But I disagree that Gibson quality issues are in any way a recent phenomenon.

In my view, they have for at least 40 years produced the sort of moderate at best, and remarkably variable, quality level that we see today. Yet so many adore the guitars, so it is in a sense understandable that Gibson would keep pushing these out the door.

I have a superbly made Epi Elite Byrdland. I would gladly pony up the quatloos for a Gibson Byrdland if I could find one as good. But older ones have the 1 5/8 nut width, 70’s and 80’s cost a fortune and do not approach the sound of my Epi Elite Byrdland. Later ones have the sticky finish that I suppose I could sand and overcoat with Cardinal lacquer, if they cost about $3,000 less.

Some are spoon-built in silly areas like binding scraping or idiotically rounded off fret ends to the extent that you can not reasonably recover via a re-fret because the binding and FB is rounded too much.

But I expect that sometime I will stumble on a more or less $6,000 one that only needs a fret job (despite the new condition frets from Gibson) and maybe a removal and replacement of the neck clear coat lacquer.

So that will make me an irrational fan-boy. Playing a $6,000 guitar that I bought used and needed to re-fret and do careful finish work on, while setting aside a $2,000 Terada built superb sounding guitar.

OK maybe it will have to be under $5,000.

Or maybe not at all.

Chris

[Jabberwocky]

Uh oh. The G word again. Hey, which way to the nearest bomb shelter?

David

Gee, I like those glasses.

[Greentone]

When I was a university student, Gibson went through a period of getting finish color bleeding into binding, improperly cut nuts, etc. Gibson corrected this QC business, of course, but it was noticeable for a period (Norlin era).

Judging from what I've seen written recently, some of these issues have popped up again.

Happens from time to time with instrument manufacturers. I can remember when Steinway QC dropped a notch in the 70s. They bounced back.

Competitive forces in the marketplace don't permit inattention to these details.

[Archtop Guy]

When I was a university student, Gibson went through a period of getting finish color bleeding into binding, improperly cut nuts, etc. Gibson corrected this QC business, of course, but it was noticeable for a period (Norlin era).

Judging from what I've seen written recently, some of these issues have popped up again.

Happens from time to time with instrument manufacturers. I can remember when Steinway QC dropped a notch in the 70s. They bounced back.

Competitive forces in the marketplace don't permit inattention to these details.

Exactly the reasons I sent my CME figured ES175 back. Bleeding and poorly cut nut. It also weighed in the high 7's. Great looking though!

[ptchristopher3]

Exactly the reasons I sent my CME figured ES175 back. Bleeding and poorly cut nut. It also weighed in the high 7's. Great looking though!

The first clear lacquer coat after the color coats is tricky. Too dry and it does not “burn-in” (attach/bind/bond) well. But too wet and the color coat loosens and bleeds.

One solution is to spray the color and the first clear coat before scraping the binding and nut ends (when the nut is installed before the finish is applied.)

But on the Memphis Guitars that I looked at the nut ends were masked (and inaccurately so), not scraped.

My assumption from the bleeding (and trapped dust, etc.) is that they sprayed color, pulled the masking, did not clean up after pulling the masking, then sprayed clear coats.

If you look at the finish on the edges of the headstock you will often see what is called “orange peel”. This suggests some pretty heavy clear coats vs, more coats applied more thinly.

Purely cosmetic issues.

In my opinion.

[ThatRhythmMan]

I’ve seen enough guitars to know that they almost all have issues from the factory and they all need an appropriate set up to a player’s preference.

For the record, I’ve seen Japanese made Ibanez guitars with tremolo bridges placed so far off that even with adjustable saddles intonation was absolutely impossible. That’s a much bigger deal than buying a new guitar that just needs a fret dressing. Also, the worst from the factory fret work I’ve ever seen was on a Heritage. It was so bad it was almost like they had used different gauges of wire at each fret.

The only company that I haven’t found a factory problem with yet is still PRS.

[Skip Ellis]

Bet you won't find any of these problems with a Benedetto and I believe they're in the same price range as Gibson for their workhorse models. It's just a matter of employees who give a rat's rear end as opposed to those who are, basically, there for a paycheck with no eye for detail.

[Longways to Go]

It's just a matter of employees who give a rat's rear end as opposed to those who are, basically, there for a paycheck with no eye for detail

That right there is about bad management.

[TH]

Say what you will but Gibson does and did not know their way around a flat top, and what they did with them is just poor indesputable bad design. I don't know what Gibson was doing when they made their first flat tops, they are based on the designs of Martin (yes, they copied the design, big deal, get over it) and then they screwed it up (whaaaaa?).
I just got a Dove in for repair. I've seen a lot of these come in for imploded tops, torn up bridges, pulled tops, warped braces... a lot more than their Martin counterparts. Ask any seasoned luthier, they've seen them.
First of all their bracing I was working on was a single X and the top had pulled up and craze lines radiate clear down to the edges and end block. Then those bridges: Somebody thought it was OK to glue a bridge on backwards and call it "distinctive"? It puts an uneven fulcrum of pull on the leading edge and the back where you want vibrational compliancey, is thick, beefy and straight.
And the mustache bridge? Two winged edges with no functional purpose hanging out there waiting to peel off the top? Yeah I've seen that happen a lot too. And anybody played a recent J-200? As overbuilt as a tank and about as much joy to drive.

Overbuilt, poor bracing placement, resulting bulge that peels a wacky "cool" backwards bridge off the top of the soundboard.
Nah! Can't be a Gibson!

David

[rio]

I’m not interested in Gibson flattops - I have my favorites and Gibson hasn’t been on of them - so I don’t know a lot about their models but...who the heck decided to put on a bridge backwards as anything other than a mistake? That is so bizarre...that would bother me as much to look at as if an archtop had backwards f holes. I can think of a lot of mistakes in models by the major guitar brands so I am not damning Gibson as a brand for that specifically but wow! That is just out there.


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[mtown]

My experiences as of the past couple of years is that Fender isn’t much better than Gibson in the QC dept. They’re both more concerned with their numbers than their customers. There are too many guitar manufacturers to choose from than to settle for poor quality. My days of buying because of the name on the headstock are over. They won’t change until they start losing sales. It’s all quite a shame.

[rio]

My experiences as of the past couple of years is that Fender isn’t much better than Gibson in the QC dept. They’re both more concerned with their numbers than their customers. There are too many guitar manufacturers to choose from than to settle for poor quality. My days of buying because of the name on the headstock are over. They won’t change until they start losing sales. It’s all quite a shame.

What kind of mistakes is fender making? Have they had one problem widespread or a bunch of little problems widespread? I have seen MiM (and of course Squiers) guitars with issues but haven’t seen any of their high end guitars with significant problems, although I haven’t been looking at Fenders since over 5 years ago so if it is recent that would explain it. The high end Fenders were too expensive for what they are but the quality of guitars students got, ones in stores and the few brought to me to fix up was good.


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[mr. beaumont]

Gibson''s issue is inconsistency, not "poor quality control."

Gibson also needs to understand that if they're going to price their guitars like handmade instruments, people are going to judge them like handmade instruments.

[mtown]

What kind of mistakes is fender making? Have they had one problem widespread or a bunch of little problems widespread? I have seen MiM (and of course Squiers) guitars with issues but haven’t seen any of their high end guitars with significant problems, although I haven’t been looking at Fenders since over 5 years ago so if it is recent that would explain it. The high end Fenders were too expensive for what they are but the quality of guitars students got, ones in stores and the few brought to me to fix up was good.


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Yes it’s been within the last couple of years. The American Professionals I played within the last year suffered from poor fit and finish and cheap feeling pickup switches and potentiometers. I don’t think as bad as Gibson but not what I would expect from a $1500 Guitar. Go play a few. You might disagree. Just my observation

[newsense]

Gibson''s issue is inconsistency, not "poor quality control."

I beg to differ.

Inconsistency is a characteristic of a process i.e. it characterises the statistics of how far each guitar departs from the desired norm in terms of observable defects. Quality control is the means by which a manufacturer protects his customers from the extremes of that inconsistency. All manufacturers make defective products that fall outside the ideal performance and cosmetic standards. In engineering manufacture, each product is tested to ensure that absolutely nothing outside a certain range of performance and (yes!) appearance is sold to customers. This is what is meant by quality control. Worldwide, companies adhere to a framework known as ISO9001 in which they detail their quality control methodologies, including how they investigate failures and faults that do reach their customers. ISO9001 indicates that customers can buy from a company with confidence that they have robust procedures in place.

Guitar builders presumably vary in inconsistency in time and from factory to factory, but they should all have QC procedures in place that ensure customer satisfaction by only releasing in-spec guitars. There is no commercial justification for doing otherwise, or for not setting customer-acceptable limits on what constitutes an observable defect.

There is no argument these days about whether a company serves the customers or the shareholders. Shareholders (should) know that the key to a thriving business is long term customer satisfaction. So, what is good for the customers is also good for the shareholders. If a company abuses its unique standing in the market place by not adhering to customer satisfaction as job 1, they are on a slippery slope to extinction or takeover. Releasing defective product into the market place means that either their business model is wrong, their QC processes are faulty, or they are dysfunctional - i.e. failing management.

[viccortes285]

Once machines took over CNC, it started to kill hand crafted guitars. Guitars were built with pride. Machines have no pride. Why do you think they only exist now in custom guitars. Quality loosened up tolerances to make more money. It happened through the the Country in most all fields. Progress is good and bad.


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[GNAPPI]

Jeff is actually correct on both points.

My coming from QC career that involved factories in Asia, Europe and the U.S, I know for a fact that in mass manufacturing there are basically two methods for the QC folks to inspect, those are lot inspection (a sample of a half or whole day output) and 100% inspection of every product that comes off a line. Generally Mil Hdbk 217 is used for new manufacturing facilities or assembly lines where 100% inspection is used at first then scaled to lot samples as the line matures.

Then the third is empowering the line assemblers to personally reject each one that does not meet quality objectives of the previous assembly points.

Of the first two, lot inspection of guitars would not be practical as each git has unique properties (wood) and variables are beyond the control of a lot inspection. Lot inspection serves the electronic industry well. If a git maker used this method exclusively quality would likely be FAR worse than they could sustain and stay in business.

The 100% QC inspection method is time consuming and depending on the volume of the daily output only useful for a minimal number of inspection points unless an obvious defect is found outside of their inspection list. I suspect Gibson uses this method, and I would not mind seeing what methods they use.

The third method is fool proof, and if used in conjunction with the 100% method this IMO if this method is used a git maker can expect very high quality output. The risk of this is a line worker may judge a defect that a previous worker who is a friend (or enemy) may cause a false pass or fail respectively. Correcting this is easily done if the previous worker flags their own mistakes and takes them out of the line.

A fourth method of controlling failures / escapes from my experiences in Europe was the manufacturers themselves hired an outside inspection firm from another country that had no allegiance to the line workers, the host company, country or daily production needs. This involved a progress inspection tag that each line operator had to initial leaving a "paper trail" to the areas most prone to producing defects. Corrective action with re-training, and possibly reassigning the worker to an area they could handle better works very well. Generally a top 5 or 10 "hit list" of the most frequent failures get production up rather quickly.

Initially deploying this method in addition to those above was a VERY high quality product. On the down side output could be very low until the third method kicked in fully.

[jzucker]

I don't know if it's safe for me to comment again but the last 2 I got from CME had huge quality control issues. One was horribly finished and the other had a roller-coaster neck. These should have never gotten past Gibson QC (or CME for that matter)

IMO, up until about 1973, the guitars were consistently good but the quality has gone steadily downhill since then. I've had several late '80s 175s with the mahogany back and sides and even then, the quality varied tremendously. I think the '50s was the most consistent era for them followed by '60-'63. Then the quality started to turn.

In mid '70s for example, they switched to the maple necks because they were having too many problems with neck breakage and from that point forward, it seemed they did a lot of things to combat warranty issues that weren't necessarily in the best interest of tone, weight, etc.

I think the big problem now is that they have become a luxury brand and the customer they are catering to anymore is different than the working musician they were selling to back in the '50s and '60s. Of course, that coincides with the music industry itself.

As far as being a hater or a troll (or worse), that's hardly a fair comment. Gibson is still my favorite archtop brand of all time. I actually prefer gibson to any of the hand-made boutique manufacturers and have said that on many occasions. However, I reserve the right to call things as I see them and frankly, the last 4-5 new gibson hollowbodies I've played were terrible. Tonally and quality-wise.

[rpguitar]

I think you handled that reply nicely, Jack.

Like many of you I have owned lots of Gibsons, still do, and always will. I've had to outright fix a couple of them, adjust all of them, and configure many of them in multiple ways til they either met my expectations or ultimately got offloaded. A few have been near perfect out of the box. I have never owned an unplayable piece of junk Gibson but I've certainly owned some that I couldn't bond with, had poorly chosen components (low value pots, flat frets), or that required work I didn't want to deal with.

I don't excuse their bad choices or flawed practices or shoddy instruments. But I would rather work through the Gibson offerings to get to my personal guitar nirvana over any other type of guitar. That's the bottom line for me. If you see otherwise, I am not the least bit personally challenged by that and I don't understand people who care so much about others' opinions.